Music and Change in the Eastern Baltics Before and After 1989 9781644698952

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MUSIC AND CHANGE

IN THE EASTERN BALTICS BEFORE AND AFTER 1989

Studies in the History and Sociology of Music Series Editor: Olga Manulkina (Saint Petersburg University) Editorial Board: Carolyn Abbate (Harvard University) Lucinde Braun (University of Regensburg) Emily Frey (Swarthmore College) Marina Frolova Walker (University of Cambridge) Boris Gasparov (Columbia University) Christopher Gibbs (Bard College) Ludmila Kovnatskaya (Saint Peresburg Conservatory) Tatjana Marković (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) Klara Moricz (Amherst College) Roger Parker (King’s College London) William Quillen (Oberlin College and Conservatory) Dorothea Redepenning (Heidelberg University) Tim Scholl (Oberlin College and Conservatory) Rūta Stanevičiūtė (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre) Richard Taruskin (University of California, Berkeley) Stephen Walsh (Cardiff University) Patrick Zuk (Durham University)

MUSIC AND CHANGE

IN THE EASTERN BALTICS BEFORE AND AFTER 1989 E d it ed by R uˉ t a S ta n ev i c i uˉte an d M ał go r z at a J a n i c k a - Sł y s z

BOSTON 2022

Supported by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), the National Science Centre (NCN) in Poland, and the Lithuanian Council for Culture.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022936808 ISBN 9781644698945 (hardback) ISBN 9781644698952 (adobe pdf) ISBN 9781644698969 (epub) Copyright © 2022 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved Book design by PHi Business Solutions Cover design by Ivan Grave

Contents

Introduction1 Rūta Stanevičiūtė and Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz Part One: Cultural Encounters and Musicians’ Networking 1. From Ignorance to Familiarity: Lithuanian and Polish Musical Networking During the Cold War Rūta Stanevičiūtė 2. On Forms of Memory and Freedom in Polish and Lithuanian Music before and after 1989 Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz 3. The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom Dominika Micał 4. Rebellion and Identity: A Generational Breakthrough in Polish Music in the 1970s Kinga Kiwała Part Two: The Musical Expression of Cultural and Political Liberation 5. The Idea of Freedom in Krzysztof Penderecki’s Works: From Experience to Expression Iwona Sowińska-Fruhtrunk 6. Nodes and Turning Points in the Life and Art of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki as a Resonance of Polish Politics and History in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century Teresa Malecka 7. The Dimensions of Freedom in Wojciech Marczewski’s Movie Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema and Witold Leszczyński’s Siekierezada (Axiliad): Music Functions in Films  Ewa Czachorowska-Zygor

11 13 45 64 85

109 111

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8. Lithuanian Music in Transition: Independent Festivals of the 1980s and 1990s Vita Gruodytė

165

Part Three: Music and Politics before and after the Fall 9. Disco Culture and the Ritual Journey in the Soviet 1980s Kevin C. Karnes 10. The Ganelin Trio, Rova Saxophone Quartet, and US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s Peter J. Schmelz 11. On the Other Side of Freedom: The Band Miłość and the Polish Yass Scene Andrzej Mądro 12. Critics’ Choice: New Russian Music Criticism and Leonid Desyatnikov Olga Manulkina

219 221

Editors and Contributors Index of Names

335 341

255 296 308

Introduction

The employment of music as a form of cultural opposition and transformative power is a multifunctional process that represents an extension to the thematic and disciplinary borders of the complex relationship between music’s cultural, socio-economic, and political contexts. Yet there is a danger that thinking about music in this way will reduce it to a mere image of said contexts. As Jacques Attali writes, music “makes audible the new world that will gradually become visible, that will impose itself and regulate the order of things; it is not only the image of things, but the transcending of the everyday, the herald of the future.”1 The Baltic Singing Revolution—a “revolution by singing and smiling”2—is a widely known example of an expressive cultural practice that stimulated the cultural imagination and kindled political transformation. Resulting from the Baltic Musicological Conference “Music and Change before and after 1990” that took place in Vilnius in 2020, the present collection of articles is also a part of the joint Lithuanian-Polish scholarly project Music of Change: The Cultural Expression of Liberation in Polish and Lithuanian Music before and after 1989. The collection aims to develop new knowledge and a deeper understanding of the ways in which the musical expression of liberation and musicians’ networks contributed to political and cultural change before and after the end of the Cold War. What has been the relationship between the processes of political and cultural change before and after 1989? In what ways have musical practices contributed to the creation, negotiation, and refashioning of sociocultural identities and fluctuating collectives? What prominent ideas, landmark cultural texts, and influential individuals have left a formative and transformative mark on these processes? To address these issues, this volume provides a transnational study of the impact of musical cultures in the Eastern Baltics—Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Russia—during the period between the independence movement and the transition of the Baltic states into the European political space. The variety of words employed to describe the process of liberation attests to the dramatic expansion of the idea of dissent after the fall of the Berlin Wall:

1 Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 11. 2 Heinz Valk, “Laulev revolutsioon” [Singing revolution], Sirp ja Vasar, June 17, 1988, 3.

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Introduction

from “resistance,” “rebellion,” and “protest” (as a means of combating totalitarian and authoritarian regimes), to “oppositional,” “nonconformist,” “alternative,” “autonomous,” “underground,” to others that cover even more cultural phenomena. When such a multiplicity of concepts is used to discuss the same phenomena, discussion may become confusing, especially when transcultural analysis is involved. While the contributors to this volume share the view that the expression and interpretation of cultural dissent in the countries of the Eastern Baltics was specific to each nation, that is, conditioned by their individual histories, they also agree that there were moments of rhythmic synchronization between the liberation processes of the region’s musical cultures as a whole. Indeed, the contributors to 2018’s monumental The Handbook of COURAGE: Cultural Opposition and Its Heritage in Eastern Europe make a similar assessment of such processes in Communist bloc countries generally and how to approach them.3 They call for the abandonment of a “prescriptive definition of cultural opposition” and argue for “a more dynamic concept which takes into account both the diversity of its meanings in various nation states and periods and the fact that the concept of cultural opposition (and its definitions) is a historical product itself.”4 Drawing on numerous methodologies, Music and Change in the Eastern Baltics before and after 1989 explores the wide range of musical dissent during these years—in terms of ideas and practices. The revised and extended keynote lectures and commissioned papers included here are divided into three parts. The first part, “Cultural Encounters and Musicians’ Networking,” contains articles concerned with a topic thoroughly analyzed during the conference. Thus, in “From Ignorance to Familiarity: Lithuanian and Polish Musical Networking During the Cold War,” Rūta Stanevičiūtė submits that these countries serve as case studies for theorizing musical networking at that moment in history. The two little-studied neighboring countries’ cultures demonstrate how from the late 1970s oppositional musical networking resulted in politically and socially engaged cross-border collaborations between musicians. Building her argument on the concept of transformative contact, Stanevičiūtė reflects on the factors that enabled communication between informal communities in these countries’ during this time of ideological and political constraint; and she further considers how such relationships contributed to the cultural and political

3 Balázs Apor, Péter Apor, and Sándor Horváth, eds., The Handbook of COURAGE: Cultural Opposition and Its Heritage in Eastern Europe (Budapest: Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2018). 4 Balázs Apor, Péter Apor, Sándor Horváth, and Tamás Scheibner, “Cultural Opposition: Concepts and Approaches,” in Apor, Apor, and Horváth, COURAGE, 11.

Introduction

transformation of societies. Rūta Stanevičiūtė argues that exchanges between Polish and Lithuanian musicians revealed to them the norms of each other’s musical cultures. She shows that in the wake of the tensions between the Polish People’s Republic and the USSR—due to the deepening of Polish resistance to its Moscow-controlled Communist government—there were constraints on relationships between Lithuanian and Polish musicians. Yet, paradoxically, these constraints resulted in Polish music critics reviewing and then rejecting their ideologically ingrained stereotypes of Lithuanian culture and, in fact, helping Lithuania renew its own discussion of musically modernity. Through the interactions of the milieus of Polish and Lithuanian contemporary music, the presence of the norms and representations of one culture in the field of the other culture is discussed. Stanevičiūtė shows that the constraints on the informal relationships between Lithuanian and Polish musicians were strongly affected by the political relations between the USSR and the Polish People’s Republic, especially in the wake of an intensification of political resistance to the imposed Communist regime in Poland. In that particular environment, a new view on Lithuanian culture was being shaped in Poland, which allowed Polish critics through music to define a new Lithuanian cultural identity, different from the previous politicized stereotypes, while Polish music and musicology contributed to the renewal of music modernization discourse in Lithuania. Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz’s “On Forms of Memory and Freedom Strategies in Polish and Lithuanian Music before and after 1989” proposes that memory—including emotional memory—consists of an individual’s acts of creative interpretation and resembles a textually layered palimpsest. She argues that the inclination and ability to create memories, whether historical, social, or emotional in nature, is one of the liberation strategies present in Polish and Lithuanian music before and after 1989. Janicka-Słysz attempts to identify acts of memory in the works of Polish (from Krzysztof Penderecki to Anna Zawadzka-Gołosz) and Lithuanian (from Bronius Kutavičius to Onutė Narbutaitė) composers. Utilizing Derrida’s idea of hauntology, she shows that these musicians combine to political ends the old and new values in their compositions. They reinterpret tradition (often in the form of a return to/repetition of past styles). Janicka-Słysz gives special attention to the notion of “reinventing oneself ” through a poetics of lofty nostalgia—a hallmark of postmodern sensitivity. In “Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom,” Dominika Micał examines the activities of the so-called Krakow School of Music Theory, a group of researchers surrounding Mieczysław Tomaszewski, which played a leading role in Polish musicological life during the last decades

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Introduction

of the twentieth century. Its achievements include, among others, introducing the research of relationships between music and other arts, promoting interdisciplinarity, and studying matters outside the purely technical side of music, such as meaning or cultural context. Micał argues that the most important part of its ethos was freedom, understood primarily as freedom from the political context in which they were living and writing, and freedom to decide on what and how to work. They connected the idea of freedom with that of responsibility. Members of the Krakow School of Music Theory accompanied the emergence of new trends in composition not only as researchers, but also as critics, journalists, and teachers. They felt a duty towards the present and future of music and their discipline, feeling that music and musicology can play an important role in social life. Micał centers her article on three cycles of international and national meetings: “Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie” (Musical Meetings in Baranów, 1976–1981), “Wrzesień Muzyczny na Zamku” (Musical September at the Castle, 1984–1986) in Baranów Sandomierski, and “Collectanea. Sandomierz Music Festival and Seminars” (Collectanea: Sandomierz’s Musical Festival and Seminars, 1988–1989). In “Rebellion and Identity: A Generational Breakthrough in Polish Music of the 1970s,” Kinga Kiwała investigates a significant change in the aesthetic paradigm which appeared in Polish music in the mid-1970s. After years of dominating the avant-garde, especially in its Polish manifestation, sonorism, Polish composers started looking to the Romantic tradition. This turn can be seen in the work of middle generation composers, the so-called Generation 33, and appeared in the music of debuting Silesian composers, the so-called Generation 51. However, despite certain common traits typical of the music of the older and younger composers (neotonality, a return to melody and euphonic harmony, a lead part for either lyrical or dramatic expression), significant differences became visible between them, the most important being their approach to national and universal values. In Penderecki’s and Górecki’s work, national qualities seem to dominate (in the form of quotations or musical allusions to a national, religious, or folk ethos), whereas the work of the younger musicians is completely devoid of these. Kiwała asks: Is the “cosmopolitanism” (or universalism) of Generation 51’s music an attempt distinguish themselves from the older artists or is it connected with the place the former derive from (Silesia—a region where many cultures meet)? Is the Romantic tension between the national and universal one of the preeminent culture-forming values of late twentieth-century Polish music (which is, after all, typical for Slavic countries in particular)? Part two, “The Musical Expression of Cultural and Political Liberation,” begins with Iwona Sowińska-Fruhtrunk’s article “The Idea of Freedom in

Introduction

Krzysztof Penderecki’s Works: From Experience to Expression.” Based on the concepts of freedom in Mortimer J. Adler (“circumstantial freedom,” “acquired freedom,” and “natural freedom”) and Isaiah Berlin (negative freedom versus positive freedom), she discusses the application of philosophical arguments to the practice of art. In addition, Sowińska-Fruhtrunk addresses Mieczysław Tomaszewski’s theory that there are four kinds of musical creation: authentic (musica vera), rhetorical (musica conventionalis), hyperbolic (musica convivalis), and panegyric (musica falsa). Sowińska-Fruhtrunk considers the factors that determine a work’s type: the specific moment of creation (determination, historical circumstances), the attitude of the composer, and the aspect of playing with the listener. Authenticity, for example, can be seen not only as a feature of a musical work, but as a predicated on the status and disposition (in terms of artistic and sociopolitical freedom) of a composer. Sowińska-Fruhtrunk goes on to use Adler’s and Berlin’s ideas to examine Krzysztof Penderecki’s three values of “natural freedom”—elevating, supporting, and commemorating—which can be found in his work at different periods of the Polish fight for independence. She focuses particularly on the way a composer’s experience is transformed into artistic expression, and how experience itself can be analyzed sociologically. In “Nodes and Turning Points in the Life and Art of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki as a Resonance of Polish Politics and History in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century,” Teresa Malecka writes about the composer’s attachment to his native country. She problematizes Mieczysław Tomaszewski’s concept of nodes, and argues that the musicologist’s thinking on the relationship between the artist’s life and art can be debated on a number of levels, just as there are many possible interpretations simply of an artist’s life. Malecka proposes that we do not yet have enough distance from contemporary components to meaningful connections between an individual’s life and their art. In her view, it is wiser to turn to a more tangible context—and one of particular significance to Polish composers of the second half of twentieth century: Poland’s place in European history. Referring to George Weigel’s opposition between captivity and freedom—his argument that the freedom achieved in Poland in 1989 was a “final revolution,” in that it was defined by the spiritual—Malecka believes that history transcends politics.5 Górecki’s generation enters the history of music at a time of political crisis after Stalin’s death, a time called “October 1956” in Poland, a moment of a transitory “thaw” that was especially visible in art and culture. Górecki’s debut as a composer coincides with the first Warsaw Autumn International Festival 5 George Weigel, Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism, trans. Wojciech Buchner (Poznań: W drodze), 1995.

