Characteristics of the Neoclassical Style in the Sonata for Organ by Tadeusz Paciorkiewicz

The aim of this study was to describe the structure of the organ Sonata by Tadeusz Paciorkiewicz and to show its Neoclassical features. For this purpose, the main elements of the piece were described, such as: form, melody, texture, harmony, rhythm, tempo and timbre. Despite the typical Neoclassical elements, the presence of the Romantic elements in the piece was also stated, which is typical of Paciorkiewicz's aesthetics.

Leonard Bernstein’s Testament — The Unanswered Question in the Light of Conducting Issues

In 1973, Leonard Bernstein gave a series of six lectures at Harvard University, entitled The Unanswered Question: Six talks at Harvard. This interdisciplinary course, drawing on Noam Chomsky's theory of transformational-generative grammar, presented an original conception of music as a universal language based on tonality and outlined the history of its development, concluding with Bernstein’s personal credo regarding its future. The argumentation used, although encompassing fields as diverse as linguistics, literary studies, philosophy and art history, was based primarily on musical analyses presented at the piano, supplemented by recordings of the symphonic works being discussed, performed under the baton of Bernstein himself. The Harvard lectures thus represent the summa of his aesthetic reflections and performance experiences, providing a unique insight into his views on music and its interpretation. This paper focuses on synthesising these views, subjecting them to factual verification, and then showing their influence on Bernstein's art of conducting through the example of the recordings used in The Unanswered Question series, focusing in particular on the issue of expression.

Music as an Encounter What is music?

One of the possible answers for this question is that music establishes a specific form of communication, which finally occurs to mean an encounter. How has this conclusion been created and how to justify it? It all comes from the interdisciplinary encounter of different perspectives of academic research. Setting in a relation, and so referring to each other, sociological and phenomenological methods result in discovering music (musical language and style, piece of music, musical thought and process) that is an effect and means of social communication. When providing this statement with deeper insight, one comes to the conclusion that every social communication has an encounter as its basis. Whereas so called 'philosophy of encounter', or 'of dialogue', which grows from the phenomenological radices makes it clear that it is an encounter of the two persons: a dialogue between 'I' and 'You'. The groundwork of this musical drama, like of a drama of any other kind of communication, is the reciprocity that establishes a specific relation. Alfred Schütz called it: 'relation of mutual tuning'. It is a tuning of thoughts and wills of participants of the encounter. This supplies the relation with an almost alchemical power of metamorphosis, making it possible to transform 'I' and 'You' into 'We'. And so it makes a harmony. Conclusions from new academic disciplines remain therefore close to the old knowledge – for Boethius already saw music as harmony. What is music? There are as many answers as perspectives. How to reach the truth then? There is a need for a meeting (sic!).

Rivals [Rywale], or the Burgeois Opera in Kraków: History, Cultural Context, Meaning

During the period of stagnation in Kraków’s theatre culture in the 2nd half of the 18th century, an opera entitled Rivals, or the Tattoo in Kraków [Rywale czyli czapstrzyk w Krakowie] was created by Kacper Meciszewski (libretto) and Zagórski (music; not preserved to this day), unknown by first name. Although mentioned several times in the theatre studies literature, it has not been by far a subject of separate musicological research. This opera is an example of a work that can be described as a 'burgeois opera', i.e. a model of magnate operas, regarding to both theme and structure of the libretto, as well as to musical arrangement, transferred to the middle class standards and entrepreneurial capabilities of that time. Seemingly non-original, secondary and, due to its provincial character, relevant only to the 18th century residents of the former capital city, it seems to have a slightly deeper meaning. In order to understand the significance of Rivals in its full, this article will present the history of the comedy’s creation and staging, an analysis of the libretto and a hypothetical form of musical setting in the context and in comparison with analogous operas of that period. For a better understanding of the title tattoo meaning, the history of its creation and reception as well as the condition of Kraków regiment band will be outlined.

Human-made noise pollutes the Earth further every day. It is important to investigate how that process affects the whole biosphere. I present a symbolic case of the Australian lyrebird, which is a songbird that mimics the sounds of its surroundings. Today its songs sound like chainsaw and other heavy machinery. All animal species are polluted by human noise to some extent. There are many studies about sonic perception in animals, but it seems that this knowledge is still hardly popularised. The phenomenon of sharing sounds between humans and other animals may also be better understood by new approaches to studies on cultural evolution.