The Musical Sources of the Former Miners’ Orchestra of Wałbrzych (Waldenburger Bergkapelle) from the Collection of Warsaw University Library

In the article, the author investigates 24 musical manuscripts belonging to former Miners’ Orchestra of Wałbrzych (Waldenburger Bergkapelle), which used the sources for concerts of the orchestra. The analysed manuscripts have not yet been researched or catalogued in RISM (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales) database before. The ensemble’s repertoire was analysed and the collection’s characteristics, including copyists, watermarks and stamps, were examined. It allowed to assess the provenience of the manuscripts and make certain remarks about the type of repertoire played by Waldenburger Bergkapelle. The results of the analysis were presented in the context that can be found in secondary sources, widely describing the activity of the orchestra. The author also carried on cataloguing in Warsaw University Library, creating the catalogue in the Muscat RISM system. Considering the numbers on shelfmarks, it can be assumed that the original collection contained circa one hundred of musical sources. However, only a small part of them is known and catalogued. Therefore, the knowledge of the collection remains incomplete and is worth further investigation.

Irène Régine Wieniawska: An Attempt to Reconstruct the Life and Work of the Composer

Irène Régine Jessy Maria Wieniawska was born on 16th May 1879 in Brussels as the youngest child of an outstanding Polish violinist and composer of the 19th century, Henryk Wieniawski, and Isabelle Bessie Hampton-Wieniawska. As the only one of Wieniawski’s children, she followed the footsteps of her father and chose the profession of a musician. This work brings focus to the lesser known facts from the composer’s life, which greatly impacted the formation of her creative character, including the fact that Irène Wieniawska used a considerable number of pseudonyms, which allowed her to keep her anonymity and therefore resulted in part of her work to be forgotten for many years. As in several cases of other female composers of the early 20th century, the name Wieniawska is currently poorly recognised, even though she was a known composer and performer in London between the years 1900–1932. Wieniawska’s songs were very popular, and her creative legacy remains equally interesting, which I would like to draw attention to in my paper and discuss the latest catalogue of her works, developed by me.

The Activity of the Symphony Orchestra in Litzmannstadt Ghetto (1940–1944)

The article presents the activity of the symphony orchestra in Litzmannstadt Ghetto, existing in Łódź in the years 1940–1944. It was the first and longestrunning camp of this type in Poland, with over 200,000 Jews from the Wartheland and Western Europe. There, the orchestra consisting of fortyfour musicians was functioning. It employed the artists associated with Łódź Symphony Orchestra before the war, and from 1941 its musicians also performed under that name.

The aim of the article is to familiarise the audience with the history of Litzmannstadt Ghetto and, above all, to present the music that was heard by the imprisoned community. During World War II, the ghetto was the only place in Łódź where culture and art had any chance to develop. The musicians could legally conduct cultural activities while being  subject to strict censorship of Judenrat. Teodor Ryder, a pianist, conductor, organiser and promoter of musical life, was the person responsible for the selection of the repertoire for the orchestra was. Starting from March 1941, the House of Culture, located at 3 Krawiecka Street, was its official seat. The events taking place there gathered crowds – only during the first year of the activity of the orchestra, around seventy thousand listeners were present at the concerts.

The Sketch on the Issue of Determinism and Indeterminism in Music of the 2nd Half of the 20th Century in the Context of Transformation of the Academic and Philosophical Thought

In the second half of the 20th century, integral serialism and rational way of thinking were considered as an indicate of determinism in music. At the same time, indeterminism was associated with the music composed with the use of chance operations, classified like that by Henri Pousseur in his reading entitled Theorie und Praxis in der neusten Musik, delivered in Darmstadt in 1958. However, certain music pieces show that the demarcation between determinism and indeterminism in music remains unclear. The author attempts to outline the problem of determinism and indeterminism in avant-garde music of the second half of the 20th century, taking into consideration selected crucial compositions and the context of development in science and philosophy of that time.

Tadeusz Kocyba’s Music for Porwanie Baltazara Gąbki TV series

The article presents the synthetic analysis of the soundtrack of Tadeusz Kocyba (1933–2007) for the 13-episode series titled Porwanie Baltazara Gąbki [The Abduction of Balthazar Sponge] (1969–1970, dir. by W. Nehrebecki, A. Ledwig, E. Wątor, J. Byrdy and al., Animation Films Studio in Bielsko-Biała). The soundtrack is analysed in the strict context of the film narration and the visual layer of the movies in order to present the composer’s strategies in terms of instrumentation, musical implication of emotions dictated by the plot, illustrative music, creating of the characteristics of places, using of the leitmotivs. Among the features that are characteristic for the soundtrack of this series there is the significant meaning and construction of the themes that are connected with the figure of the antagonist, referring twice to the musical identification of the existing region (theme song – Krakowiak dance and the quotation from the St Mary’s Trumpet Call), the lack of concentration on shaping of the clear themes, high diversity of the musical line, the lack of mickey-mousing and the special position of two instruments: clarinet and jonika, which have various functions.

More Than Just a Background: The Music of Paweł Mykietyn in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Theatre

The article is devoted to the role and functions of Paweł Mykietyn’s music in the theatre of Krzysztof Warlikowski. The modified version of music classification in the theatre proposed by Patrice Pavis serves as a starting point for the considerations. Providing the examples of certain performances, I describe each function as well as the characteristics of Paweł Mykietyn’s theatrical music. It turns out that in the case of Warlikowski’s theatre one cannot see music as an addition – music is an inseparable element in the process of establishing the meanings in each staging.