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Introduction

of Contemporary Music; and the political and historical events of 1970s (the emergence of the Workers’ Defense Committee, the election of a Polish Pope) are the backdrop to the new style of, and ideas in his art, typified by the preponderance of religious themes and messages. The end of the Cold War and the period of transition from a nondemocratic state to entry into the European political and economic sphere had a stimulating effect on Polish art and artistic exchange with other countries. Musicians were not indifferent to the difficult remaking of Poland at the turn 1990s. In “The Dimensions of Freedom in Wojciech Marczewski’s Movie Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema and Witold Leszczyński’s Siekierezada (Axiliad): Music Functions in Films,” Ewa Czachorowska-Zygor argues that everyday reality provoked questions that, up until that point, had only been in the background; and that emerging new perspectives and possibilities forced artists to redefine basic concepts in both their individual and social dimension. According to Czachorowska-Zygor, freedom was reclaimed as a fundamental category the highest value. Artists sought out the essence of freedom in a variety of ways, often attempting to settle scores with the past. Witold Leszczyński’s Axiliad (1986) and Wojciech Marczewski’s Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema (1990) are two different approaches to the concept. While Axiliad, based on Edward Stachura’s fiction, is about a search for identity and encourages the viewer to reflect upon the internal freedom of the individual, Marczewski attempts to grasp the social dimension of freedom through a protagonist captured by the totalitarian system. In each of the two movies, music plays a significant role, closely harmonizing with the images and emphasizing their ideological messages. Both Jerzy Satanowski in Axiliad and Zygmunt Konieczny in Escape from the ‘Liberty’ Cinema use compositions prominent in the history of music: in the first case Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater, in the second Mozart’s Requiem. Such compositions allow for multiple interpretations of their role in the two films and necessitate intertextual strategies (Genette, Balbus) of reading. To address the first part of the article’s title, Czachorowska-Zygor examines Zofia Lissa’s, Claudia Gorbman’s, and Claudia Bullerjahn’s systematization of the various functions of music in film in order to further interrogate the audiovisual relationship in these two movies, both on the semantic level and, more importantly, on the expressive level. Vita Gruodytė also focuses on the years 1985–1995, but this time in Lithuania—a period of profound and amorphous change in which the country was liberated from Soviet occupation and restored to an independent state. In “Lithuanian Music in Transition: Independent Festivals of the 1980s and 1990s,” Gruodytė explores how creative expression tended to modify the concept of the creative act and the artist’s position in society rather than musical styles or

Introduction

genres. In the 1990s, there was no revolution in music, but music took part in the revolution. Young musicians did not revise their aesthetics: they changed their roles. A wave of independent festivals became a sign of this new political situation. The organizers of the festivals were students and recently graduated composers and musicologists. Alternative festivals, as opposed to institutional events of a similar nature, offered both new forms of contemporary music creation and new configurations of its presentation to audiences. While each festival had its own particularities, they were not in competition with one another; instead, they were a web of artistic activities that reflected the period’s multifaceted palette of creative initiatives. The festivals were primarily interdisciplinary in character and thus artists and their art were brought together in discourse with each other and the audience. The art of festivals adapted to, and mirrored, the political shifts, uncertainty, and sense that something not yet definable was taking place at the time. The collapsing Soviet system provoked the splitting of works of art: they were no longer single and complete objects recorded in a score. Improvisation-based creativity—such as happenings and spontaneous performances and actions— was the ideal means to express the newly born feeling of a need for renewal. The emergence of independent festivals marked a kind of temporal “gray zone” (albeit very colorful) during which the state gradually ceased to be the sole consumer and buyer of art and artists had to start coming to terms with the market. For Lithuanian creators, consequently, time and space became major concerns and they approached artistic material in terms of experience rather than form or content. The third part, “Music and Politics before and after the Fall,” focuses on the revolutionary power of popular music and musical criticism. In “Disco Culture and the Ritual Journey in the Soviet 1980s,” Kevin C. Karnes traces the largely forgotten history of the Soviet disco craze of the 1980s by following the work of one of its pioneering figures, the DJ, musician, and performance artist Hardijs Lediņš (1955–2004). The article documents how, on the one hand, the movement coalesced amidst creative responses to the gradual opening of the USSR to Western popular culture, and, on the other hand, to the unique affordances of local political, social, and technological structures. In Lediņš’s case, the response was also shaped by commitments to an ideal of Soviet socialism that persisted despite the grim realities of Brezhnev-era society. Drawing on archival research and oral history, Karnes begins with the loosely monitored space of the student club at Riga Polytechnic, where Lediņš’s talent and ties to elites enabled him to found a wildly popular discotheque in the 1974–75 academic year, one of the first of its kind in the USSR. Karnes discusses Lediņš’s increasing investment

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Introduction

in a distinctly Soviet form of experimental performance art in the early 1980s, in which—inspired in part by local readings of John Cage—ritualized treks into the countryside became a vehicle for attaining spiritual enlightenment in communion with others. Finally, Karnes considers the ways in which Lediņš’s ritual journeys inflected his disco operation in subsequent years: he reframed his events as experiments in communality—specifically, as means of experiencing, at least for an evening, the enlightening promise of Soviet socialism that the state itself never fulfilled. Peter J. Schmelz’s “The Ganelin Trio, Rova Saxophone Quartet, and US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s” looks at how political history impacts the international exchange and reception of jazz on both sides of Iron Curtain. In summer 1983, the San Francisco-based Rova ( Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voight, and Bruce Ackley) Saxophone Quartet toured Romania and the Soviet Union, and recorded an album called Saxophone Diplomacy; and it also established relationships with musicians that it maintained over the next decade. This trip represented a new, less formal phase of Soviet-US Cold War cultural interaction. Only three years later, in June and July 1986, the Soviet Lithuanian jazz ensemble the Ganelin Trio (Vyacheslav Ganelin, Vladimir Chekasin, and Vladimir Tarasov) made a historic tour of cities, large and small, across the United States and Canada. Producing the first fruit of a cultural exchange agreement cosigned by the Soviet Union and the US the previous year, and an indication of the warming relations between the two countries under Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the visiting Soviets captured the imagination of audiences, musicians, and critics. The trio received often breathless praise about both their innovations and respect for tradition. The tour was, of course, highly politicized, especially around matters of musical style, chief among them contrasting claims about the essence of Soviet and American jazz (most notably, concerning notions of authenticity, freedom, creativity, and conservatism). Utilizing contemporary responses to musical visits in English and Russian, including oral historical interviews, memoirs, and newspaper reportage, Schmelz argues for the importance of the Rova Quartet’s and Ganelin Trio’s tours for our understanding of 1) late Cold War cultural relations and 2) the superpowers’ 1980s improvisational and experimental musicking and politics. In “On the Other Side of Freedom—the Band Miłość and the Polish Yass Scene,” Andrzej Mądro argues that against the backdrop of the harsh, Communist reality of the 1960s, Polish jazz acted as a synonym of independence and modernity. However, he goes on to show that by the 1980s its potential had begun wane as punk rock and New Wave—a manifestation of the social rebellion of

Introduction

the new generation—grew in strength. The Polish jazz scene was dominated by “old masters” like Zbigniew Namysłowski, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, and Janusz Muniak, who increasingly became musical conservatives. There was no “young blood,” and even when there was it could not rise to the surface. This situation began to change after the political transformation of 1989. The most interesting, if also the most artistically controversial phenomenon of music in the 1990s was Yass. As the name suggested, this subgenre of the music openly opposed the jazz canon and the conformist media that supported it. Yass took a stand against sluggish and colorless Polish society, as well as the consumerism marking the early days of capitalism in the country. The movement developed, ideologically and spiritually, out of the free jazz (rather than mainstream jazz) of the 1960s. It was unconstrained by tradition and borrowed from rock, psychedelia, and even performance and Dadaist poetry into its work. The leading group of the genre was the band Miłość (Love), which included such different musicians and personalities as Tymon Tymański and Leszek Możdżer. The band’s legacy is the myth of the idealistic art movement aiming at a true and complete release of sound. Emphasizing the avant-gardism of (free) jazz, it pushed that music to the limit of its potential and absurdity, which in PRL reality would be impossible. Over time, it turned out that the Yass scene was more than just a group of enthusiasts wanting to explode the jazz environment from within. It was an uprising of just a few people, but one that forever changed alternative and independent Polish music. Olga Manulkina’s article “Critics’ Choice: New Russian Music Criticism and Leonid Desyatnikov” is about the music criticism of the early post-Soviet period. “New Russian Music Criticism” refers here to writing that was published in the Russian media from 1993 onwards, initially in Kommersant and Segodnja, the first privately owned newspapers, and then in other publications. Younger journalists rejected the Communist’s dogmatic approach to music and reestablished the prerevolutionary practice of free thinking and writing. Reading pieces on Leonid Desyatnikov, who out of all the living composers of the last three decades has received the greatest acclaim, Manulkina discusses the qualities, difficulties, and goals of this school of journalism. She argues that the New Russian Music Criticism defined itself by debating the work of Desyatnikov and, as a result, constructed the composer as its ideal object. In some ways, then, the new critics developed their theory through Desyatnikov and then believed their aesthetics confirmed when they inevitably found their own ideas in his art. Despite this apparent circularity of thought, music created a space for these journalists to address topics that they were eager to wrestle with in the 1990s: the relationships between the traditional and innovative, the academic and popular, the

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mainstream and marginal, live performance and film music, the highbrow and the nobrow, and so on. As well criticism and interviews written by others, in the article Manulkina also reflects upon her experience as a critic at Kommersant from 1995–2002. Throughout this book, our contributors explore and conceptualize transnational musical collaboration and the diffusion of information, people, and ideas in the Eastern Baltics at the end of the Cold War and in the early post-Communist period. The musical activity of this moment in history shaped the moral and artistic outlook of several generations. The volume sheds light on the transformative power of politically and socially engaged music, and offers a deeper understanding of the social and cultural meaning of the art form as well as of the artistic potential of societies and its impact on social and political change. The editors feel greatly indebted to all the writers collected here, particularly those who offered their expertise during the volume’s preparation. The book is published as part of ASP’s Studies in the History and Sociology of Music series, and we are grateful to the series’s chief editor Olga Manulkina and the press for their commitment and care. We also wish to thank Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak and Evgenia Khazdan, the external reviewers of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Rima Povilionienė for her editorial assistance and Kerry Kubilius and Stuart Allen for their proofreading. This publication is a result of the research project Music of Change: Cultural Expression of Liberation in Polish and Lithuanian Music before and after 1989, which is funded by the National Science Centre (NCN—Poland) and the Lithuanian Research Council (LMT).6 Partial financial sponsorship for the conference was gratefully received from the Lithuanian Council for Culture. Rūta Stanevičiūtė and Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz September, 2021

6 The joint research project DAINA 1 No. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 (Polish part) and No. P-LL-18-213 (Lithuanian part).

Par t One

C U LT U R A L ENCOUNTER S AND MUSICIANS’ NET WORKING

CHAPTER 1

From Ignorance to Familiarity: Lithuanian and Polish Musical Networking During the Cold War Rūta Stanevičiūtė

Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre Keywords: music and politics, oppositional cultural networking, transnational diffusion, Polish-Lithuanian musicians’ collaboration, Cold War, identity (trans)formation

Introduction Since the end of the Cold War, the shift in understanding Communist regimes and comparative research, which placed utopias of socialist modernization in a broader context, has encouraged a more complex approach towards nonconformist cultural actions and oppositional movements in the culture and arts of former socialist countries. When investigating the influence of political reality upon the field of culture, it is worth paying special attention to the attitude formed in the post-Communist rule years, suggesting that after the 1960s, creative freedom in the sphere of music was subject to fewer constraints due to the characteristics of the art. As a matter of fact, in comparison with other art worlds, musicians, composers, and music critics experienced relative freedom in the People’s Republic of Poland and less ideologically motivated control in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. In addition, the musical environments of these former socialist countries were characterized by the variety of unofficial relationships and informal networks, which can be identified and described

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Par t One: Cultural Encounters and Musicians’ Net working

as a parallel reality to official culture. To be sure, in musical cultures since the late 1970s, the intensification of oppositional movements and activities varied greatly from established views on the vertical culture system of a nondemocratic state under strict ideological control. This tendency illustrates the recently consolidated view that neither political nor cultural control over musical life was absolute.1 At the same time, the main ideological conflicts in the field of music were not centered on questions related to the content of the Communist cultural doctrine, but were more concerned with the control of public space. This allows researchers to discover the informal relationships and independent environments, unofficial interpretative communities, and channels and networks of communication as important factors and historical practices of cultural opposition movements. In recent decades, when critically reviewing interpretations of the Soviet era or, more specifically, Cold War processes, researchers of the history of the USSR and the Communist bloc have been intensely debating questions arising around informally related communities and social and cultural networks.2 While these historians tended to focus on the impact of these phenomena on the political and social transformation of individual countries, newer work is more interested in taking a transnational perspective. What determined the communication of informal communities between different countries in the years of ideological and political constraints? How did the exchange of information, people, and ideas between nations take place through informal channels? Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen, who analyzed the specifics of cultural communication and exchanges between Western and Eastern countries which were separated by the ideological tension of the Cold War, noted that the traditional comparative approaches, based on a systematic study of similarities and differences between societies or cultures, were not sufficient. Mikkonen and Koivunen linked the change in the comparative perspective to the concepts of transfer and translation, thus allowing for consideration of how the norms and representations of one culture participated in the field of another.3 1 Cf. Lisa Jakelski, Making New Music in Cold War Poland (Oakland: California University Press, 2017); Anne C. Shreffler, “Review of Recent Titles on Music and Politics,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 60, no. 2 (2007): 453–63. 2 In Lithuania, the most comprehensive research on informal relationships-based networking in the Soviet era was conducted by a team of scholars brought together by sociologist Ainė Ramonaitė. Cf. Ainė Ramonaitė, ed., Nematoma sovietmečio visuomenė [The invisible society of the Soviet era] (Vilnius: Naujasis židinys-Aidai, 2015). 3 Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen, “Introduction: Beyond the Divide,” in Beyond the Divide: Entangled Histories of Cold War Europe, ed. Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen (New York: Berghahn, 2015), 11–12.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

