The Self-Orientalization of Polish Music Education

Polish and international scholars have frequently made use of the postcolonial lens as a presumably valid tool to examine conditions in post-soviet Eastern Europe. The mutual Orientalization of the “other” during the Cold War period in both democratic and communist camps appears to have occasioned prevailing after-effects in the field of Polish music education. This article discusses the above thesis in relation to the writings of two highly influential representatives of postcolonial thought who are also personally connected to the world of music: Edward Said and Rabindranath Tagore. Sections one and two explain the use of the concept of Orientalism as an analytical framework for the article and briefly discuss the rationale behind looking at Poland as a postcolonial country. Next, selected articles by Polish scholars are being analyzed with regard to the historical context of music education in Poland and a broader international perspective. The contemporary discourse of Polish educational policymakers is being discussed with regard to the underlying philosophical and ideological approaches. Finally, the article emphasizes some of the main issues preventing the system of general music education in Poland from acquiring a more inclusive and democratic framework and proposes possible future directions for sustainable change.

TRACES OF WORKS OF STANISLAW MONIUSZKO IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL PROJECTS IN UKRAINE

The article attempts to investigate the use of Stanislav Moniuszko’s multifaceted creative. Composer heritage can be clearly considered today in the light of strategic management in culture. a number of strategic projects on the occasion of official celebrations in Ukraine of such anniversaries as the 100 th anniversary of Poland’s independence or the 200 th anniversary of the birth of Polish music classic Stanislaw Moniuszko, organized with the assistance of Polish embassies and consulates and Polish organizations in Ukraine. This uniqueness of projects is the basis for the cultural policy between the Republic of Poland (RP) and Ukraine and the strategies of its development.

Polish Music Culture in the Life and Work of the Composer Sergey Slonimsky

The article is devoted to the problem of cultural relations between Poland and Russia in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries, which are studied using the example of musical culture and Russian-Polish relationships in the creative life of the St. Petersburg composer Sergei Mikhailovich Slonimsky. The significance of the genealogical and genetic roots and musical and creative contacts of the greatest master of modern culture with Poland and Polish music, both in the 19th and 20–2I-th centuries, is proved. It is concluded that it is musical culture, represented by its outstanding creative figures, that is capable, despite political differences, to establish strong, fruitful creative and friendly relations between the two Slavic countries.

Sinfonietta for String Orchestra by Weronika Ratusińska in the Context of the Issue of (Sub)Genre

The purpose of the article is to focus on certain terminological and historical aspects related to the genre of sinfonietta in the Polish music of the 20th and 21st century. In the introduction, the author presents the definition and general characteristics, listing the sources and the most representative works in the Polish music. Additionally, she presents numerical statistics and classification of the sinfonietta in Polish music and on this basis she analyses one of the most interesting works representing the type of sinfonietta-transcription – Sinfonietta for string orchestra by Weronika Ratusińska from 2009. The author analyses the use and manner of modification of musical motifs, the way in which the sound layer is shaped and the relation between Ratusińska’s work and tradition of the genre.

„Łzy lejąca” w arcydziełach muzyki polskiej XX wieku

„Mother weeping” in the masterpieces of Polish music of the 20th century The theme of the sorrowful mother has been present in music for centuries. The medieval sequence Stabat mater dolorosa brought many excellent interpretations. As far as the music of Polish composers in the 20th century is concerned, the first name to be mentioned is Karol Szymanowski and his masterpiece: Stabat Mater, Op. 53 (1926). This work, using a text in Polish and referring to folklore, set one direction for the interpretation of the theme of the sorrowful mother in the Polish music of the last century. It was continued by Andrzej Panufnik in his touching interpretation of Gorzkie żale in the suite Hommage à Chopin for voice and piano (1949), and particularly Henryk Mikołaj Górecki in his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (1976). The second line is marked by compositions referring to the Latin tradition, with no clear references to Polish themes – such as Stabat Mater by Roman Padlewski (1939) and Stabat Mater by Krzysztof Penderecki (1962). The article outlines both lines of interpretation of the “Mother weeping” motif in the works of Polish composers of the 20th century on the example of the above-mentioned masterpieces of Polish musical culture of the last century. Abstrakt Motyw Matki Bolesnej obecny jest w muzyce od wieków. Średniowieczna sekwencja Stabat Mater dolorosa przyniosła wiele znakomitych interpretacji. Jeśli chodzi o muzykę polską XX wieku, w pierwszej kolejności należy tu przywołać nazwisko Karola Szymanowskiego i jego arcydzieło Stabat Mater op. 53. Utwór ten, wykorzystujący tekst w języku polskim oraz odwołujący się do ludowości, wyznaczył jeden kierunek interpretacji motywu Matki Bolesnej w muzyce polskiej ubiegłego stulecia. Nawiązał do niego m.in. Andrzej Panufnik w niebanalnej interpretacji Gorzkich żali w suicie Hommage à Chopin na głos i fortepian, a przede wszystkim Henryk Mikołaj Górecki w Symfonii pieśni żałosnych. Drugą linię interpretacyjną wyznaczają kompozycje utrzymane w tradycji łacińskiej, bez wyraźnych odniesień do wątków polskich – jak Stabat Mater Romana Padlewskiego i Stabat Mater Krzysztofa Pendereckiego. Artykuł przybliża obie linie interpretacyjne motywu „łzy lejącej” w twórczości kompozytorów polskich XX wieku na przykładzie przywołanych wyżej arcydzieł polskiej kultury muzycznej ubiegłego stulecia.

