The history of Polish Experimental Music by Krzysztof Szlifirski

Krzysztof Szlifirski Polish Radio Experimental Studio; Fr.Chopin Academy of Music

Electro?acoustic music in Poland* Brief history and present time situation

It is rather difficult task to present in short time a history or condition some domain in attractive way. Bombarding the listeners with hundreds facts, names and dates is rather wearisome and causes chaos. On the other hand it is rather doubtful to omit all these facts and names. I will try to present the material more concerning a topic, not chronology, and illustrate it with musical examples.

The first near thirty year period of Polish electroacoustic music is strictly connected with Warsaw Studio. Besides of the fact that the Studio belongs to the radio, the main em?phasis of its ac?tivity was, and still is, the realisation of autonomous musical works. Till now more as 200 autonomous compositions were produced. It doesn't mean that Studio was far from applied music. Several hundreds titles for film, theatre, TV, radio and various exhibi?tions came out from the Studio.

Is there something characteristic, common to the works made in Experimental Studio? It is rather difficult to point out. But essential is the fact of great variety of these works from the very beginning.

Near 1/5 of the works from Experimental Studio were composed for tape and instru?ment or group of instruments. We can find here compositions for tape and piano, harpsi?chord, oboe, flute, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, trumpet, saxophone, violin, cello, viola, accordion, percussion, string quartet, human voices, choir and synthesiser. That is easy to understand composer's interest in such kind of works. It is engaging from compositional point of view and there is more chance for performing. Such piece is often more attractive for listener. The first works that genre in Studio was Echoes II for 2,3,4 pianos, percussion and tape and Antiphons for soprano, tape and instruments by Tomasz Sikorski from 1963 and Music for Magnetic Tape and Oboe Solo by Andrzej Dobrowolski from 1965. This last is an example of homogeneity idea . All sounds in that piece, recorded, transformed and live performed as well come from oboe. Some sound aggregates consist of 30 sounds of oboe. Score for live performer exists for this piece. Here it is to emphasise that 5 scores of music realised in Experimental Studio were published. Compositions for tape and instru?ment (vocal part included) are popular forms and almost every year one or two such pieces come to the stage. Another group of compositions use human voice, treated in various ways. Near 20 such works were realised. Psalmus 61 by Krzysztof Pende?rec?ki is an example of instrumental like treating of human voice. The percusion sounds come from processing explosive vowels [b], [p], [d], [t], [g], [k], tremolo from repetitiv vowel [

Human voice and speech is often used by Euge?niusz Rudnik, especially in his collage like works. He uses often full sentences or words, but by means of editing, repetition and knocking spoken sounds against other sound events, he creates new qualities. Rudnik uses this collage technique very often till now.

? formalist ? improvisator ? visionary Formalist - a composer who possesses a detailed and formalised idea of his composi?tion, usually in form of a score. Improvisator - a composer who seeks the basic inspirations for his composition in a sound material he found and gathered. He often would like to be pre?sented with a collec?tion of sonic events that he could then either accept, reject or modify. He for?mu?lates his inten?tions during the process of rea?lisation. Visionary - composer who has only general idea, outline - or "vision" of the composi?tion. He waits for fulfilment, interpretation or performance of his project, giving performer considerable margin of freedom.

In 1970 situation of every of this composers' type, concerning the then computer mu?sic studio, was different. Compo?sers in these studios, based on mainframes, without hu?man interface, were forced to studying computer programming and defining many detailed parameters. It was the less troublesome for composer-formalist, who assumed such strict?ness. "Impro?visator" and partially "visionary" were rather on weak position. Nowadays even composer-improvisator touching such pro?grams as Max, M or GRM Tools or using digi?tal editing sys?tem not have to be a programmer and his free?dom is not very con?strain?ed. 

Some years ago I held a belief that in art new techniques do not kill old ones and they could coexist. It was probably true in 70-th. Today facts are rather against such mining. Of course, even to day some composers use a scissors for cutting a sound, and all Moog modules to produce it, but contemporary technology of electro?acoustic music is dominated by computer technique. Does however the technology influence and indeed condition the value and originality of a work of art? That is again and again recurrent question. One point of view is that musical idea arises irrespective of the tech?nical means, only its realisation depends on tech?nique. On the other hand musical idea comes often from a gesture, from being in touch with definite instrument, from sound possibilities, and these are closely connected with technology. Where is the true?

Coming to Polish electro?acoustic music - how it looks to day? In 50-th, 60-th, 70-th here was only one full professional electro?acoustic music studio in Polish Radio. Its role in musical life of this country was essential. The Studio organised public concerts of electro?acoustic music, here was rich library of works composed not only in Poland but in the studios all over the world. It was the only place, where composer had to dispose advanced workshop and professional assistance. Here were taught the students of Warsaw Academy of Music.

Electroacoustic Music Studio of Music Academy in Katowice is the youngest one and was founded in 1992. Eugeniusz Knapik is the head of the Studio. Main activity of the Studio is didactic till now. Polish and world electroacoustic music is presented on many concerts organised by all mentioned studios and Polish Contemporary Music Society as well. Peculiar opportunities to every year review the present state of electroacoustic music all over the world is Warsaw Autumn Festival. In 2-nd. Program of Polish Radio, from many years Marek Zwyrzykowski has the program Hortus musicus - hortus electronicus, dedicated to contemporary music and electroacoustic music especially.

Coming to the conclusion it seems that electro?acoustic music in Poland is in good condition - composers want to work in studios, the number of studios' growths, there are courses, concerts. On the other hand from some talks, discussion and own thoughts come some shade of nostalgia to "old good times". May be it has no respect to the youngest generation. But what is the reason such feeling?