Film stills with the accompaniment of music. On the short cooperation of Witold Lutosławski and filmmakers

Creation of film music is only an episode in all of Witold Lutosławski’s way of oeuvre. He composed music to five films – three of which were not preserved (short films from the 1930s), two others that have been preserved were middle-feature films from the 1940s. This article is an attempt to reconstruct the character of the cooperation between Lutosławski and the directors, outlining the historical con­text and the circumstances of the works’ creation, and in case of the preserved films, to discuss their musical aspect. Uwaga – komunikat filmowy z frontu pracy (Beware! A Film Communiqué from the Front Lines of Work, 1934) and Gore! (Fire!, 1936) were directed by Euge­niusz Cękalski in cooperation with Stanisław Wohl. Zwarcie (Short Circuit, 1935) was created by Franciszka and Stefan Themerson. We know very little about Lutoslawski’s music in these films, but it was always appreciated in press reviews.

After the Second World War documentary films became popu­lar, but they contained propaganda features, which aimed to in­form about the scale of devastation of Polish territory. One of them was Odrą do Bałtyku (Via the Oder to the Baltic, 1946) directed by Stanisław Urbanowicz. The sound element of the film has largely an illustrative character (in neoclassical style), it is a background for the narrative’s comment. Various arrangements of songs (Zasiali górale [The mountain people have sown], Przybyli ułani pod okienko [The lancers have come to the window]) which are incorporated in the soundtrack, underline the propaganda message of the film. The last film with Lutosławski’s music was Suita warszawska (Warsaw Suite, 1946) directed by Tadeusz Makarczyński. Again we can hear illustrative music, even real music (urban folk – polka and waltz), but sometimes music is more independent and abstract. After that the composer got several proposal to write film music, but he did not undertake this anymore (mainly for financial and time reasons).

Polish music in the repertoire of Leopold Stokowski

Nowadays, Leopold Stokowski is recognized as one of the most im­portant conductors of the 20^th Century. The artist was very proud of his Polish origin and conducted twenty two compositions written by eleven Polish composers, including Chopin, Wieniawski, Fitel­berg, Szymanowski, Tansman, Szabelski, Moniuszko, Lutosławski, Panufnik, Jarecki and Paderewski. During his career Stokowski visit­ed Poland four times. The first two visits (1924 and 1958) were private. The conductor’s first Polish concert took place in Warsaw in May 1959 – on this occasion Stokowski conducted Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 1 and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater. The press praised Stokowski for bringing from the orchestra his own rich sonorities and for his great sensitivity, and at the same time criticized him for lack of for­mal discipline. Also Lutosławski was dissatisfied with Stokowski’s interpretation. Stokowski conducted in Poland also in May 1960, when he gave a couple of concerts in Zabrze and Bydgoszcz. Both programmes included compositions by Polish composers – Szabelski and Moniuszko. The conductor was also a close friend of Andrzej Panufnik. Stokowski collaborated with Panufnik when conducting his Symphony for peace and later led the world premiere performance of revised version of the work, entitled Sinfonia Elegiaca. He also con­ducted Sinfonia sacra and two other world premiere performances of Panufnik’s works – Katyń Epitaph and Universal Prayer. Stokowski recorded some of Polish compositions – both in studio and during concerts. Some of these performances are still unpublished (Fitel­berg’s Polish rhapsody, Moniuszko’s Fairy tale overture and Szyman­owski’s Stabat Mater), while others have been published (Panufnik’s Universal Prayer, Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 1 and Szabelski’s Tocca­ta). Stokowski’s Polish episodes are intriguing and the present study is the first one to bring to light this forgotten episodes from the great conductor’s biography.

A few remarks about Mass in F by Joseph Poniatowski

The music of Polish composers of the Romanticism is still quite a for­gotten and undiscovered area. One of the examples of that issue are the works of Joseph Poniatowski (1816–1873), a composer who spent a significant part of his life abroad.

His work concentrates mainly on the opera music, which was largely dictated by the environment from which he descended and in which he stayed. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to one of the composer’s forgotten works – Mass in F major, and also to presently selected topics related to this work.

Literary context of music composition. Chopin’s ballad vs. Scriabin’s poem

The following article describes a phenomenon of the correspondence of arts using the works of Frederic Chopin and Alexander Scriabin as an example. The author is interested in the relations between music and literature and Chopin’s ballads and Scriabin’s piano poems, the genres, which are an effect of such relations. The analysis of those works shows that both composers have a different understanding of the essence of music and literature but there are also similarities. The ballads and poems do not convey a literary programme or music illustration but their sound matter is additionally complemented by the genre category, title or commentary instead.