The transnational turn in the humanities has directed comparativists’ attention to trends of a different character. A researcher must now 1) take into account the changes that occur when the norms and representations of one culture are transferred to another culture, and 2) think of these changes as part of a two-way, rather than one-way, process. In short, the history of cross-cultural interaction is a case of simple exchanges, but a complex web of entanglements. The concept of entangled history, or histoire croisée, proposed by Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann,4 suggests another valuable concept—the network. For researchers, the network as a complex system of interactions is the idea required to analyze “transnational social formations [that] are structures or systems of relationships.”5 Going beyond purely transnational cultural interactions, American historian Padraic Kenney emphasized that a more in-depth discussion of the concept of a transformative contact more would produce a more dynamic comparativism. Kenney noted that transnational dissemination was a relatively new field of social research and identified six categories of importance for transformative contact: command, text, legend, pilgrimage, courier, and convocation.6 Significantly, Kenney developed this typology to examine the processes of resistance and transformation in the Communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe through his work on the origins of the 1989 revolutions. The first category, command (or impulse), was specifically explained with examples from the 1989 revolutions; however, the idea could more broadly be defined as a response to political or societal events (Soviet perestroika, as discussed by Kenney, might be supplemented with more examples, such as the Solidarity movement in Poland, the Lithuanian reform movement Sąjūdis, the introduction of the martial law regime in Poland, the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc.). The category of text was associated by Kenney with dissident activities, samizdat publishing, and highimpact publications (such as by Václav Havel’s 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless”) or other highly resonant cultural artifacts. The categories of legends and pilgrimage attended to cultural memory and powerful intercultural attraction exerted by cities and artistic events. Couriers, according to Kenney, were individuals who promoted transnational networking and collaboration, inspired festivals, conferences, and other events (convocations or meetings), and thus 4 Cf. Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity,” History and Theory 45, no. 2 (2006): 30–50. 5 Steven Vertovec, Transnationalism (London: Routledge, 2009), 4. 6 Padraic Kenney, “Opposition Networks and Transnational Diffusion in the Revolutions of 1989,” in Transnational Moments of Change: Europe 1945, 1968, 1989, ed. Padraic Kenney and Gerd-Rainer Horn (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 207–8.

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enhanced the expression of liberation. He argued that every form of contact— command or text, legend or courier, and so on—functioned in two ways: actually and symbolically. For a transnational contact to boost transformation (of a relationship or a self-image), real events, cultural artifacts, or the actions of individuals had to acquire a symbolic meaning. In nondemocratic regimes, every real activity involving transnational networking—“crossing a border, holding a conference, even reading a foreign text or listening to Radio Free Europe”—was a symbolic act that changed the geography of the living world.7 Kenney’s typology was conducive to the discussion of the transnational contacts and exchanges of Lithuanian musicians in the late Soviet era that were forged and developed through informal channels. Steven Vertovec’s argued that transnational exchanges were particularly strongly affected by such relationships between nongovernmental institutions and cultural actors which more fundamentally revealed the nature of cultural transfer and translation.8 Peter J. Schmelz also wrote that researchers had only been interested in intercultural diplomacy and musical exchange developed at the governmental level. More attention, he insisted, must be given to informal relationships between Soviet and Western musicians.9 It was in the late Soviet era that informal transnational contacts became a phenomenon that transformed the self-image and international reception of contemporary Lithuanian music. The institutional structure of Soviet musical culture resulted in a situation where informal relationships and channels were of particular concern to composers and musicologists; they were severely limited by two opposing features of the cultural system—the centralized international dissemination of their works and an underdeveloped institutional network of contemporary music. Drawing on Kenney’s typology of transformative contacts, in this chapter I seek to identify the place occupied in transnational relationships by close neighborhood ties, which have seldom been in focus of international research.10 The informal relationships between Lithuanian and Polish musicians

7 Ibid., 221. 8 Vertovec, Transnationalism, 3. 9 Peter J. Schmelz, “Intimate Histories of the Musical Cold War: Fred Prieberg and Igor Blazhkov’s Unofficial Diplomacy,” in Music and International History in the Twentieth Century, ed. Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht (New York: Berghahn, 2015), 191–92. 10 In recent years, the theme in question has been especially intensely studied by Peter J. Schmelz. See his Complex Webs: Unofficial Musical Exchange between Russia, Ukraine, and West Germany during the Cold War. See https://www.americanacademy.de/person/peter-schmelz, accessed 9 February 2021.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

at the end of the Cold War have been chosen because during this period they became particularly intense and involved a number of prominent figures.

Command In his 1975 review of the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Krzysztof Droba, a Polish musicologist who had just begun has career as a music critic, wrote: Unlike in the domains of literature, art, or theater, no unique artistic generation emerged in musical life. In the few debuts at the Autumn Festival, I do not find any signs of artistic thinking. After all, the artistic and life experience of professors is different from that of their students. A composer making his debut in the 1970s tends to forget that. Therefore, his performance is not authentic—he never stops to consider what was said before him or what he himself would like to say. The current year can be called a period of debutant pupils: immature, dependent on others, and false personalities.11 The Lithuanian composer Giedrius Kuprevičius wrote the following about the 1977 plenary session of the USSR Composers’ Union in Moscow dedicated to the work of young composers: Strangely enough, quite a few young composers write very traditional music. In terms of both expressive means and themes, that music does not go beyond the general level of the fifties or sixties. Dry instrumentation, cold academic forms, colorless emotions, and pseudo-philosophical posturing prompt passivity. Surprisingly, after the performance of such a composition, a very young composer comes onto the stage. It recalls the words of Aram Khachaturian at the opening of the plenary session: “Write as you please, use whatever you like, only make us feel that the music was written by a young, passionate, and talented composer.”12 11 Krzysztof Droba, “Z myślą o przyszłej Jesieni” [With a view to a future Autumn], Ruch muzyczny 25 (1975): 15. 12 Giedrius Kuprevičius, “Jaunųjų kūrybos pasiklausius” [Upon listening to compositions of the youth], Kauno tiesa, March 26, 1977. In the review, Kuprevičius noted that, during the plenary session, the greatest attention was attracted by Russian composers’ rock operas and the first

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Warsaw and Moscow represented the axiological poles of Socialist Common­ wealth contemporary music. However, while in fundamental opposition to one another, the musical aesthetics of both cities showed signs of Communist world’s ideological and cultural stagnation. At the time, commentators noted this stagnation and even dated its origins to as early as 1969 through 1970.13 This problem became even more evident between 1972 and 1974: the number of music events and articles decreased, and creative inertia was discussed by critics.14 Sociopolitical processes influenced this sense of cultural torpor: Communist regimes everywhere responded to acts of political resistance (the Prague Spring in 1968; strikes and demonstrations in 1970 in Poland; etc.) with censorship and social repression. Between the 1960s and 1970s in Lithuania, the increased “witch hunt” of political dissidents, the Soviet’s clampdown on the underground opposition of the Catholic Church, and the Russification of culture after the self-immolation of the young dissident Romas Kalanta in 1972 curtailed artistic activity; and after the 1972 resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on literary and art criticism, the policing and censorship of culture only increased. It was, however, during this period that significant changes in the artistic selfimage occurred. A shift took place and green shoots began to appear. Such a rebirth was particularly evident in Lithuanian music. After 1970, Lithuanian composers no longer looked behind the Iron Curtain to find figures of artistic authority either. As in the previous decade, musicians flocked to the Warsaw Autumn Festival to hear newer music—including contemporary Western music—and brought it back with them to perform frequently on Vilnius’s concert stages. This fresh material was supplemented by recordings brought from abroad and foreign radio broadcasts. While many embraced minimalism and European and American experimental music in Lithuania, with John Cage becoming almost a cult figure, others sought to reinvigorate the postwar avant-garde mainstream by exploring the work of the French composer Olivier Messiaen. Thus, Lithuanian composers benefited from a matrix of contemporary international music and thought, and elaborated the trends that interested

use of a synthesizer in Soviet pop music (see David Tukhmanov’s album On a Wave of My Memory (1976). He described them as examples of low music culture. 13 Cf. Jolita Mulevičiūtė, “Atsinaujinimo sąjūdis lietuvių tapyboje 1956–1970 m.” [The renewal movement in Lithuanian painting in 1956–70], in Žmogus ir aplinka XX a. Lietuvos dailėje [Man and the environment in the 20th century. Lithuanian art] (Vilnius: Academia, 1992), 189. 14 Cf. Rūta Naktinytė, “Inertiškumo simptomai?” [Symptoms of inertia?], Literatūra ir menas November 11, 1974.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

them in ways that were significantly different, in form and content, from their Western counterparts. In his monograph on the late Soviet era, Alexei Yurchak proposed that “the West” was a powerful myth that flourished in the Soviet imagination in a variety of shapes and sizes and pervaded both cultural expression and everyday activities.15 Yet, whereas demand for Western goods and their imitations continued to grow during the years of Soviet stagnation, the West’s artistic influence declined. A similar pattern was also present in the Soviet republics. For example, the Russian musicologist Tatyana Cherednichenko wrote about the period of 1974 through 1978 as the real beginning of the 1970s. They were a tectonic break, after which the seemingly undeniable truths established by the history of modern European composition started to crumble. Not limiting her story to Russian music, Cherednichenko called yesterday’s avant-gardists contemporary Sibeliuses (that is, purveyors of dull “avant-garde academicism”) or Kabalevskies (“the garbage of contemporary music”)—while she considered Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, or Krzysztof Penderecki, the inspiration for the Eastern European avant-garde of the 1960s, to have become a prestigious part of contemporary music festivals.16 When critically exploring the changes in the creative landmarks of Lithuanian music during the Soviet era, the composer and critic Šarūnas Nakas aptly noted that “in the 1970s, a natural attraction between several centers developed. They were all outside Lithuania […]—Warsaw, Tallinn, Moscow, as well as Kiev and Riga.”17 Nakas believed that this was for two reasons: first, over the previous decades, no genuine relationships had been forged with the mythologized Western centers, which could have guaranteed the international dissemination of Lithuanian music and due attention to it; and second, dissatisfaction with the “transplantation of fashionable Western styles into the local milieu” and aspirations to “create a full-blooded world of Lithuanian music.”18 However, the

15 Алексей Юрчак, Это было навсегда, пока не кончилось. Последнее советское поколение (Москва: Новое литературное обозрение, 2014), 313–14. According to the author (ibid., 386), the Soviet subject formed himself through the imaginary West. English original: Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). 16 Татьяна Чередниченко, Музыкальный запас. 70-е. Проблемы. Портреты. Случаи [Musical Resources. The 1970s. Problems. Portraits. Cases] (Москва: Новое литературное обозрение, 2002), 9, 17–18. 17 Šarūnas Nakas, “Kelionė be kelio, nes veidrodis be atspindžio” [Travel with no road, because of the mirror without reflection], modus-radio.com, 2002–2004, https://www.modus-radio. com/tekstai/eseistika/kelione-be-kelio/. 18 Ibid.

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“geographic turn” of Lithuanian music in the 1970s was not simply a matter of the transformation of the subjective creative orientations of several generations of composers or restrictions on the more intense dissemination of their music. It is important to note that during the decade, due to the commercialization and export of music by the Soviet, tours by Lithuanian musicians stretched far to the West and East, even if limited by ideological or conjunctural solutions. Indeed, an “asymmetry of perception and interests”19 on both sides of the Iron Curtain was also confronted by those Soviet composers whose music received abundant performances and attracted a strong interest in the West. According to Levon Hakobian, Western critics often expressed arrogant disdain towards the USSR’s nonconformist music festival in Cologne (spring 1979) or concert programs at the Paris-Moscow Exhibition (1979); reviews of Soviet music published between the 1970s and 1980s abounded in banal descriptions and factual errors.20 When exploring what kind of transnational aspirations and relationships were forming in the Lithuanian music scene during the years of the late Soviet stagnation, then, it is useful to consider broader changes in the country’s cultural selfimage. Pierre Bourdieu’s anthropological analysis of conversation is useful for contextualizing the caesura between the Soviet Thaw and perestroika. Bourdieu defines discursive practices as the modalities of different systems of self-image and modus operandi. In the mid-1970s, the outward-oriented discourse of modernization (the search for “windows of ideas,” material with which to revive musical tradition, and new ways to develop the language of music) that was fueled by political liberalization (the Thaw) became exhausted. After Bourdieu, one can argue that from the mid-1970s onwards new music turned inwards and became a discourse of familiarity and took on a “spirit of co-existence.”21 The discourse of familiarity is defined here as an imagined commonality of values, cultural codes, and experiences of the local or native world, which is seemingly taken for granted and does not require further explanation. Such discourse works very like what Alexei Yurchak calls “close communication”:22 the affective “space” of the late Soviet era’s profound intersubjectivity. Thus, changes in artistic, moral,

19 Karl Schlögel, “Places and Strata of Memory: Approaches to Eastern Europe,” Osteuropa 6 (2008), https://www.eurozine.com/places-and-strata-of-memory/. 20 Levon Hakobian, “The Reception of Soviet Music in the West: A History of Sympathy and Misunderstanding,” Musicology 13 (2012): 132–33. 21 See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 18. 22 Юрчак, Это было навсегда, пока не кончилось, 296.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

and social attitudes in the 1970s, as well as shifts in the self-image of musicians, facilitated interrelationships among both Lithuanian and foreign musicians.

