Sławomir DOBRZANSKI: "Maria Szymanowska and Fryderyk Chopin: Parallelisms and Influence"

ABSTRACT

The article (awarded the 2001 Wilk Prize in Student Category ex aequo with Grochowska) provides a summary of historical research on possible personal contacts between Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) and Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831). Although there is no direct evidence of an actual meeting between them, several documents and historical circumstances suggest that both composers must have known each other personally.

The main body of the article is devoted to a comparative analysis of musical styles of both the composers and to the possible influence of Szymanowska's compositions on Chopin's musical language. Although some of the research is based on previous insights of musicologists such as Maria Iwanejko and George Golos, the author suggests some new possible comparisons. Especially noteworthy is a brief analysis of the melodic material in Polonaises by Oginski, Szymanowska, and earliest Polonaises by Chopin. Szymanowska's works discussed in the text include Vingt Exercises et Preludes, Waltzes, Songs, Mazurkas, dances, and 2 Nocturnes

Dobrzanski's Article
Szymanowska - Bibliography
Note about the Author

Katarzyna GROCHOWSKA: "From Milan to Gdańsk: The Story of a Dedication"

ABSTRACT

This article (awarded the 2001 Wilk Prize in the Student Category, ex aequo with Dobrzanski) takes up the task of explaining the route by which a Gdańsk singer, Constantia Czirenberg, became the dedicatee of Milanese publisher Filippo Lomazzo's 1626 motet anthology, Flores Praestantissimorum virorum. The main tools used for this study are the 17th-century travel diaries and itineraries of Charles Ogier and Prince Władysław IV Waza, both friends and admirers of Czirenberg. While tracing the possible connections between Czirenberg, Lomazzo and Władysław IV Waza, the author concludes that it was the Polish prince who initiated Lomazzo's dedication. This conclusion offers a new perspective on Władysław's well-known music patronage, which this time took place outside the royal court.

Grochowska' Article
Note about the Author

Judith ROSEN: "Grażyna Bacewicz: Her Life and Works"

ABSTRACT

This article is an online reprint of a monograph published in 1983 by the Friends of Polish Music at the University of Southern California. The monograph, the first book in English about the noted Polish composer, emphasizes the importance of her place in contemporary music. It discusses her significance as a composer, whose works not only bridged the gap between neo-romanticism and modernism, but also paved the way for the pursuit of new music by the next generation of composers. During her brief life (1909-1969) she lived through the eras of pre- and post- World War II with the accompanying musical freedoms and restrictions. Her musical gifts, both as composer and performer, and her exceptional strength of character are explored in a discussion of her life. The large quantity and excellence of her compositional output (in spite of the difficult times in which she lived) are highlighted with quotes from well-known personages and interesting anecdotes.

The original monograph included an introduction by Witold Lutosławski as well as extensive lists of compositions and recordings and a selected bibliography. The present edition contains Lutosławski's introduction, a different selection of illustrations than in the original edition, and an updated bibliography by Maja Trochimczyk and James Harley.

Rosen's Article
Lutosławski - Foreword
Bacewicz - Bibliography
Note about the Author

Adrian THOMAS: "File750: composers, Politics, and the Festival of Polish Music (1951)"

ABSTRACT

This article (awarded the 2001 Wilk Prize in the Professional Category) is based on a file at the Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw, in which details of the commissioning process for the 1951 Festival of Polish Music are contained. File 750 contains documents and letters to and from composers, who in Spring 1950, were invited by the Polish Composers' Union to submit proposals to the Ministry of Culture and Art for works to be included in the Festival. What emerges is an insight into the lives of over 50 Polish composers at a crucial point in the period of "socrealizm." Composers responded to requests for concert music and music of mass appeal in different ways, giving different reasons for their requests for subvention by the Ministry. And the Ministry responded by handing out support which ranged from one-off payments to minor composers to larger amounts spread over several months to more prominent figures.

The responses of two composers - Panufnik and Lutosławski - are given special attention because of the new lines of inquiry their letters provoke. The information they contain - and that gleaned in consequence from other contemporary sources - is both surprising and controversial. In both cases, subsequent research will require a revised consideration of the composers' unenviable positions as creative artists in a controlling political context.

Thomas's Article
Panufnik - Bibliography
Lutosławski - Bibliography
Note about the Author

Notes about the Authors
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Copyright 2002 by the Polish Music Journal.
Editor: Maja Trochimczyk. Polish Music Center, 2002.
Design: Maja Trochimczyk & Marcin Depinski.
Comments and inquiries by e-mail: polmusic@email.usc.edu