Polish Music since Szymanowski

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, 2008 M02 1
This book looks at Polish music since 1937 and its interaction with political and cultural turmoil. In Part I musical developments are placed in the context of the socio-political upheavals of inter-war Poland, Nazi occupation, and the rise and fall of the Stalinist policy of socialist realism (1948–54). Part II investigates the nature of the 'thaw' between 1954 and 1959, focusing on the role of the 'Warsaw Autumn' Festival. Part III discusses how composers reacted to the onset of serialism by establishing increasingly individual voices in the 1960s. In addition to a discussion of 'sonorism' (from Penderecki to Szalonek), it considers how different generations responded to the modernist aesthetic (Bacewicz and Lutoslawski, Baird and Serocki, Górecki and Krauze). Part IV views Polish music since the 1970s, including the issue of national identity and the arrival of a talented generation and its ironic, postmodern slant on the past.

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Contents

VI
3
VII
16
VIII
26
IX
40
X
59
XI
60
XII
65
XIII
69
XXXI
225
XXXII
232
XXXIII
240
XXXIV
253
XXXVI
256
XXXVII
261
XXXVIII
266
XXXIX
271

XIV
73
XV
81
XVI
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XVII
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XVIII
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XIX
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XX
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XXI
132
XXII
147
XXIII
159
XXIV
164
XXV
187
XXVI
197
XXVII
202
XXVIII
208
XXIX
213
XXX
223
XLI
273
XLII
277
XLIII
283
XLIV
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XLV
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XLVI
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XLVII
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XLVIII
315
XLIX
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L
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LI
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LII
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LIII
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LIV
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LV
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LVI
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Page 42 - From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and...
Page 42 - Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.
Page 59 - The heroes of the novel, once tormented by philosophical "insatiety," now entered the service of the new society. Instead of writing the dissonant music of former days, they composed marches and odes. Instead of painting abstractions as before, they turned out socially useful pictures. But since they could not rid themselves completely of their former personalities, they became schizophrenics.
Page 263 - To him that made great lights : the sun to rule by day : the moon and stars to rule by night: For his mercy endureth for ever.
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Page 142 - I'm horrified to see how one can be carried away by my careless mention of the dramatic conflict between the solo part and the orchestra. I must immediately use the reins on this galloping imagination which prompts you to interpret the work as an illustration to some macabre spectacle.
Page 342 - The Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music 1956-1961: Its Goals, Structures, Programs, and People', Ph.D. thesis, Ohio State University (1989), pp.
Page 320 - Warsaw from over 100 countries for the Fifth World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace and Friendship 1955 Aug. The publication in Nowa Kultura of 'Poem for Adults...

About the author (2008)

Adrian Thomas is Professor of Music at Cardiff University.

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