Convocation In the 1960s, while appearing more often in Poland under the Soviet Concert Agency (Goskoncert) and the Polish Art Agency (PAGART) exchange agreements, Lithuanian performers would include national music in their programs. It is strange, then, that for several decades after the war some Polish musicians claimed that Lithuanian music was unknown in Poland: “more was known about, for example, Polynesian music than that of neighboring Lithuania.”23 Why it was largely unheard, yet frequently played? Meeting Lithuanians at a Soviet culture promotion event in Krakow in 1975, Krzysztof Droba became the most consistent promoter of the country’s music in Poland. He contended that, until then, Poland’s image of its neighbor’s music had been shaped solely by official exports: At that time, Lithuania only existed in the place assigned to it by the Soviet Union—as one of the republics, it would have representatives at international events, but those often had nothing to do with [Lithuanian music’s] true values. Only people with a “good reputation” were going abroad: officials, the bureaucratic elite, and the presidents of art unions. But no talented nonconformists. In the past, music that had been approved by Moscow was imposed on us.24 In 1975, Droba began organizing independent festivals in small Polish towns (Stalowa Wola, Baranów, Sandomierz). He set them up in order to counter the stiff formality of prevailing contemporary music in Poland and the Polish Composers’ Union, of which he was not yet a member. Until the late 1980s, the situation in Poland was very different to elsewhere in the USSR: despite

23 Alwida Rolska, “A zaczeło się—od Festiwali w Stalowej Woli. Z Krzysztofem Drobą rozmawia Alwida Rolska” [It began from the Festival in Stalowa Wola. Alwida Rolska interviews Krzysztof Droba], Kurier Wileński, November 27, 1990, 6. 24 Łukasz Tischner, “Naujasis romantizmas, Lietuva ir kontrabanda. Łukaszas Tischneris kalbasi su Krzysztofu Droba” [The new romanticism, Lithuania and smuggling. Łukasz Tischner interviews Krzysztof Droba], in Krzysztof Droba, Susitikimai su Lietuva [Meetings with Lithuania], ed. Rūta Stanevičiūtė (Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademija, 2018), 7.

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ideological and administrative control, organizations outside the official network of cultural institutions could operate freely. For example, the Polish Contemporary Music Society (Polskie Towarzystwo Muzyki Współczesnej)25 continued its work (it was inactive only briefly after the war) and private festivals were held, such as the one Krzysztof Penderecki founded in 1980 and hosted at his private estate in Lusławice. Lithuanian musicians, on the other hand, like their colleagues in the Soviet cities of Riga, Tallinn, or Kiev (which had become the new music centers during the period) could not escape state institutions. However, in the second half of the 1970s local groups of musicians, informally known to one another, began to press for opportunities to perform publicly or arrange events through these exact same institutions, such as official composers’ unions, as well as Komsomol units, schools of higher education, and artistic organizations. These latter spaces, at the edge of official culture, enable the premieres of such emblematic works as Bronius Kutavičius’s oratorio The Last Pagan Rites (the Small Baroque Hall, Vilnius, 1978) and Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa (Tallinn Polytechnic School, 1977). In the late Soviet period, composers and musicologists from Lithuania and its neighbors forged informal contacts in an attempt to distance themselves from the semiofficial life of contemporary music culture and the calendrical rhythm of congresses and plenary sessions of composers’ unions. However, until the mid-1980s, no independent festivals featuring foreign music/performers alongside local ones were held in Lithuania; consequently, one must not make unwarranted claims about the informal life or institutions of contemporary Lithuanian music. Although studies of Lithuanian art in the Soviet era have long since abandoned binaries such as formal/informal or conformist/nonconformist, research into informal relationships does, nevertheless, encourage a critical revision of established conceptions of the application or rejection of these polar opposites. Rejecting the binaries of late Soviet reality (state/society, oppression/resistance, formal culture/counterculture, public/private, lies/truth, conformism/ nonconformism, etc.), Yurchak averred that the apolitical stance adopted by the majority of the Soviet population was a way of “being outside” the system, that is, occupying a space between state ideology and outright dissidence. In Yurchak’s view, this kind of political positioning was typical of the late Soviet period, so the attempt to sidestep the scrutiny official ideology and simultaneously remain invisible to the Soviet system cannot be considered a non-Soviet existence; rather, it was a way to live simultaneously within “non-Soviet worlds” and the 25 The organization was the Polish section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), founded in 1924.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

Soviet system.26 Despite its broad resonance among critics, Yurchak’s concept attracted a lot of disagreement; musicologists also joined the discussion. Peter J. Schmelz, for example, was firmly against Yurchak’s excessively broad and inaccurate late Soviet era periodization (1953–1991), arguing that it did not take into account the specifics of different historical moments and cultural spheres.27 Schmelz also expressed considerable skepticism doubts about Yurchak’s reading of significant turning points in the life of the USSR—his proposal that they demonstrated a dynamic interaction between the stability of the norms, values, and rituals of Soviet life and internal shifts in the system. The transformations in Soviet music, Schmelz wrote, did not correlate with the performative reproduction of the unchanging authoritative forms indicated by Yurchak.28 Be that as it may, the scholarly debate on the impossibility of drawing a clear dividing line between the official and unofficial fields of culture provoked by Yurchak’s book stimulated more careful examination of manifestations of discursive and institutional opposition in different periods of the Soviet era. Without making too many generalizations, I shall note that, in the years of the political Thaw and early stagnation, opposition tended to be looked for in the language of music itself. The institutional context of the dissemination of creation became more important in the late Soviet era, after 1970, as musicians sought to establish a symbolic distance from the formal life of contemporary music. Of course, the divide between formal and informal contemporary music life (especially in Lithuania, with its absence of an alternative institutional network) were rather imaginary modi operandi. However, the migration of public concerts, meetings, and discussions from specialized cultural spaces to (more peripheral) spaces with nonspecific functions, as well as the organization of contemporary music festivals in provincial towns in Poland or Lithuania, were consistent “dissident” strategies.29 As a result, in the long run, it was not only major festivals of contemporary music that became objects of intercultural pilgrimage; their prestige was overshadowed by small centers of attraction, gatherings that were enriched by informal contacts and their existence under the state’s radar. When trying to identify the line between formal and informal musical

26 Юрчак, Это было навсегда, пока не кончилось, 257–58, 399. 27 Peter J. Schmelz, Such Freedom, if Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music during the Thaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 17–18; see also “What Was ‘Shostakovich’, and What Came Next?” by the same author in Journal of Musicology 24, no. 3 (2007): 301–3. 28 Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, 295. 29 Typical Lithuanian examples included the Days of Youth Chamber Music festival organized by the youth section of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union from 1985 on, and other independent festivals held outside of Vilnius from 1988 onwards, etc.

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life in Poland and Lithuania, it is more helpful to look at the difference between censored and uncensored activity. Unlike Poland, where the conditions for uncensored events coalesced in the 1960s and 1970s, a favorable environment emerged in Lithuania only after the announcement of perestroika. Whatever the case, Polish organizers of independent festivals have always said that they were not bound by state restrictions.30

Figure 1. Poster of 1980 Lusławice Festival. Vytautas Landsbergis collection, Lithuanian Archives of Literature and Art

Courier The 1970s press boasted that the Vilnius String Quartet had toured the African continent.31 It was even more impressed by the geographical range of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra’s tours (especially when collaborating with Russian musicians). International critics may have believed that the Soviet 30 Kinga Kiwala, “Dar od losu. Krzysztof Droba w rozmowie z Kingą Kiwalą” [Gift of fortune. Kinga Kiwala interviews Krzysztof Droba], Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 6 (2015): 128–29. 31 Donatas Katkus, “Vilnius groja Afrikai” [Vilnius plays for Africa], Gimtasis kraštas, February 10, 1977.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

regime placed fewer restrictions on music than on other cultural spheres in Lithuania. However, not all intercultural contacts and initiatives proceeded without external barriers. Indeed, informal relationships between Lithuanian and Polish musicians in the late Soviet period grew in a most complicated way. Droba, who was a mediator between Lithuanian and Polish contemporary music milieus, argued that Polish contact with its eastern neighbors always had a political component, since “every [cultural act] was observed and commented upon. The Russian Embassy would protest against totally ridiculous things, thus providing them with the status of political events.”32 Restrictions on cultural cooperation became especially tough in the first half of the 1980s due to political developments in Poland, such as the rise of the Solidarity movement (which prompted the imposition of martial law between 1981 and 1983) and the anti-Soviet position of Pope John Paul II. During the period of upheaval after 1989, authoritarian supervision of the arts was remembered with a certain Romantic pathos (“it was a real underground struggle”);33 documents from the period (private correspondence and archival materials in Poland and the former USSR) testified to quite a number of unjustified prohibitions and restrictions. The 1980–90 correspondence between Droba, Vytautas Landsbergis, and the composer Feliksas Bajoras abounded in considerations about, for example, how to get permission to attend an event or festival, take up an academic visit, or overcome real or imaginary obstacles. Occasionally, even unrealistic initiatives were undertaken. Efforts were made to get Penderecki, who often gave concerts in Moscow or Leningrad, to ask for aid from the chairman of the USSR Composers’ Union and Tichon Khrennikov, the most influential Soviet music functionary.34 Polish musicians’ visits to events held in Lithuania were organized through the Polish Composers’ Union or the Ministry of Culture of the PPR. However, visits by guests had to be approved by the central authorities of the USSR by sending them a personal invitation. Irrational procedures for organizing trips limited Lithuanian musicians to an even greater degree. Therefore, quite a few visits by Lithuanian composers Bronius Kutavičius, Feliksas Bajoras, and Osvaldas Balakauskas to Poland in the first half of the 1980s, as well as excursions by Lithuanian performers and musicologists to Polish contemporary music festivals, took place through private invitations. The uncertainty of the exchange system can be illustrated by the circumstances of the

32 Tischner, “Naujasis romantizmas, Lietuva ir kontrabanda,” 82. 33 Ibid. 34 Krzysztof Droba letter to Vytautas Landsbergis, March 21, 1982, Vytautas Landsbergis private archive.

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Vilnius String Quartet’s participation in the 1980 Lusławice Festival. Although the quartet performed extensively on the international stage and their tour was organized through the mediation of the Polish TVR, the USSR’s Goskoncert refused to officially send the ensemble. A telegram stated that the performers’ were ill.35 Another ensemble, the Silesian String Quartet, was invited to perform a composition by Eugeniusz Knapik, commissioned for the festival, which was to have been played by the Vilnius musicians. However, the Vilnius Quartet, which arrived as distant relatives (“cousins”) of Penderecki, at his personal invitation, were able to compete with their Polish colleagues by also playing the same work. Knapik’s composition, then, received a double premier.36 Censorship, which restricted the exchange of literature, music compositions, and recordings between the USSR and foreign countries, also lacked any clearer criteria. If performances of work by Lithuanian composers were organized through informal channels, it was not always possible to send sheet music or recordings legally. Moreover, because of the political tensions between the USSR and Poland, parcels and travelers were carefully checked: I used to transport books that were usually taken away on the border in Grodno. But that’s not all! After all, there was always one suitcase or bundle that remained uninspected. Those were mostly underground Solidarity publications, books by Czesław Miłosz, Stefan Kisielewski, and the priest Tischner—that was the repertoire of those times. I carried back, for example, letters from Vytautas Landsbergis to Lech Wałęsa. Still, letters were easier to transport, while journals and books were, as a rule, taken away from me. Once I lost an entire year of Tygodnik Powszechny but was allowed to keep [Czesław Miłosz’s] The Valley of Isa because I swore I was taking it for children. The bird on the cover did not look suspicious, and the Belarussian customs tsarina was finally convinced. Records were taken away as well. At that time, it was necessary to have permission to transport each and every cassette.37 35 V. Kokonin’s (Goskoncert) telegram to PAGART, July 3, 1980). Russian State Archive for Literature and Art (RGALI), fond 3162, op. 2, ye. kh. 1462. 36 The composer Eugeniusz Knapik remembered the performances in question as two radically different interpretations. See Krzysztof Droba in Spotkania z Eugeniuszem Knapikem [Meetings with Eugeniusz Knapik] (Katowice: Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Szymanowskiego w Katowicach, 2011), 43. 37 Droba in Tischner, “Naujasis romantizmas, Lietuva ir kontrabanda,” 82.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

Figure 2. From the left Bronius Kutavičius, Donatas Katkus, Audronė Vainiūnaitė, Augustinas Vasiliauskas, Krzysztof Penderecki, Petras Kunca, Krzysztof Droba. Lusławice festival, 1980. Krzysztof Droba collection

In addition to their shared understanding of Soviet censorship, musicians in informal networks also had very similar cultural horizons. Musicians had always exchanged professional literature, sheet music, and recordings—the practice emerged in the years of the Soviet Thaw. In the late Soviet era, however, the culture of sharing took on a greater vitality, yet it had its own specifics. The correspondence of both Lithuanian and Polish musicians, as well as that of musicians from the West and other Eastern European, indicates that it was mainly professional material, literature on art, fiction, and albums that were exchanged. Texts by Czesław Miłosz, Polish émigrés, the Vatican, and periodicals frequently travelled from Poland to Lithuania. It was extremely rare for samizdat or underground literature to be sent in parcels or personally transported, and then only from Poland to Lithuania. However, that did not mean that informal music communities were fundamentally apolitical. On the contrary, it was specifically in the 1970s and 1980s that private correspondence between musicians was replete with ironic commentary on political events and processes, witty observations on the grim reality of stagnation, and insights into societal change. In this respect, the letters of Lithuanian and Polish musicians differed significantly from those written to artists in other countries. The latter generally had to avoid such topics. Their shared moral view of the political and cultural regime was important for the relationship between the Lithuanians and Poles. Mieczysław Tomaszewski,

