# how come poland got the best modernists?



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Remenber when i first came here i was a Penderecki fanboy, but i learn after a while Lutoslawski was the real deal.His funeral song fits in a game like silent hill, it suit the mood quite well.

Dark brooding music that is doom laden whiteout being metal, pure doom non rehash.Witold sonic panorama is morose,i had to post here on classical music discussion because i think he is whiteout the doupt one of the best composer around in poland if not of the 20 century.

Witold open doors in musical Spectrum for me, he was an eye opener for sure..in the end i preffer Lutoslawski to Penderecki what about you guys??

That about it have a nice day :tiphat:


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I like them both. Penderecki can be pretty dark too.

If you're into composers from Poland don't forget Wojciech Kilar. He's not entirely dark, but he did compose the soundtrack to Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). But I like his Exodus.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Responding to the question in the thread title - why not?


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## opus55 (Nov 9, 2010)

I like Penderecki a lot but haven't spent much time with Lutoslawski yet. I also did have that question - Polish composers seem to be getting strong in the modern scene in classical music.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

Penderecki and Lutoslawski may be great but I would hardly call that enough to pull Poland to the lead spot in contemporary music. France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, UK, US, Japan, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, etc all have more quality than you can shake a stick at...


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)




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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

nathanb said:


> Penderecki and Lutoslawski may be great but I would hardly call that enough to pull Poland to the lead spot in contemporary music. France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, UK, US, Japan, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, etc all have more quality than you can shake a stick at...


I am sure there are Polish Contemporary Music fans who'd beg to differ. It is a massive field after all. Even in Poland.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I prefer Lutoslawski too, with an occasional dose of Penderecki - the vocal works especially. 

As suggested, there are many other Polish 20th-21st-century composers worth hearing - for instance also Szymanski, Kotonski, Bacewicz, Gorecki, Panufnik, Baird, and at least a dozen more.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

opus55 said:


> I like Penderecki a lot but haven't spent much time with Lutoslawski yet. I also did have that question - Polish composers seem to be getting strong in the modern scene in classical music.


Lutosławski is dead. Penderecki is old.

The year is 2015.

If the comment "seem to be getting strong" were made in the 1950s, it would pass without comment. In 2015, though?

Now get out there and get your ears tingling with Karkowski* and Zielińska and Knittel and Zubel, why not?

Otherwise, to answer the OP question in another way, you left off the words "some of the" in front of "best."

*Also dead, it's true. Sadly. But recently (2013) and at quite a young age (55).


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## opus55 (Nov 9, 2010)

some guy said:


> Lutosławski is dead. Penderecki is old.
> 
> The year is 2015.
> 
> ...


Hey, thanks for pointing it out. I didn't know Lutoslawski was dead. I'm still catching up on early-20th century :lol:


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

I intended to include Joanna Adamczewska in that short list of recent Polish composers.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

I'm old enough to have seen Lutosławski when he was alive. He was a regular visitor to L.A. back in the seventies, along with Berio and Ligeti.

Good times!!

The L.A. Phil even played Cage once in the seventies. (They have, to date, only played him once. Oh well. The N.Y. Phil pretty much ignored Elliott Carter, and he was right there for over a hundred years, writing orchestral music, too.)

Anyway, yeah. There _was_ a lot of good stuff going on in Poland after WW II. There _is_ a lot of good stuff going on in Poland in 2015. It's a nice place, too. I love going there as often as I can. (Some of) the best people in the world there.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mieczysław Weinberg was a Soviet Polish composer. I came across a few SQ of his. Just thought it might be a name worth mentioning.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> I intended to include Joanna Adamczewska in that short list of recent Polish composers.


She was tearing up pieces of brown paper bag (or what appears to be brown paper) - do explain how that is music, please? I would really like to know.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> She was tearing up pieces of brown paper bag (or what appears to be brown paper) - *do explain how that is music, please? I would really like to know*.


It's definitely music -- what is more difficult to figure out is whether its first movement is in sonata-allegro or passacaglia form.

btw, perhaps it would be careless for Szymanowski's name not to appear in this thread. I can only assume that any Polish "modernist" owes much to the trail that Karol blazed in the early twentieth century.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

ArtMusic said:


> She was tearing up pieces of brown paper bag (or what appears to be brown paper) - do explain how that is music, please? I would really like to know.