Krzysztof Knittel's chamber opera and Agnieszka Stulgińska's music theatre: Examples of a new syncretistic medium in contemporary Polish music

This essay analyses and interprets the scores, recordings, and media used in Knittel and King's The Heart Piece - Double Opera (1999) and Stulgińska's Three Women for three women and ten instruments (2017), two semi-improvised Polish operas using performance art and interaction between sound, text, choreography, lighting, theatrical form and electronic medium. In Stuglińska's modern music theatre, the listener follows different sound sources and the setting: choreography, performers' and speakers' arrangement on stage, props and lighting, whose intensity dictates the form. The Heart Piece chamber opera is a two - Polish and American - composers' take on Müller's play Herzstück, with separate movements in their native languages. Music and text create an interactive setting, and their notation and semantics make music both seen and heard. These works use the concept of hybridization and, in Wolf's terminology, intracompositional intermediality, where different means of expression create an intermedial discourse, a complementary whole and a new syncretistic medium.

Polish music press in the face of systemic change in 1989 as an example of cultural transformation in post-communist countries

The systemic transformation has significantly increased and diversified the music press market. Liquidation of the monopoly, privatization, censorship abolition and media pluralism are just some of the factors that contributed to shaping new cultural policy in Poland. The research material used for this paper’s analytical purposes consists of Polish music magazines; based on a query covering over 110 journals being published since 1946 to the present, a historical and comparative analysis was made. It allowed to determine what new solutions the publishers started to put into practice to make their magazines more attractive. Moreover, it showed a clear fragmentation of the market. After ’89, popular music magazines began to prevail; there are also many specialist journals devoted to a specific topic. A look at cultural transformation from the perspective of the music press is therefore an innovative idea, combining knowledge from the borderline of musicology, cultural studies, and press studies.

Uchem krytyka. Idiom kompozytorski Pawła Szymańskiego w ujęciu Andrzeja Chłopeckiego

The article aims to present the compositional idiom of Paweł Szy-mański (b. 1954) as conceived by Andrzej Chłopecki (1950–2012), an outstanding Polish music critic and musicologist. His opinion-forming texts, written in a distinctive language, resonated widely in the Polish and international music community. The article has the character of a review, presenting quotations from Chłopecki’s texts regarded by the author as the most significant, confronted with self-reflections of the composer himself, as well as references to other researchers’ com-ments. The initial part of the article describes Chłopecki’s promotional activities in relation to Szymański’s work. As an active employee of the Polish Radio, Chłopecki was in a position to commission works, prepare programmes on the subject of the composer’s music, as well as organise a monographic festival presenting the majority of his works. The next section of the article recapitulates the first important text by this opinion-forming critic which discusses the works of Szymański, titled W poszukiwaniu utraconego ładu. „Pokolenie” Stalowej Woli [In search of lost order. The Stalowa Wola „generation”]. In it the critic emphasised the role of tonality and the Baroque as the arche-type always present in the composer’s music. The central part of the article discusses the main features of Szymański’s music, the subject of Chłopecki’s later texts; these included heterophony, bidirection-al composing, and the dialectic interplay between structure and its transformations. The last section of the article talks about the charge made by the critic against the composer, that of remaining within the same aesthetics, even though placing his compositions among the most significant and individual phenomena of postmodernist music.