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the spiritus movens of the Musical Meetings in Baranów and the head of Polish Music Publishing House (PWM) from 1965 to 1988, said that moral choices accompanied every aspect of professional activity: From the very first moment, I regarded the government [of the PPR] as an alien regime. […] I have always been a positivist, and I think that the positivist spirit (which can be said to be typical of Greater Poland) meant acting here and now, in the present reality, taking advantage of anywhere that freedom is possible.38 Similarly, in July 1990 interview, Landsbergis justified the social aspect of his professional career choice: Armed struggle, [postwar] resistance in the forests was over, and a new basis for an honorable life had to be found. […] Another reason [for my choice] was that nobody invited me to join the underground, and I had no contact with the dissident milieu. In the same way I had never been in contact with the armed movement, I was too young. Of course, I knew about that struggle from stories, I knew what it was, but I never really considered participation in underground activities. Quite a few people of my generation stayed at a distance from the underground. During my studies—and those were the years of Stalinism—my worldview was already formed, and I remember explaining to a doctor that, if it wasn’t armed struggle, the only thing that mattered was positive work, organic activity, however, on an individual scale.39 During the political events of the 1980s, most people had to choose whether to move beyond the positivist stance. Thus, for instance, after the introduction of the martial law regime in 1981 through 1983, Polish musicians ignored the public sphere and for some time hold neither formal (Warsaw Autumn) nor informal festivals (Musical Meetings in Baranów); and Tadeusz Kaczyński—notable for

38 Quoted from: Krzysztof Droba, Odczytywanie na nowo. Rozmowy z Mieczyławem Tomaszewskim [Re-reading. Conversations with Mieczysław Tomaszewski] (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, PWM, BOSZ, 2011), 147. 39 Krzysztof Droba, “O muzyce, która pomaga nie kłamać. Rozmowa z Vytautasem Landsbergisem” [About music which helps not to lie. Conversation with Vytautas Landsbergis], Ruch muzyczny 18 (1990): 1, 5.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

his dissemination of Lithuanian music—set up an illegally functioning philharmonic named for Romuald Traugutt. More than one of the Polish participants of the independent events in question lost their jobs, were spied upon, or otherwise persecuted.40 However, from the outset of informal cooperation, political attitudes in antisystemic activity had a greater impact on the commitment of Polish musicians to the development of relationships with their Lithuanian colleagues, greatly enhancing artistic curiosity and the understanding of the cultural mission. In 1988, then, with the formation of the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sąjūdis, the promotion of Lithuanian music in Poland inevitably took on a new political dimension, which was widely resonated in the mass and musical press.41

Figure 3. Poster of the 1977 MMMM festival. Vytautas Landsbergis collection, Lithuanian Archives of Literature and Art

40 Upon the introduction of the martial law regime, the director of the PWM Publishing House Tomaszewski had to go into hiding for a while. In his letters to Landsbergis, Droba wrote about his close colleagues Andrzej Chłopecki and Małgorzata Gąsiorowska having lost their jobs. Cf. Droba, Odczytywanie na nowo. Rozmowy z Mieczyławem Tomaszewskim, 160; Krzysztof Droba’s letter to Vytautas Landsbergis, Kraków, August 4, 1982), Vytautas Landsbergis private archive. 41 In, e.g., interviews of Krzysztof Droba with Vytautas Landsbergis published in the Polish press in 1990. See: Droba, Susitikimai su Lietuva, 37–47.

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Pilgrimage In the mid-1970s, in Poland as well as in Lithuania, new artistic attitudes emerged. Young Polish composers (including the generation of the Stalowa Wola festival: Andrzej Krzanowski, Eugeniusz Knapik, and Aleksander Lasoń) and musicologists were bored with both formal musical life and with the Western postwar avant-garde. New spiritual and artistic authority figures were sought: In the compositions of that time, a sharp turn was made towards those traditional values which had been ousted from music by serialism; the expressiveness and emotionality that had been pushed out by the postwar avant-garde, were restored as integral features of the individual composer’s language.42 Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of the discourse of familiarity, as mentioned earlier, we can see that new kinds of musical organization sprang up. Placing value on community, musicians promoted independent music festivals, meetings, conferences, and seminars in Poland (1975–89) and Lithuania (since 1985). The festivals organized by Droba in Stalowa Wola (1975–79), Baranów (1982–86), and Sandomierz (1988–1989) and the Musical Meetings in Baranów (1976–­81) under the patronage of Tomaszewski brought together several generations of Polish musicians, philosophers, writers, artists, art historians, architects, and linguists, as well as international composers, musicologists, and performers. The need for the heat of artistic experience43 and an intense intellectual discourse brought together spontaneously emerging communities. According to Knapik, these events could never have lasted more than a few years because “the intensity, temperature, the heat of meetings with art, and the almost vertigo-inducing intellectual debate and interaction could not be sustained for a longer period of time. Such creative tension cannot last long.”44 Back in 1977, Zygmunt Mycielski, a Polish composer and music critic, openly stated the ambition of the meetings:

42 Ibid., 189. 43 Interview with Krzysztof Droba, Warsaw, April 26, 2017. Droba’s arguments make it possible to revise Yurchak’s contention that intense personal communication was a form of antisystemic social connection and intersubjectivity in the USSR. Cf. Юрчак, Это было навсегда, пока не кончилось, 299. 44 Quoted in Droba, Spotkania z Eugeniuszem Knapikem, 42.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

We have always been looking for what will be said about art (and about us) somewhere else. Darmstadt is already out of fashion; however, there are still Paris IRCAM, Royan, Graz, and so many other places. Isn’t it high time that an opinion was born with us—maybe in Baranów?45

Figure 4. From the left: in the center Elżbieta Penderecka, Krzysztof Penderecki, Vytautas Landsbergis, Krzysztof Droba, Bronius Kutavičius. Baranów festival, 1980. Krzysztof Droba collection

When talking about the festivals that became places for independent artistic life, their participants often remembered the atmosphere of freedom, spontaneity, enthusiasm, and intensity, as well as the unusual nature of the events.46 The events were also very different from typical contemporary music festivals and their concert programs. That said, while one of the main purposes of the Stalowa Wola festival was to give exposure to young composers, it also included twentieth century work and even that of previous epochs: Polish music from Stanisław Moniuszko to Witold Lutosławski; Arcangelo Corelli; Johann Sebastian Bach; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Johannes Brahms; Richard Strauss; Igor Stravinsky, 45 Quoted in Vytautas Landsbergis, “Baranovas—dvasia ir apraiškos” [Baranów—spirit and manifestations], in Geresnės muzikos troškimas [The desire for better music] (Vilnius: Vaga, 1990), 325. 46 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Wspominając” [Looking back], Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 6 (2015): 153.

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Alexander Scriabin; and Charles Ives; not to mention Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and Bronius Kutavičius. Figures of authority and sources of creative freedom were sought not merely in the music of artist’s own generation. Lithuanian music, which had unexpectedly become more open, was an inspiration—the work of Kutavičius, for example. In 1979, at the fourth MMMM (Młodzi Muzycy Młodemu Miastu)47 festival that was devoted to his music, Kutavičius’s Sonata for Piano (1975), Perpetuum mobile for Cello and Piano (1979; dedicated to the festival), String Quartet no. 1 (1971), Clocks of the Past for String Quartet and Guitar (1977), and Two Birds in the Shade of the Woods for Voice and Instruments (1978) were played by Polish and Lithuanian performers: cellist Kazimierz Pyżik, pianist Halina Kochan, singer Giedrė Kaukaitė, the Vilnius String Quartet, and guitarist Krzysztof Sadłowki. The festival was reviewed by influential critics, including current and future members of the Warsaw Autumn program committee Tadeusz Kaczyński and Olgierd Pisarenko. Kutavičius was described as the most original Lithuanian composer of the time.

Figure 5. From the left: Krzysztof Sadłowki, Bronius Kutavičius, Halina Kochan, Audronė Vainiūnaitė, Giedrė Kaukaitė. MMMM (Młodzi Muzycy Młodemu Miastu) festival, Stalowa Wola, 1979. Krzysztof Droba collection

47 MMMM (Young Musicians for the Young Town) festival in Stalowa Wola (1975–79).

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

The first performances at Stalowa Wola opened the door to nonconformist festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz for Lithuanian music and musicians. Among them were the private music festivals of Penderecki in Lusławice. There, in 1980, an overview of new Lithuanian music started with Kutavičius’s Anno cum Tettigonia for String Quartet (1980), specially commissioned for the festival, followed by Bajoras’s Triptych for Voice and Piano (1982), and Balakauskas’s Spengla-Ūla for Strings (1984), also commissioned for the festival. Over more than a decade, three generations of Lithuanian composers and performers were introduced to the Polish independent contemporary music scene: from Kutavičius, Bajoras, and Balakauskas to the New Music Ensemble—musicians all brought together by Šarūnas Nakas—as well as work by Nakas’s contemporaries. It was those events in Poland that made Lithuanian music a phenomenon. Its impact was all the greater because of the political upheaval at the time. In recent discussions about independent music festivals in Poland, historians have emphasized their political dimension and strategies for opposing the official cultural discourse. At the time, however, as their organizers and participants argue, dissent was not a conscious position. They were just “people who lived at that time looked for a shelter, a place, a milieu in which they could feel free and easy.”48 Meetings between Polish and Lithuanian musicians were also a cultural confrontation, useful for reviewing the images created by a shared memory of their common condition and for defining new musical identities. Before 1989, due to censorship, only a few informative articles on the participation of Lithuanian musicians at independent festivals were published in Lithuania; however, even before the political changes, the writing Polish music critics on Lithuanian music became known in the country in informal ways through international recognition and appreciation. Resistance to the official discourse and the imposed political and cultural regime enabled Polish and Lithuanian musicologists to get to know each other and to engage in a more active dialogue in the late 1980s. This is clear from the fact that in those years of political change conferences were organized by Lithuanian and Polish musicologists. In 1989, the first one was held in Vilnius by the musicologist sections of the Lithuanian and Polish composers’ unions;

48 Kinga Kiwala, “Dar od losu. Krzysztof Droba w rozmowie z Kingą Kiwalą”, 118, 124. Strategies of political opposition were more frequently emphasized by foreign researchers. See, e.g., Cindy Bylander, “Charles Ives i festiwal w Stalowej Woli. Inspiracje i spuścizna” [Charles Ives and the festival in Stalowa Wola. Inspirations and legacy], Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 6 (2015): 95–116.

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although, in that same year, the Lithuanian union declared its separation from the central organization of the USSR, which meant that its Polish colleagues, who had originally arranged the conference, had to obtain permission from the USSR Composers’ Union for a joint event in Lithuania. Sent by the Polish Composers’ Union to Moscow, Droba spent a week in the city persuading USSR music functionaries of the benefits of contacts between the “fraternal countries.”49 The Polish Composers’ Union did not participate in the organization of the conference and just paid an honorarium (PLN 125,000) to the coordinator of the Polish participants,50 a sum which was rapidly devalued by inflation. The title chosen for the 1989 conference in Vilnius—“The Music of the Late Twentieth Century in the Eyes of Lithuanians and Poles”—brought together people who had attended the festivals and meetings at Stalowa Wola, Baranów, and Sandomierz, and energized the musicians born of informal relationships to renew and improve transnational cultural exchanges. The thematic guidelines of the annual conferences, taking place alternately in a different country, were developed at meetings and conferences at the independent festivals. The emphasis was to be on common cultural memory and heritage and new Lithuanian and Polish music in their cultural and political contexts.51

Text While describing the generative role of music in the formation of collectivities, Thomas Turino wrote: “music, dance, festivals, and other public expressive cultural practices are a primary way for people to articulate the collective identities that are fundamental to forming and sustaining social groups, which are, in turn, basic to survival.”52 Further, Polish-Lithuanian collaboration and

49 Krzysztof Droba, “Ku pamięci” [In memory], in X Polsko-Litewska Konferencja Muzykologyczna. 14–16 grudnia 2006. Program (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2006), 5. 50 In 1989, during the months spent organizing the conference, the exchange rate of the Polish currency fell several times due to inflation: in March 1989, 1 USD cost three thousand zloty, while in June, it was already eight thousand zloty. The once-impressive honorarium became worth twenty-five USD. See: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989. 51 Over the period of 1989–2010, ten conferences of Lithuanian and Polish musicologists were held in Vilnius, Kraków, and Łódź. The programs of the conferences were published in Droba, Susitikimai su Lietuva, 235–56. 52 Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 2.