She's creating non-linguistic sounds for their own sake, rather than simply as a side-effect of something that has a utilitarian function. That's music as far as I understand. Now whether the piece is interesting is another question entirerly....


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Dim7 said:


> *She's creating non-linguistic sounds for their own sake, rather than simply as a side-effect of something that has a utilitarian function.* That's music as far as I understand. Now whether the piece is interesting is another question entirerly....


Sorry, Dim7. I really don't follow the part I highlighted in bold font on "non-linguistic sounds for their own sake, ... utilitarian function". If you are basically saying that tearing up pieces of paper is music, then I can understand that concept you are suggesting. I however disagree with that concept, if that is what your concept is. Tearing up pieces of music is not music in the traditional sense, and would be a negation of other modernist composers' works.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Certainly, if there´s a pre-determined sequence of the handling of the paper, or rules concerning it, she´s using the paper as an alternative instrument, and the music is organized. Some would argue, that not even the element of organizing has to be there.

Another example of this is the work of Georgy Dorokhov, a Russian who mixed sounds of traditional instruments with the sounds of scratched balloons, drilling machines, hammers, nails etc.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I read through this thread.........I've never ever thought Poland got the best modernists, but I do know that there are fantastic Polish composers whose music I very much enjoy. Lutosławski, for example. I wish I knew more Polish composers so I could conduct a proper investigation into recent music history....


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> a negation of other modernist composers' works.


You seem determined that "in addition to" be read always as "subtraction from." Joanna's music negates nothing.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

ArtMusic said:


> Sorry, Dim7. I really don't follow the part I highlighted in bold font on "non-linguistic sounds for their own sake, ... utilitarian function". If you are basically saying that tearing up pieces of paper is music, then I can understand that concept you are suggesting. I however disagree with that concept, if that is what your concept is. Tearing up pieces of music is not music in the traditional sense, and would be a negation of other modernist composers' works.


I mean she's creating sounds for aesthetic appreciation, not simply as a side-effect of something "useful". That fits under my definition of music. What definition excludes this piece?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> You seem determined that "in addition to" be read always as "subtraction from." Joanna's music negates nothing.


I did kindly ask you to explain how tearing up pieces of brown paper is music. If it amounts to nothing more than you enjoying the sounds of pieces of paper being torn up, then it would nice and helpful to simply state that. If it is in addition to that because there are musical qualities about it, that's exactly what I am after - to learn and to appreciate the sounds of brown paper being torn up, maybe there is something Polish and modernist that I am missing. I would love to learn.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Dim7 said:


> I mean she's creating sounds for aesthetic appreciation, not simply as a side-effect of something "useful". That fits under my definition of music. What definition excludes this piece?


I see, I take that as "creation of sounds", almost random sounds upon tearing the paper, for its own sake. Some might well enjoy those sounds, that's obviously fine. To me, I reject that as being music.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

ArtMusic said:


> I see, I take that as "creation of sounds", almost random sounds upon tearing the paper, for its own sake. Some might well enjoy those sounds, that's obviously fine. To me, I reject that as being music.


I don't enjoy the sounds, but it is clear to me that they are intended to be enjoyable in some sense to somebody. Not everyone will enjoy them, of course - but if that is required for something to be music, no piece of music has ever been created in the history of mankind. Your rejection of it as music seems arbitrary to me - maybe it would be better for you to simply state that you dislike it rather than reject it as music.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Dim7 said:


> I don't enjoy the sounds, but it is clear to me that they are intended to be enjoyable in some sense. Not everyone will enjoy them, of course - but if that is required for something to be music, no piece of music has ever been created in the history of mankind. Your rejection of it as music seems arbitrary to me - maybe it would be better for you to simply state that you dislike it rather than reject it as music.


Actually it's both, I dislike it and I reject it as music. But *I fully acknowledge* that there may well be listeners who do enjoy it and consider it as music. So all I am asking to them is what is it that makes it musical and enjoyable. I think there is nothing wrong with that question.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

Since you have announced that you both dislike it and reject it as music, it is quite easy for those of us who do not reject it as music, as well as for those of us who also like the sounds, to conclude that any attempt on our part to explain why we think it's music much less enjoyable music will very likely fail.

And since we have seen numerous threads in which you reject similar attempts about other pieces--think _4'33",_ maybe--why would we take up this task which you have convinced us--convinced me, anyway--would be futile?


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

edit: nah, forget it, we've had enough off-topic already.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

Random thought. If "modern" is to imply essentially 20th century...

A strong thrust of 20th century music was the influence of WW2, I believe. That being so, a country so rent asunder by the inhumanity of that dark period is likely to be a place where such "modern" music would emanate from.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Actually it's both, I dislike it and I reject it as music. But *I fully acknowledge* that there may well be listeners who do enjoy it and consider it as music. So all I am asking to them is what is it that makes it musical and enjoyable. I think there is nothing wrong with that question.


I think it's fine music in principle, but I'm just really disappointed with how sloppy that performance was! I've seen it performed better on several occasions. Heck, I've got two or three CDs in my collection that sound much better.

Pani Adamczewska may have written the music, but she should leave performance to the professionals.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Getting back on-topic, here's my favorite polish "modern" (at least it's 20th century) piece, by Szymanowski:

Mythes, nr. 1

Mythes, nr. 2

Mythes, nr. 3


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

** sorry mods, please delete **


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

Skilmarilion said:


> Conceptual art is what it is, and most often can appear to have little or no aesthetic value at all.
> 
> Unfortunately, sometimes people are awarded prizes for such nonsense:
> http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...r-prizewinning-piece-work-no-227-8795204.html


On the contrary, I love this kind of stuff; that room looks really quite tasteful to me, but was that also designed by the artist or 'imposed' by the Tate's architecture? 
For the last 8 years or so I've been a regular visitor to the _*Venice Biennale*_ where you find lots of contemporary art like the piece you have provided the link for; yes, sometimes it can seem baffling, but I love it. I'll be there this July and I can't wait!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> Since you have announced that you both dislike it and reject it as music, it is quite easy for those of us who do not reject it as music, as well as for those of us who also like the sounds, to conclude that any attempt on our part to explain why we think it's music much less enjoyable music will very likely fail.
> 
> And since we have seen numerous threads in which you reject similar attempts about other pieces--think _4'33",_ maybe--why would we take up this task which you have convinced us--convinced me, anyway--would be futile?


As you have avoided answering, I therefore conclude you enjoy listening to the sounds of paper being torn. Nothing more, nothing less. It is that simple.

*Mieczysław Weinberg's concerto for cello is **amazing*. Very musical. I strongly recommend a listen as a true example of Polish modernist music. Composed in 1948. Weinberg died in 1996. I don't know much else of MW's music, but I consider it as a great 20th century Polish-Soviet music.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

Skilmarilion said:


> ** sorry mods, please delete **


I kindly ask the mods *not* to delete my response to Skilmarillon.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Alternatively, you could repeat it, but generalized.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> *Mieczysław Weinberg's concerto for cello is **amazing*. Very musical. I strongly recommend a listen as a true example of Polish modernist music. Composed in 1948. Weinberg died in 1996. I don't know much else of MW's music, but I consider it as a great 20th century Polish-Soviet music.


If you like the cello concerto, you might also like the violin concerto of 1959.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

It's all down to the pierogi obviously.

This is an interesting survey of polish music from the second half of the century. 70 works from the first 50 years of concerts of the "Warsaw Autumn" Contemporary Music Festival.









http://rateyourmusic.com/release/al...sh_collection_of_the_warsaw_autumn_1956_2005/


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

For fans of Wojciech Kilar already mentioned, Zbigniew Preisner is perhaps a similar tonal composer. Known for his film scores and working with Krzysztof Kieślowski in his _Three Colours_ trilogy. He has also done non-film music such as his _Requiem for a Friend_, written after the death of Kieślowski.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

From the article about the Creed work at the Tate Modern:

_It has been bought with funds provided by Tate Members, the Art Fund and a private donor. The Tate did not reveal how much the work cost. It has been valued in recent years at being worth about £110,000.