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cultural exchange played an important role in the formation and development of oppositional musical expression. The interaction between the Polish and Lithuanian musical communities resulted in numerous landmark compositions, critical texts, and joint cultural events. A significant example of a musical text as a specific mode of transformative contact is the oratorio The Last Pagan Rites by Lithuanian composer Bronius Kutavičius and its reception in Poland. This oratorio, written and first performed in Vilnius in 1978, soon became regarded as a major composition and enjoyed national and international acclaim. Lithuanian musicologists consider it to be the most important piece of music produced in the country in the second half of the twentieth century:53 an “intuitive exploration of Lithuania’s primeval nature”; “the epiphanic image of lost paradise, permeated with Lithuanian longing”; “a musical study of Baltic culture […,] permeated by painful drama of the continuously created, lost, and torn Lithuanian state.”54 In his work, dedicated to the reconstruction of the pagan world, Bronius Kutavičius boldly diverged from the established ways of representing the national past in both Lithuanian and foreign national music traditions. The past was not idealized, but rather represented through a modern feeling of the sublime. As well as reconstructing the imaginary soundscape of the past, Kutavičius achieved the sublime through musical devices used in modern exotica and the “primitivism” of artists such as Stravinsky, Orff, and Bartók; to these were added later musical idioms taken from minimalism, ambient music, and New Spirituality. Thus, the “perfection and purity” of the past were reconstructed in tension, in an inversion of modern pastoralism. This effect was enhanced by a frequently used form of climax, in which the homogenous musical fabric recreating the imaginary past was opposed to a “sign of another world,” often employing allusions to more recent cultural traditions.57 In this way, the downfall of the utopia of the past was coded into the very structure of the piece as a repeating historical trauma. Svetlana Boym’s term “restorative nostalgia” is helpful for

53 In 1997, a poll of Lithuanian musicologists and students in the Lithuanian Music Academy was taken. Kutavičius’s oratorio Last Pagan Rites (1978) was unanimously voted the greatest work by a Lithuanian composer in the last fifty years. It was thought to capture an authentic “Lithuanian sound.” See Daiva Budraitytė, “Geriausi muzikos kūriniai per 50-metį, atrinkti muzikologų” [The best musical compositions of the last fifty years celected by musicologists], Kultūros barai 8, no. 9 (1997): 23–25. 54 Gražina Daunoravičienė, “Choralų bokštai istorinių vizijų skliautuose: modeliai ir metaforinis ženklinimas” [Choral towers in the vault of historical visions. Models and metaphors], in Broniaus Kutavičiaus muzika. Praeinantis laikas [Music by Bronius Kutavičius. Passing time], ed. Inga Jasinskaitė-Jankauskienė (Vilnius: Versus aureus, 2008), 207–8.

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understanding the oratorio The Last Pagan Rites (and the whole so-called pagan oratorios cycle): “Restorative nostalgia puts emphasis on nostos and proposes to rebuild the lost home and patch the memory gaps. [It] gravitates toward collective […] symbols and oral culture.”55 Boym claimed that this form of modern nostalgia “is at the core of recent national revivals”; the motif of return to the origins is escalated here, striving “to restore the old world in all its perfection and purity.”56 Visionary reconstruction of the rise and fall of the ancient Lithuanian world in a minimalistic style explores national history and identity, at the same time suggesting the political connections between the historical past and political present. That is, it addresses questions surrounding the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Sovietization of Lithuania. The Last Pagan Rites was performed at the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music in 1983 due to sustained, informal ties between nonstate actors, and the performance contributed to a reconfiguration of Polish-Lithuanian cultural links and perceptions. The Last Pagan Rites (performed by soprano Mariola Kowalczyk, the Polish Scouting Union Girls’ Choir, and instrumental ensemble, and conductor Stanisław Welanyk) was the key moment in Poland’s reception of Lithuanian music. At Warsaw Autumn, held immediately after the establishment of the military regime and after a year’s break, Kutavičius’s ritualistic composition received an extremely broad reception. The oratorio was enthusiastically praised by Polish critics; after its performance, Andrzej Chłopecki wrote: The Rites belongs to those rare works which, when they appear, change the image of music in us, revise it, and adjust its proportions. It seems that The Rites had to be written by someone, that they waited to be distinctly expressed, and was necessary for our culture. […] After listening to The Rites, the insignificance of many works and their uselessness stands out—the fact that their existence is of little use; true, they were written, yet for no good reason. What are these works about? Perhaps The Rites is not a “festival” piece; however, it illuminated, and even interpreted, the whole picture shown to us during Warsaw Autumn.57

55 Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Boks, 2001), 41 and 49. 56 Ibid. 57 Andrzej Chłopecki, “Jesień odzyskana” [Recovered Autumn] [1983], in Warszawska Jesień w zwierciadle polskiej krytyki muzycznej. Antologia tekstów z lat 1956–2006 [Warsaw Autumn

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According to Lisa Jakelski, “The Last Pagan Rites—the piece itself, and Polish responses to it—also strengthened perceptions of Poland and Lithuania’s national distinctions. Politics and identity would be the axis of the coordinate system through which Warsaw Autumn participants would plot their responses to The Last Pagan Rites in 1983.”58 Indeed, it was Polish music criticism that consistently advocated for the image of “exotic” Lithuanian music influenced by the poets that inspired Kutavičius. The idea of the Lithuanian “exotic” was also taken up internationally: “the new archaic […] reaching out to the origins of the national identity;” “a quest for immaculate culture.”59 The performances of Kutavičius’s compositions, and especially his oratorios, at the Warsaw Autumn (1983, 1990) and Collectanea (1988) festivals marked a significant change in the international reception of Lithuanian music. In effect, as noted above, it went from “unknown” to “exotic.” Although different, these descriptors enabled Polish music critics to define, through music, a new Lithuanian cultural identity that was far removed from the politicized stereotypes of before. According to Jakelski, the revision of Polish-Lithuanian relationships by Polish intellectuals in the 1970s and 1980s was of vital importance in this matter: “Czesław Miłosz was rediscovered; independent press articles began defining Belarussians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians not as enemies, but as brothers that Poland had to support in their struggle for national selfdetermination.”60 Both locally and abroad, Kutavičius’s aesthetics—fashioned from forgotten, lost, and prohibited pasts and histories—provided strong justification for the existence of a politically nonconformist postwar Lithuanian musical mainstream.

in the mirror of Polish music criticism. An anthology of texts, 1956–2006], ed. by Krzysztof Droba (Warszawa: Warszawska Jesień, 2007), 235. 58 Lisa Jakelski, “The Polish Connection: Lithuanian Music and the Warsaw Autumn Festival,” in # Polishness: Rethinking Modern Polish Identity, ed. Agnieszka Pasieka, Paweł Rodak (forthcoming). I am grateful to Lisa Jakelski for sharing her insights from her unpublished article with me. 59 These are Andrzej Chłopecki’s words. See: Vytautas Landsbergis and Andrzej Chłopecki, “Muzikologai Vytautas Landsbergis ir Andrzejus Chłopeckis apie Broniaus Kutavičiaus kūrybą” [Musicologists Vytautas Landsbergis and Andrzej Chłopecki on music by Bronius Kutavičius], Literatūra ir menas, Septmber 11, 1992, 3. 60 Jakelski, “The Polish Connection.”

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Figure 6. Bronius Kutavičius’s oratorio From Yotvingian Stone (1983), performed by the New Music Ensemble (conducted by Šarūnas Nakas). Collectanea festival, Sandomierz, 1988. Krzysztof Droba collection

Legend In 1970s and 1980s Poland, the new interest in Lithuanian music coincided with the rediscovery of the Vilnius/Wilno-born Polish émigré writer Czesław Miłosz), who promoted a multicultural vision of the sixteenth to eighteenthcentury Polish-Lithuanian state and helped spread idea that Central-Eastern Europe was a unique historical and cultural space. This idea was a product of the Cold War invented by the Polish émigré historian Oskar Halecki before the Second World War. In the 1980s, “Rodzinna Europa” (Native Europe), Czesław Miłosz’s major autobiographical essay, first published in Paris in 1959, saw numerous reprints in Poland and was translated into almost all European languages. By the end of the Cold War, this essay and related texts by Miłosz and other Central and Eastern European intellectuals had popularized this notion of Central-Eastern European identity—even in Lithuania, despite only being circulated illegally. Several Lithuanian composers wrote work on the same theme, thereby also contributing to the formation of Lithuania’s Easter European geocultural identity. By the end of the twentieth century, this temporal geocultural identification

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

had been replaced by the assertion that the country belonged politically and culturally to Northern Europe. This idea only lasted a short while too. A provisional list of Lithuanian compositions in one way or another referring or related to Eastern European cultural identity must start with an unrealized composition by Feliksas Bajoras, intended to write a cycle on the text “Dzięcie Europy” by Miłosz in the early 1980s. Later, only a few compositions on poems by Miłosz were composed in Lithuania, but I would also include on the list some pieces on similar texts by Adam Mickiewicz and Oskaras Milašius: Feliksas Bajoras, Dzięcko Europy (early 1980s, unrealized), text by Czesław Miłosz Osvaldas Balakauskas, Tyla. Le Silence for Soprano, Mezzosoprano, Tenor, Bass, and Chamber Orchestra (1986), text by Oskaras Milašius Bronius Kutavičius, Three Sonnets by A. Mickiewicz for Soprano and Strings (1992) Mindaugas Urbaitis, Resignatio for Soprano, Flute, Viola, and Harpsichord (1993), text by Czesław Miłosz Onutė Narbutaitė, oratorio Centones meae urbi (1997); Sonnet à l’amour for Tenor and Guitar (1999), text by Oskaras Milašius Osvaldas Balakauskas, opera La lointaine (2002), text by Oskaras Milašius Most of these compositions were characterized by nostalgia. They revealed nostalgic motifs in contemporary musical works which opposed the utopias of modernity and idealized repressed or marginalized phenomena. In this music, the Other was confronted by modernity and resurrected through individual experience and collective memory. Periods of social crisis, change, or trauma intensified the composers’ aims. As Svetlana Boym observes, “the twentieth century began with a futuristic utopia and ended with nostalgia.”61 The abovementioned works by Lithuanian composers idealized images of the past and lost worlds by way of artifacts and images of local and foreign cultures. Such images might relate to a kind of modern nostalgia, that “reflective nostalgia [which] dwells in algia, in longing and loss, the imperfect process of remembrance. … [It] lingers on ruins, the patina of time and history, in dreams of another place and another time.”62 Boym continues: “it loves detail, not symbol.”63 Lithuanian composers often reverted to cultural fragments from the past, scraps of historical 61 Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, xiv. 62 Ibid., 41. 63 Ibid., xviii.

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documentation, remnants of material culture, direct or indirect evidence, and so on. Commentators often theorize nostalgia and utopianism in culture in terms of temporality: they are processes of identity or memory construction. More recently, identity and memory studies has stressed spatiality and much research has been done the relationship between identity/cultural memory and the “cultural text” that is the city. Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, is one such “cultural text.” Miłosz, among the most distinguished creators of Vilnius-as-text, stressed that a Vilniusite has no distinct national identity since they have a complicated and composite relationship towards Lithuania.64 Another basic feature of Vilnius’s-as-text is that the city is often an object of nostalgia. According to Tomas Venclova, the nostalgia here is multilayered and penetrating all cultural narratives; most importantly, he notes, “this nostalgia haunts not only individuals but whole ethnic and national groups as well.”65 Such a view of Vilnius largely began in the early nineteenth century, when individuals and entire nations or ethnic groups were disenfranchised or expelled from the city. A musical example of nostalgia is the oratorio Centones meae urbi (1997) by Onutė Narbutaitė, which is celebrates a multicultural vision of the capital. Narbutaitė draws on “the Lithuanian language, texts by Mickiewicz (in Polish), Sarbievius (in Latin), and the Jewish poet Kulbak; [and] everything is framed by Milosz’s poetry.”66 The composer’s dedication to her native city was, at the same time, a homage to its multinational identity: When I was reading Tėvynės ieškojimas [Searching for a homeland; Czesław Miłosz], it seemed I was moving in the same direction, to the same point, only from a different angle. My generation is the last which could still have been in contact with the remnants of the mentality of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania through its grandparents. For quite a few of them, Polish was the language of their home and childhood, and there was no contradiction between this fact and their Lithuanian identity. […] For many of my contemporaries, this Lithuanian-Polish (and, in general, Lithuanian-non-Lithuanian intertwining) is hardly perceptible, and I have always found it painful.67 64 Czesław Miłosz quoted in Tomas Venclova, “Vilnius kaip nostalgijos objektas” [Vilnius as subject of nostalgia], Kultūros barai 9 (2009): 21. 65 Ibid. 66 From a text Narbutaitė read at a meeting of Lithuanian and Polish intellectuals in Wygry, Poland, June 1997. Manuscript. 67 Ibid.

From Ignorance to Fami l iar it y

Centones meae urbi, which met with great international interest, was the first piece of Lithuanian music to reconcile the national narrative of the capital city as a symbol of statehood with its multicultural memory. Written at the turn of the twenty-first century, it not only made Vilnius’s lost cultural memory audibly present, but also played a significant role in the mediation of the present and the interpretation of the past.

Conclusion The informal relationships between the musicians of the two neighboring countries, analyzed in this article, opposed the sham internationalism of the central institutions of the USSR and the Polish People’s Republic and their official musical exports. By attempting to establish a distance from the administrative center and the music it sponsored, musicians created an informal contemporary music scene in both Poland and Lithuania: they gathered together outside censored culture centers and formed communities thirsty for intense and productive artistic exchange. Thus, during the Cold War period, Lithuanian and Polish musicians were, effectively, networking. In the Lithuanian music culture of that time, it was an exclusive communion; such informal meetings dissolved entrenched political stereotypes and stimulated creativity by revealing the difference and otherness of the culture of artists’ Polish or Lithuanian counterparts. Padraic Kenney’s analytical approach to transnationalism, adapted for this study of Lithuanian-Polish musical cooperation, showed us that, just as in political and social movements, the impact of networking in cultural domains is determined by its contribution to social and cultural transformation. Not only was the transnational migration of ideas and artistic phenomena important in our case, but so too was the synergistic potential of different cultural perspectives. The informal networking that took place between Lithuanian and Polish musicians demonstrated the transnational competence of both milieus necessary to understand the practices and values of the other culture as well as the political and national self-image. As a result, despite coming from very different cultures, by the end of the Cold War Polish and Lithuanian musicians understood, and were interested in, the traditions and experiences of one another.68 All of this unfolded against the backdrop of political transformations within the Communist bloc. If some musicians were not motivated by events, their political

68 Cf. Vertovec, Transnationalism, 70.

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and social commitment was evident; others became activists and joined the new political movements. It is not possible argue that politics and culture mirrored one another, however. The origins of the cooperation between Poles and Lithuanians were complex and there was a good deal of ebb and flow in their relationship. After the end of the Cold War, the years of transition from Eastern authoritarianism to Western democracy and capitalism reinvigorated the cultural imagination and cultural exchange. Between 1990 and 2004, the experience of oppositional music networks was explored in art and criticism. Since then, and of most significance in terms of Lithuanian collaborations, there have been Polish-Lithuanian musicological conferences (from 1989 onwards) and music festivals of a declarative nature (e.g. the 2000 Aksamitna kurtyna festival [Velvet Curtain] in Krakow). In addition, Polish-Lithuanian musical networks have contributed to broader debates about changing cultural identities in Europe’s past and present.69 This publication has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-LL-18-10.