Art critic Louisa Buck said: "It is an important work. It is a sober minimalist piece in a long line of artists using every day materials for potent formal and psychological effect. It's not easy viewing."_

The work in question is an empty room with the lights turning on and off every five seconds.

Obviously work of such creative genius is worth at least £500,000.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

joen_cph said:


> Certainly, if there´s a pre-determined sequence of the handling of the paper, or rules concerning it, she´s using the paper as an alternative instrument, and the music is organized. Some would argue, that not even the element of organizing has to be there.
> 
> Another example of this is the work of Georgy Dorokhov, a Russian who mixed sounds of traditional instruments with the sounds of scratched balloons, drilling machines, hammers, nails etc.


Thanks for mentioning this. I had never heard of Dorokhov. There seems to be a real fascination in eastern Europe for isolated sounds and for repetition that never settles into a steady pulse, or not for long.

Someone to put alongside Ustvolskaya and Terterian in the uses traditional instruments to get really fresh, new results--and without relying on extended techniques, either. (No, I'm wrong. I just put on a piece which is all extended techniques. Never does to conclude too rapidly!!)


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

There are some quite fascinating you-tube videos of Dorokhov performances - "Concertino" and "Smoke" among them.
The Fragilite conservatory website also has some audio recordings. He gained some reputation abroad too.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

Icarus said:


> Obviously work of such creative genius is worth at least £500,000.


If this is sarky, it illustrates how useless concepts such as "genius" and "worth" are for conversing about the arts. Come to think of it, even if it's not sarky (which is not likely), it still illustrates the same thing.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

Icarus said:


> From the article about the Creed work at the Tate Modern:
> _It has been bought with funds provided by Tate Members, the Art Fund and a private donor. The Tate did not reveal how much the work cost. It has been valued in recent years at being worth about £110,000.
> Art critic Louisa Buck said: "It is an important work. It is a sober minimalist piece in a long line of artists using every day materials for potent formal and psychological effect. It's not easy viewing."_
> 
> ...


I've no idea how they arrive at price-tagging works of art. Personally, it's monetary worth is irrelevant to me. On the other hand, if part of an exhibition and it costs say, 15$ to get in, sure, I'll pay that. The Venice _Bienalle_ is quite pricey, but there is so much to see you need three days!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

TalkingHead said:


> I've no idea how they arrive at price-tagging works of art. Personally, it's monetary worth is irrelevant to me. On the other hand, if part of an exhibition and it costs say, 15$ to get in, sure, I'll pay that. The Venice _Bienalle_ is quite pricey, but there is so much to see you need three days!


I am reminded of humorist Dave Barry's comment about a run down chair on display as work of art in an exhibition with a $20k price tag. To paraphrase, "I admit I'm a total ignoramus and Philistine when it comes to art. So _you_ buy the chair."

But I agree. I'd like to see the installation. It might be a little unnerving or disorienting after a few moments.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

In investing, there is an expression that some financial products are meant to be sold, others bought. Maybe the same thing is true in the art world. 

Anyone who sells a work of art which involves an empty room with a light turning on and off for even £10,000 is clearly a very clever artist.

On the other hand, anyone who buys such a work of art is a fool.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. There are worse things in this world.


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

My apologies. Post withdrawn.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

No worries! .....................


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I think it's the kielbasa. Knowing what it must be doing to their Coronary Arteries, the doom laden music is unstoppable .


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## Guest (May 25, 2015)

Lord Lance said:


> I am sure there are Polish Contemporary Music fans who'd beg to differ. It is a massive field after all. Even in Poland.


I'm very much aware that Poland is up there with many countries, and that there are plenty of other names out there. Agata Zubel is one I like quite a bit.

To say that any of this makes them "the best" in relation to those other great countries I just listed... well that would simply be absurd.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

dogen said:


> Random thought. If "modern" is to imply essentially 20th century...
> 
> A strong thrust of 20th century music was the influence of WW2, I believe. That being so, a country so rent asunder by the inhumanity of that dark period is likely to be a place where such "modern" music would emanate from.


It would be wrong to attribute 'darkness' solely to WW2
The influences pre-date 1st September 1939 .... there was the tripartite partition of Poland with three brutal regimes trying to supress 'Polishness' since the end of the C18th (with echos of protest in non-modernists like Chopin and Moniuszko), there was the repression of the 1914-18 war with competing sides using further repression of the Poles and conscripting them to fight, there was the struggle for independence in 1919, the establishment of an independent state that was much less in extent than was hoped for, the war with Russia in the aftermath of this independence etc etc. 
They were, of course, exacerbated by the Soviet crushing and domination of 'independence' from 1945 to 1989, including the forcible moving of the borders westwards, the compuslory movement of millions of people away from their historic lands, the repression of the intelligensia, the subversion of arts for political ends, the grim realities of rebuilding without the benefits of funding such as Marshall aid, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, continuing repression and grinding grimness in material matters etc etc
WW2 cast a very long and very dark shadow - but it was one of many shadows


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Skilmarilion said:


> ...
> btw, perhaps it would be careless for Szymanowski's name not to appear in this thread. I can only assume that any Polish "modernist" owes much to the trail that Karol blazed in the early twentieth century.


This was true for Lutoslawski because one work that made him become a composer was Szymanowski's Symphony #3, "Song of the Night." John Cage also had impacts on him, Lutoslawski heard a part of a Western radio broadcast of his Piano Concert and that made him incorporate chance elements into his music. Its ironic though that Lutoslawski would not have heard that piece if Cage's wish that his music wasn't recorded was put into practice (while at the same time berating people for not knowing anything in his output beyond 4'33" - but of course most of what Cage said was contradictory).

The context of Poland during the 1950's and '60's was that the Communist regime loosened control on the arts. This was a result of opposition to the regime in 1956 (in both Poland and Hungary) and also de-Stalinisation under Khrushchev. This might seem positive but it wasn't a difficult concession to make for the apparatchiks. Avant-garde music - or writing, or film for that matter - wasn't a threat to the regime. The unwritten rule was that if creative artists didn't get involved in politics, then the regime would leave them alone or even support them. So the regime set up the Autumn Festival in Warsaw. If one wants to see this in a more cynical light, this was good public relations for what was in theory a place where there was freedom of expression but in practice what you had was a totalitarian system.

Composers, writers and so on who where in favour with the regime would also get advantages that oridinary people didn't have, such as being allowed to travel to the West. The prestige accorded to figures in the arts such as Lutoslawski was immense compared to the West, because they where seen as pivotal to the process of inward imgration that intellectuals practised. It was similar to Frederick the Great's compact with his people, "they are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please." Another quote by him was "an educated people can be easily governed." No doubt regimes since have worked on various interpretations of this principle.

There is a famous anecdote of Khrushchev visiting an exhibition of abstract art and saying that a donkey could have done these by smearing s- - - with his tail. But despite thinking that it was rubbish he let the exhibition stay open. Far more controversial where works with actual historical content that impinged on politics. Shostakovich's Symphony #13 "Babi Yar" is the best example. The premiere almost didn't happen, there was intervention from above, and after its initial perfomances it was shelved for decades.

So with music and visual arts you had a system of limited freedom, and a lot of the best writing (which was banned) was available in underground network of publishing called Samizdat. Even Khrushchev, after his forced retirement, read some of the books he had banned by getting access through this network. He told his son that after actually reading these he took the wrong advice, he would not have banned them had he known that they where not a threat to the regime. Or maybe banning them was worse than not?

Not all of the East European satellites followed the model adopted in Poland and Hungary. Czechoslovakia had the Prague Spring in 1968 but Dubcek's reforms where halted, and arts policy in East Germany and especially Romania pretty much remained Stalinist.

With mass strikes in Poland during the 1970's and the Solidarity movement emerging in the early 1980's you get more dissent from all sectors of society in Poland, including intellectuals. Lutoslawski mildly criticised the regime for their severe crackdown on Solidarity and as a result became persona non grata in Poland, but he lived to see the end of the regime in 1989. The Polish Pope's visits to the country also made its impacts in terms of religion becoming a focus of opposition, and I would not doubt that Penderecki's composition Polish Requiem reflects this to some degree.