Bibliography Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Budraitytė, Daiva. “Geriausi muzikos kūriniai per 50-metį, atrinkti muzikologų” [The best musical compositions of the last fifty years selected by musicologists]. Kultūros barai 8, no. 9 (1997): 23–25. Bylander, Cindy. “Charles Ives i festiwal w Stalowej Woli. Inspiracje i spuścizna” [Charles Ives and the festival in Stalowa Wola. Inspirations and legacy]. Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 6 (2015): 95–116. Chłopecki, Andrzej. “Jesień odzyskana” [Recovered Autumn] [1983]. In Warszawska Jesień w zwierciadle polskiej krytyki muzycznej. Antologia tekstów z lat 1956–2006 [Warsaw Autumn in the mirror of Polish music criticism. An anthology of texts, 1956–2006], edited by Krzysztof Droba, 234–236. Warszawa: Warszawska Jesień, 2007. Daunoravičienė, Gražina. “Choralų bokštai istorinių vizijų skliautuose: modeliai ir metaforinis ženklinimas” [Choral towers in the vault of historical visions. Models and metaphors]. In

69 The publication integrates material from the following article: “Lithuanian and Polish Musical Networking during the Cold War: Political Curtains and Cultural Confrontations,” New Sound 54 (2019): 44–67.

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Broniaus Kutavičiaus muzika. Praeinantis laikas [Music by Bronius Kutavičius. Passing time], edited by Inga Jasinskaitė-Jankauskienė, 207–59. Vilnius: Versus aureus, 2008. Droba, Krzysztof. Susitikimai su Lietuva [Meetings with Lithuania]. Edited by Rūta Stanevičiūtė. Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademija, 2018. ———. Odczytywanie na nowo. Rozmowy z Mieczyławem Tomaszewskim [Re-reading. Conversations with Mieczysław Tomaszewski]. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, PWM, BOSZ, 2011. ———. Spotkania z Eugeniuszem Knapikem [Meetings with Eugeniusz Knapik]. Katowice: Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Szymanowskiego w Katowicach, 2011. ———. “Ku pamięci” [In memory]. In X Polsko-Litewska Konferencja Muzykologyczna. 14–16 grudnia 2006. Program, 5. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2006. ———. “O muzyce, która pomaga nie klamać. Rozmowa z Vytautasem Landsbergisem” [About music which helps not to lie. A conversation with Vytautas Landsbergis]. Ruch muzyczny 18 (1990): 1, 5. ———. “Z myślą o przyszłej Jesieni” [With a view to a future Autumn]. Ruch muzyczny 25 (1975): 13–15. Hakobian, Levon. “The Reception of Soviet Music in the West: a History of Sympathy and Misunderstanding.” Musicology 13 (2012): 125–37. Jakelski, Lisa. “The Polish Connection: Lithuanian Music and the Warsaw Autumn Festival.” In #Polishness. Rethinking Modern Polish Identity, edited by Agnieszka Pasieka, and Paweł Rodak (forthcoming). ———. Making New Music in Cold War Poland. Oakland, CA: California University Press, 2017. Katkus, Donatas. “Vilnius groja Afrikai” [Vilnius plays for Africa]. Gimtasis kraštas, February 10, 1977. Kenney, Padraic. “Opposition Networks and Transnational Diffusion in the Revolutions of 1989.” In Transnational Moments of Change: Europe 1945, 1968, 1989, edited by Padraic Kenney, and Gerd-Rainer Horn, 207–23. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. Kinga, Kiwala. “Dar od losu. Krzysztof Droba w rozmowie z Kingą Kiwalą” [Gift of fortune. Kinga Kiwala interviews Krzysztof Droba]. Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 6 (2015): 117–38. Kuprevičius, Giedrius. “Jaunųjų kūrybos pasiklausius” [Upon listening to compositions of the youth]. Kauno tiesa, March 26, 1977. Landsbergis, Vytautas. Geresnės muzikos troškimas [The desire for better music]. Vilnius: Vaga, 1990. Landsbergis, Vytautas, and Andrzej Chłopecki. “Muzikologai Vytautas Landsbergis ir Andrzejus Chłopeckis apie Broniaus Kutavičiaus kūrybą” [Musicologists Vytautas Landsbergis and Andrzej Chłopecki on music by Bronius Kutavičius]. Literatūra ir menas, September 11, 1992. Mikkonen, Simo, and Pia Koivunen, eds. Beyond the Divide: Entangled Histories of Cold War Europe. New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2015. Mulevičiūtė, Jolita. “Atsinaujinimo sąjūdis lietuvių tapyboje 1956–1970 m.” [The renewal movement in Lithuanian painting in 1956–1970]. In Žmogus ir aplinka XX a. Lietuvos dailėje [Man and the environment in the 20th century. Lithuanian art], 128–199. Vilnius: Academia, 1992. Nakas, Šarūnas. “Kelionė be kelio, nes veidrodis be atspindžio” [Travel with no road, because of the mirror without reflection], modus-radio.com, 2002–2004, https://www.modus-radio. com/tekstai/eseistika/kelione-be-kelio/.

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Naktinytė, Rūta. “Inertiškumo simptomai?” [Symptoms of inertia?]. Literatūra ir menas, November 30, 1974. Ramonaitė, Ainė, ed. Nematoma sovietmečio visuomenė [The invisible society of the Soviet era]. Vilnius: Naujasis židinys-Aidai, 2015. Rolska, Alwida. “A zaczeło się – od Festiwali w Stalowej Woli. Z Krzysztofem Drobą rozmawia Alwida Rolska” [It began at a festival in Stalowa Wola. Alwida Rolska interviews Krzysztof Droba]. Kurier Wileński, November 27, 1990. Schlögel, Karl. “Places and strata of memory: Approaches to Eastern Europe.” Osteuropa 6 (2008). https://www.eurozine.com/places-and-strata-of-memory/. Schmelz, Peter J. “Intimate Histories of the Musical Cold War: Fred Prieberg and Igor Blazhkov’s Unofficial Diplomacy.” In Music and International History in the Twentieth Century, edited by Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht, 189–225. New York: Berghahn, 2015. ———. Such Freedom, if Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music during the Thaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ———. “What Was ‘Shostakovich’, and What Came Next?” Journal of Musicology 24, no. 3 (2007): 297–338. Shreffler, Anne C. “Review of Recent Titles on Music and Politics.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 60, no. 2 (2007): 453–63. Tomaszewski, Mieczysław, “Wspominając” [Looking back]. Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 6 (2015): 153–55. Turino, Thomas. Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Venclova, Tomas. “Vilnius kaip nostalgijos objektas” [Vilnius as subject of nostalgia]. Kultūros barai 9 (2009): 22–28. Vertovec, Steven. Transnationalism. London: Routledge, 2009. Werner, Michael, and Bénédicte Zimmermann. “Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity”. History and Theory 45, no. 2 (2006): 30–50. Yurchak, Alexei. Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. Чередниченко, Татьяна. Музыкальный запас. 70-е. Проблемы. Портреты. Случаи [Musical Resources. The 1970s. Problems. Portraits. Cases]. Москва: Новое литературное обозрение, 2002. Юрчак, Алексей. Это было навсегда, пока не кончилось. Последнее советское поколение [Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation]. Москва: Новое литературное обозрение, 2014.

CHAPTER 2

On Forms of Memory and Freedom in Polish and Lithuanian Music before and after 1989 Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz

Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków Keywords: Polish and Lithuanian music, memory, freedom, values

Musica Libera—Musica Adhaerens Poland and Lithuania. As a result of the complex histories of Poland and Lithuania in the twentieth-century, music became a kind of weapon during the two countries’ struggles for freedom, independence, and national identity, and their efforts to transform their social and political contexts. It is worth recalling that in the Romantic era the art of sound became preeminent because, as was observed, its purpose is infinity. Independent musical culture, developing in both countries in opposition to the rules imposed by the authorities, has grown into a symbol of unity in the face of commonly professed, but forbidden, values. Stefan Jarociński refers to the concept of music of a libera nature (free, independent) and music of an adhaerens nature (dependent).1 While studying the attitudes and music of Polish and Lithuanian composers of the second half of the twentieth century, it is easy to notice the presence of these two kinds of music, especially when artistic “minds were captives” of political and totalitarian 1 See: Stefan Jarociński, Ideologie romantyczne [Romantic ideologies] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1979).

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regimes bent on “shattering” their personalities using ideological tools. Until 1989, Lithuanian music—just like the other “Baltic republics” of the time that were enslaved by Soviet doctrine, Latvia and Estonia—was in a bad situation. Poland became for Lithuania a forbidden or rationed window onto the world of freedom. An example of the artistic community of both nations is the Bacewicz/ Bacevičius family, an extraordinary cultural phenomenon. Four siblings, Kiejstut, Vytautas, Grażyna, and Wanda, grew up and shaped their creative personality in the Polish-Lithuanian house of Maria (née Modlińska) and Vincas Bacevičius. Three of them followed a musical path, while the youngest of the four, Wanda, became a poet. The future composers Grażyna Bacewicz (1909– 1969) and Vytautas Bacevičius (1905–1970) were raised in an atmosphere of love for their double homeland, Poland and Lithuania, and devotion to music. Grażyna Bacewicz was initially acclaimed as an outstanding violinist in Poland; but later she became a major neoclassical composer of the “colorful vitalism” trend. By contrast, Vytautas Bacevičius, a composer, pianist, and teacher, does not yet have a clear and distinct cultural place, from both an aesthetic and axiological point of view. He lived in the USA and created a cosmic music concept inspired by occultism, yoga, and New Age ideas. In a letter to his sister, he explained: Well, I am trying to create a new theory of musical creation, relying on the philosophy of Claude Bragdon (an occultist), who claims that music is the most important element in the existence of the Universum […], the product of the constant vibration of the whole universe, generating magnetism, thanks to which the whole universe remains in balance. […] [A]nd since everything has its place in the Universum and its purpose of existence […], Music, as a symbol of the Supreme Thought, strives for the heart and origin of the Universum. […] When composing, I feel as if I was suspended in the cosmic expanses of the Universum, naturally not in the physical sense of the word. Bach supposedly also had this higher symbolic goal. [Bridgeport, March 13, 1960]2

2 Vytautas Bacevičius, quoted in Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz, Vytautas Bacevičius i jego idee muzyki kosmicznej [Vytautas Bacevičius and his ideas of cosmic music] (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2001), 86.

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

Bacevičius’s experimental passion led him to propose a new strategy for preserving the original construct of a musical work: “I gradually and slowly plotted out each musical thought, and thus I was able to record almost one hundred percent of the musical thought. … It is as if it were a movie of music scores” (New York, January 14, 1963).3 The concept of cosmic music referred to the archetypical memory of the unity of the microcosm and macrocosm, the identity of humans and the universe.

Freedom as a Choice The idea of freedom as a choice, including “within a set of constraints,” to use Leonard B. Meyer’s concept of individual style,4 is deeply inscribed in the works of Polish and Lithuanian composers of the second half of the twentieth century. This is due to the countries’ complicated historical and political contexts: artists adhered to values that were “viewed unfavorably” by those in power. Krzysztof Penderecki emphasized in his statements that it was difficult to be yourself in Poland at the time—when addressing issues relating to the sphere of sacrum, for example. Penderecki’s Te Deum, with a quotation from the Polish religious song “Boże, coś Polskę” (God save Poland), was sung (before 1989) in the version “Ojczyznę wolną, racz nam wrócić, Panie” (Return us, oh Lord, our free Fatherland). The performance of the song was a manifestation of the people’s desire for freedom and independence. These phenomena in the musical culture of Poland and Lithuania had an artistic dimension, as well as a moral and social one, and they served to consolidate national identity. The prophetic oratorios of Bronius Kutavičius became representative in Lithuanian music and Penderecki’s Polish Requiem became representative in Poland. The work of these two composers strengthened the yearning for freedom. Rūta Gaidamavičiūtė has written about the Lithuanian KutavičiusBalakauskas-Bajoras trinity: “As creators, they have always been independent and thus in opposition to official culture. With each new composition, they have pushed the boundary between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable: from politically ‘inappropriate’ topics to the expansion of the musical material

3 Ibid., 96. 4 See: Leonard B. Meyer, Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989). In this book, Meyer developed his concept of individual style.

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in the composition.”5 One of the works banned from public performance was Kutavičius’s Pantheistic Oratorio (1970). It “was criticized for its pseudo-innovativeness, pursuit for novelty in the use of nontraditional sound effects, such as clapping, shouting, whispering, and tapping of brass instruments. He was even accused for forcing himself into the Warsaw Autumn festival.”6 In an interview with Vytautas Landsbergis, significantly entitled “O muzyce, która pomaga nie kłamać” [On music that helps not to lie], Krzysztof Droba noted that “The Republic of Lithuania, proclaimed on 11 March 1990, was headed by a musician. I see this as a symbol because the role of music in Lithuanian culture is special. One could even say that Lithuania was reborn from a song: it “walked away.”7 Vytautas Landsbergis replied: We once talked [with Jadvyga Čiurlionytė] about life, politics, and the situation of our nation, and she said words that I remembered very well: “You can do a lot through music.” Through music. Not for music. And the goal of action through music is the goal of the social activist. […] The art of Čiurlionis is a fascinating and enriching phenomenon […] it discovers man and the nation and its possibilities.8 He continued: [P]ure music remained an area inaccessible to ideological control—as long as no guide was found to steer the enemy through the labyrinth of clues and codes. There were no such traitors among us. Rather, we tried not to reveal everything that is in this music. We presented it in a form acceptable to the patron. So that the patron—even if he recognized or sensed that something was wrong with it—could have an excuse for himself. Be it folklore, or realism, etc.9

5 Rūta Gaidamavičiūtė, “Znaczenie i wpływ nietradycyjnego myślenia Broniusa Kutavičiusa, Osvaldasa Balakauskasa i Feliksasa Bajorasa na kształtowanie się nowego oblicza muzyki litewskiej” [The influence of the nontraditional thinking of Bronius Kutavičius, Osvaldas Balakauskas, and Feliksas Bajoras on new Lithuanian music in W kręgu muzyki litewskiej. Rozprawy, szkice i materiały [In the circle of Lithuanian music. Papers, essays, and materials], ed. Krzysztof Droba (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1997), 89. 6 Ibid., 90. 7 Krzysztof Droba, “O muzyce, która pomaga nie kłamać” [On music that helps us not to lie], Ruch Muzyczny 18 (1990): 1. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 5.