I put all this here to add to some observations above. Incidentally I am not planning to participate on this (or any other) classical forum any longer. One reason is that its much like the situation I described in Poland, its hard to reconcile what should be the rules and what they amount to in practice, realpolitik. I just came back in recent days to answer outstanding correspondence (but my PM facility is now shut down). Goodbye and best wishes to you all.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

That was enjoyable and educational read, Sid James. Nice reading your balanced view points. Sad to read your farewell. Good luck to you too.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Sid James said:


> This was true for Lutoslawski because one work that made him become a composer was Szymanowski's Symphony #3, "Song of the Night." John Cage also had impacts on him, Lutoslawski heard a part of a Western radio broadcast of his Piano Concert and that made him incorporate chance elements into his music. Its ironic though that Lutoslawski would not have heard that piece if Cage's wish that his music wasn't recorded was put into practice (while at the same time berating people for not knowing anything in his output beyond 4'33" - but of course most of what Cage said was contradictory).
> 
> The context of Poland during the 1950's and '60's was that the Communist regime loosened control on the arts. This was a result of opposition to the regime in 1956 (in both Poland and Hungary) and also de-Stalinisation under Khrushchev. This might seem positive but it wasn't a difficult concession to make for the apparatchiks. *Avant-garde music - or writing, or film for that matter - wasn't a threat to the regime. *The unwritten rule was that if creative artists didn't get involved in politics, then the regime would leave them alone or even support them. So the regime set up the Autumn Festival in Warsaw. If one wants to see this in a more cynical light, this was good public relations for what was in theory a place where there was freedom of expression but in practice what you had was a totalitarian system.
> 
> ...


Hi Sid! Wish you were here! . . .

Yes, I myself wonder how many Soviet and Polish _avant gardists_ spoke up for politically relevant composers who were being censored like Shostakovich.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I would add here that my point was to highlight how with de-Stalinisation the Polish regime allowed some freedoms, but it was still on their terms. In other words, avant-garde procedures where okay, but as composers like Penderecki and Gorecki moved back to tradition and also spirituality (Part and Gubaidulina made similar moves in Estonia and the USSR respectively). Whatever their reasons and motivations, it was a case of a move away from what the state was sponsoring.

Lutoslawski also moved that way, albeit more subtly, compare his second and third symphonies and you hear a move away from noise and chance and towards more control. Lutoslawski was careful to avoid making political statements about his music, especially when visiting the West. He refuted any extra-musical conclusions which Western critics said about his music, and this was a wise thing to do given his situation. Its a bit like trying to balance on a tightrope.

Its yet another irony how avant-garde came to mean different things in the East as it did in the West. John Cage's famous line "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones," was in effect reversed in these countries where thanks to the new ideologies intellectuals where prevented from expressing what they really wanted with their music. This included spirituality and history. To quote Milan Kundera, "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Cage, despite his eternally smiling image, was a mix of authoritarianism and anarchism. Compare the above quote by him with that of Mussolini, "We are not those who embalm a past. We are those who anticipate the future." Both of these guys claimed to reject the past, yet they used ancient philosophy - Cage that of the Orient, and Mussolini that of ancient Rome - to legitimise their ideas. I suppose there are always exceptions to various dogmatic rules, which are impossible to apply successfully in practice anyway. You can't build something on nothing. Mussolini early on also supported the avant-garde of his day, Futurism, but he quickly changed tack to favor a Neo-Classical aesthetic.

Thanks both guys for your compliments, and to briefly answer you Marschallin Blair, speaking up directly rarely happened. It was more a system of compromise and doing what you could to push the envelope. People like Lutoslawski, Gorecki and Kurtag of Hungary are seen as having a certain integrity given the constraints they worked under, even though unlike some they didn't leave (I know that Penderecki and Part did, so too musicians like Rostropovich and Barshai).

Also, just as composers like Mozart, Beethoven and Verdi did before them, composers in these regimes evaded the censors by using the age old tactic of metaphor and allusion as covers. They where all in the same boat, and Shostakovich was given advantages too (such as being able to travel, receiving decorations and honours from the regime, having works commissioned, having works written for the drawer during the Stalin years premiered under Khrushchev and so on).


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## Guest (May 26, 2015)

Icarus said:


> In investing, there is an expression that some financial products are meant to be sold, others bought. Maybe the same thing is true in the art world.
> 
> Anyone who sells a work of art which involves an empty room with a light turning on and off for even £10,000 is clearly a very clever artist.
> *
> ...


I find it hard to believe that The Tate and its business managers and art experts are a bunch of fools. I imagine the popular press are quite happy to run that line but what do the broadsheets and specialist magazines have to say?


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## Guest (May 26, 2015)

Sid James said:


> [...] Also, just as composers like Mozart, *Beethoven* and Verdi did before them, composers in these regimes evaded the censors by using the age old tactic of metaphor and allusion as covers. [...]


Mentioning *Beethoven* will always get _my_ attention, Sidney! Thing is, as far as I understand, Beethoven pretty much thumbed his nose at the censors throughout his career. So please don't go just yet, come back and explain to me more about Beethoven's relationship with the _régime_ in Vienna.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

TalkingHead said:


> I find it hard to believe that The Tate and its business managers and art experts are a bunch of fools. I imagine the popular press are quite happy to run that line but what do the broadsheets and specialist magazines have to say?


I haven't read them yet, but they're probably congratulating the Tate on stocking a whole room with art at the cost of only £10,000.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

I'm quite surprised no-one has yet mentioned (apologies if they have and I missed it) Kazimierz Serocki (pronounced sair-OTS-ky)(1922-81), whose fine music seems almost totally unknown outside of Poland. His career followed a fairly close parallel to Lutosławski's - tonal, serial, chance, controlled atonal.

Piano Concerto (1950)




Sinfonietta for two string orchestras (1956)




Episodi for strings and three percussion groups (1959)




Segmenti (1961)




Continuum (1966)




Swinging Music (1970)




Ad libitum (1977)




Pianophonie (1978)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

This here is a good quote on the Penderecki entry at wikipedia, talking to my arguments above:

_"The avant-garde gave one an illusion of universalism. The musical world of Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez and Cage was for us, the young - hemmed in by the aesthetics of socialist realism, then the official canon in our country - a liberation...I was quick to realise however, that this novelty, this experimentation and formal speculation, is more destructive than constructive; I realised the Utopian quality of its Promethean tone...[I was] saved from the avant-garde snare of formalism by a return to tradition."_

The way he puts it, formalism sounds like a kind of forbidden fruit for the Poles, but in limiting themselves to it, composers easily became a benign instrument of the regime, imposing its restrictions from within.

Another thing I could have mentioned was the regime setting up an electronics studio in the late 1950's, which I would guess have been unique in Eastern Europe at the time (and this was just after it was done in West Germany, so perhaps a bit of competition with the West came into this too?).

There where a number of Polish works dealing with the Holocaust, but indirectly, by Penderecki (Dies Irae), Lutoslawski (Les Espaces du Sommeil) and Gorecki (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs). Again, despite composers like them having prestige and special priveleges in Poland, composing such works had an element of subversion to it. There was still much anti-Semitism after the war, for example in 1968 there was a purge of Jews from bureaucratic positions. The Holocaust was still recent history and likely to hit a raw nerve, as Shostakovich's Babi Yar demonstrates.

Yesterday I was surprised by no backlash against what I initially wrote regarding the historical context in Poland, which is a direct answer to the OP's question. There where times here many months ago when even if I gave such detailed posts, it would be claimed by some here that history is irrelevant to music, or largely so. I think that in this thread, I have demonstrated that music does have a historical context, and it isn't only relevant but also important.

Some months ago, I finished reading a recent biography of John Cage, which is why I mentioned him in terms of musical influence and opinions. Much of that supposed universalism that Penderecki reminisced about was discussed in one of the debates of 2014 which I participated in. I gave a long quote on Cage's inability to reconcile his many contradictory thoughts. This was typical, and as I look back on it now, the debate wasn't resolved on this forum because very few commented on how what he said in this interview didn't hold up to basic logic: http://www.talkclassical.com/33479-cage-stravinsky-schoenberg-schoenberg-7.html#post703884 But it led me to read that biography about him.


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