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

In this context, music assumed the function of a tool for changing people: the memory of her deepest roots helped to maintain a moral human level.

“National” Products: Polish Sonorism versus Lithuanian Minimalism In post-WWII Polish and Lithuanian music, two trios of composers born in the 1930s marked their presence. In Poland it was Generation 33 (Penderecki [1933–2020], Górecki [1933–2010], and Bujarski [1933–2018]) and in Lithuania it was Kutavičius (1932–2021), Bajoras (b. 1934), and Balakauskas (b. 1937). Despite their different historical and social contexts, both of these groups sought to catch up with the world avant-garde and forge individual styles (contrary to the predicted “death of the author” and the antihumanist work of many advanced artists in the West). In the late 1950s and 1960s, the signature school of Polish music was sonorism—a “Polish invention”—which departed from prevailing approaches to musical composition by prioritizing experiments with sound. Its co-creator was Krzysztof Penderecki, then regarded in the West as a political composer (just as Chopin was in the Romantic era)—the most liberal composer behind the Iron Curtain. He revealed that he was only marking his presence in history. According to Andrzej Tuchowski, Penderecki’s statements were conducive to generating media myths.10 Successive generations discovered a treasury of new sounds, gestures, strategies, and varieties of notation in the scores of the composer’s sonoristic work. Poland was catching up with the world, speeding on the express train of sonorism, and, at the same time, gave the world new sonic possibilities. Bogusław Schaeffer’s Introduction to Composition (1976) was another such store of new compositional techniques for young composers. Sonorism is the best-known Polish musical avant-garde, and it resonates to this day: music written in the country here and now is, to a large extent, post-sonorist or neo-sonorist. Krzysztof Droba writes: “The texture dramaturgy [which distinguishes sonoristic works—M. J.-S.] often becomes a dramatic tale. […] This kind of dramatic storytelling about color with color, about sound with sound, seems to be a specialty of the ‘Polish school of composition’ of the 1960s.”11 10 Andrzej Tuchowski, “The ‘Readable’ and ‘the Writerly’—the Ethical Context of the Art of Krzysztof Penderecki,” in Krzysztof Penderecki—Music in the Intertextual Era. Studies and Interpretations, ed. Mieczysław Tomaszewski and Ewa Siemdaj (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2005), 111. 11 Krzysztof Droba, “Sonoryzm polski” [Polish sonorism], in Kompozytorzy polscy 1918–2000 [Polish composers 1918–2000], vol. 1, Eseje [Essays], ed. Marek Podhajski (Gdańsk and Warszawa: Akademia Muzyczna im. Stanisława Moniuszki w Gdańsku, 2005), 279.

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Lithuanian “freedom” composers learned a modern musical language and a new artistic sensitivity from the scores of works in which Polish composers explored new sounds and shaped new strategies of musical dramaturgy. Regarding Polish symphonic music, Mieczysław Tomaszewski notes: Sonorism emerged especially at moments of relative freedom, as an expression of music exempt from nonartistic duties, devoted to pure performance, music with universal characteristics. In moments of danger and tension, ludic Sonorism became expressive Sonorism. Explosiveness, spontaneity, drama, and power became the features of this Sonoristic expressiveness.12 According to Tomaszewski, the symbolism of expression is clearly visible in Polish “border situations.” It appears in two different forms: allegory and metaphor. Allegory uses the common signs of the conventional language of the national culture; it appeals to the breadth of society. Metaphor, which is less common, concerns individual or archetypical feelings. The casus of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki is pertinent here. Górecki’s creative path has evolved from extensive dynamic music (Songs of Joy and Rhythm, 1956) to music of the semplice e divoto variety, to borrow from Karol Szymanowski’s dictionary of expressive categories. The shift in Górecki’s music was evident in his Refrain for Orchestra (a 1965 work for seventy-six instruments), which, Krzysztof Droba wrote, “represents the creative phase of reductive Sonorism or Expressionist constructivism.” The dramaturgy, in the form of a ternary arch, is constructed in this work thanks to the tension created by bringing two opposing types of clusters into proximity with one another: the whole tone versus semitone. “This original and very simply structured tension of intensity is unprecedented in contemporary music, and its resolution by an explosion of a totally contrasting structure is connected with the intensity of expression.”13 It should be emphasized that Górecki’s “Sonoristic minimalism” had was very much outside the musical mainstream.

12 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Sonorystyczna ekspresywność i alegoryczny symbolizm: symfonia polska 1944–1994” [Sonoristic expressiveness and Allegorical symbolism: the Polish symphony 1944–1994], in Muzyka polska 1945–1995 [Polish Music 1945–1995], ed. Krzysztof Droba, Teresa Malecka, and Krzysztof Szwajgier (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1996), 37. 13 Krzysztof Droba, “Górecki” in Encyklopedia Muzyczna PWM. Część biograficzna [PWM music encyclopedia. Biographical part] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1987).

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

The use of a minimum of means in order to intensify musical expression has become one of the distinguishing features of Lithuanian music. This phenomenon can be combined with the influence polyphonic songs (sutartinės—the name comes from the word sutarti, meaning “in harmony”) on the collective emotional memory, songs characterized by the repetition of phrases, the use of canons in second intervals, or singing in a circle. The characteristic topoi of sutartinės have inspired the imagination of both Bronius Kutavičius, in his pantheistic oratorios; and Feliksas Bajoras, in his quest for a new folklore consisting not so much in quoting the original folk but in inventing new modi or sound scales in the spirit of traditional folk music. For all these Polish and Lithuanian composers, music became a form of speech, carrying—whether emotionally, phonically, or topos-like—not only a more or less clear record of responses to the world and life, but also more or less profound evidence of attempts to touch what is transcendent in human existence. The question of topos-like speech and tradition is also connected with the rhetoric. Kenneth Burke writes: In classical art of rhetoric there existed an appeal to imagination, although the hitherto theory coded this appeal as a persuasion through pathos and ethos (i.e., an appeal to “emotions” and “character” or personality), and that this appeal became a more and more expressive category as “imagination” advanced to be a motivational value.14 Burke emphasizes that contemporary rhetoric “is characterized by a tendency to increase and intensify the appeal not only through the use of current topoi.”15 He adds: The range of meaning of “imagination” is extremely fluid today, it includes that what is visible, tangible, present “here and now,” but also that what is mystical and transcendent; what is purely sensual and empirical, including scientifically close observation—and that what is connected with fantasy (thus also all kinds of intellectual and aesthetic preferences).16 14 Kenneth Burke, “Tradycyjne zasady retoryki” [Traditional Principles of Rhetoric], trans. Krzysztof Biskupski, in Retoryka [Rhetoric], ed. Marek Skwara (Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2008), 84. 15 Ibid., 57–58. 16 Ibid., 84–85.

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After all, there are figures in the beginning—traces belonging to the language and come to the fore in each individual speech. The history of culture is, in effect, a history of such figures—the figures which have organized our thinking.

Systemic Memory Emotion versus number, unrestrained imagination versus system, improvisation versus strict notation, expression versus structure. These are the binaries that, like a refrain, pervade the history of music and theoretical and musical reflection. An important goal in the analysis (the linguistic level) and interpretation (the level of aesthetics) of a musical work is to get to the heart of the interaction between them—the domination of one of the values (e.g., intense emotion over form), the identification of one with the other (e.g., expression with structure), or perhaps one value stemming from the other (e.g., precise notation emerging from earlier improvisation, which is the basis of composition). In the music of the twentieth century, the systemic trend derived from Pythagorean and numerical thinking; and the consolidation of the logos and its structuring and organizing forces was clearly visible. Witold Lutosławski (1913– 1994) is, of course, a representative example of a systemic artist in Polish music of the second half of the twentieth century. He established his reputation as the composer of a two-part dramaturgy that incorporated the perceptions of the listener (a clear form of such a pattern can be found in the arrangement of the second part of Symphony no. 2: part one—“with hesitation”—the phatic function; part two—“directly” affecting the listener) and the harmonic system based on twelve tones. It is worth quoting the composer: “Even the tiniest detail must satisfy the composer’s sensitivity to the highest degree. In other words, there can be no indifferent sounds in music.”17 Lutosławski also emphasized that in order to achieve the goals of “conveying as faithful an expression as possible to everything that comes to my compositional imagination and that corresponds to my desires and tastes,” it becomes necessary to “constantly work on enriching and renewing one’s own musical language.”18 17 Quoted in Krystyna Tarnawska-Kaczorowska, ed., Witold Lutosławski. Prezentacje, interpretacje, konfrontacje [Witold Lutosławski. Presentations. Intepretations, Confrontations] (Warszawa: Sekcja Muzykologów Związku Kompozytorów Polskich, 1985), 154. 18 Witold Lutosławski, “Zeszyt myśli” [A book of thoughts], in Estetyka i styl twórcvzości Witolda Lutosławskiego [Aesthetics and and the creative style of Witold Lutosławski], ed. Zbigniew Skowron (Kraków: Musica Iagellonica, 2000), 21.

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

In postwar Lithuanian music, systemic thinking was powerfully developed by Osvaldas Balakauskas, a composer (best known for his Chopin-Hauer) and theoretician who was interested in discovering both national and universal values. “I like complicated music the most,” he revealed. He added: “Let me make it clearer: complicated, but harmonious. This is where I see the greatest problem of creativity: to express myself as fully as possible, without destroying the integrity of the selected form (in a broader sense).”19 The composer’s aim was to combine alien, antithetical sound components, such as diatonics and dodecaphony in Symphony no. 2 (1979) or in Dada Concerto (1982). Perfection, just like logic in art, should be challenged, Balakauskas argued, continually repeating his compositional credo. He published his dissertation Dodekatonika—“Harmonielehre” in nature—in 1997. In his foreword he explains: “The Dodekatonika is a theory of harmony, presented here as a way of projecting fifths, and at the same time a harmonic system which contains all known (empirical and artificial) systems, while also including some unused system-forming possibilities.”20 Balakauskas’s hoped to create “an analytical apparatus which would allow 12-tone material, among other kinds, to be mastered by means of diatonic systems.”21 Danuta Mirka writes: “The dodecatonic theory of harmony does not […] invalidate major-minor harmonics and other older systems of pitch organization—for example, the modal ones—but only provides an ‘extension’ for them, no less than a consistent expansion.”22 Balakauskas’s works confirm the dodecatonic model of thinking. Balakauskas—contrary to the twilight of harmony predicted by, among others, Igor Stravinsky—developed a harmonic language. He emphasized that the music created here and now needs a new analytical and interpretative apparatus to liberate the methodological imagination and free the process of describing harmonic phenomena from obsolete categories. Balakauskas blends practice and theory, which is why in the years of the “enslaved mind” he was accused of overintellectualizing music. As he explained in 1997: “The idea of dodecatonics—as a method of structurally capturing 12-tone musical material and harmonic systems within its boundaries— came to my mind about 30 years ago, when I found a book by the American

19 Rūta Gaidamavičiūtė, “Mene viskas galima” [In art everything is possible], Literatūra ir menas 12 (1987): 17 (quoted in Rūta Gaidamavičiūtė, “Znaczenie i wpływ nietradycyjnego myślenia …,” 96). 20 Osvaldas Balakauskas, “Dodekatonika” [Dodecatonic], in Droba, W kręgu muzyki litewskiej. Rozprawy, szkice i materiały, 120. 21 Ibid., 159. 22 Danuta Mirka, “Postscriptum: piękno ‘Dodekatoniki’” [Postscriptum: the beauty of dodecatonic], in Droba, W kręgu muzyki litewskiej. Rozprawy, szkice i materiały, 163.

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composer and theoretician Howard Hanson—Harmonic Materials of Modern Music. Thanks to it, I got to know the ‘fifth projection,’ which moved my imagination as a potential methodological instrument with very wide application possibilities.”23 At the Kiev Conservatory, he also developed a passion for Boris Lyatoshinsky’s sound system and numerical ideas.

Emotional Memory In the mid-1970s, Polish music experienced a major shift, which was defined as a “humanistic” or “Romantic” breakthrough. This was the period of important works like Wojciech Kilar’s Krzesany (1974), Penderecki’s Violin Concerto no. 1 (1975/1976), and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Symphony no. 3 (Of Sorrowful Songs, 1976). A new generation of composers, connected with the Young Musicians for a Young City festival organized by Krzysztof Droba in Stalowa Wola, began to gain recognition. When asked what the music at the beginning of the 1970s was all about, Leszek Polony answered: “To put it briefly and concisely: to find the fading, lost sense of music; to explore creative activity and human existence in the world in general; to uncover a glimmer of hope in a chaotic, disintegrated, and apocalyptic world; personal confirmation of obvious and not so new values. We understood all these matters integrally and very seriously.”24 The young Stalowa Wola “New Humanists” or “New Romantics”—Andrzej Krzanowski (1951–1990), Eugeniusz Knapik (b. 1951), and Aleksander Lasoń (b. 1951)—entered this axiological space. It was then that the gradual abandonment of the aesthetics of pure sound and sonorism began. Narrative-harmonic music that synthesized neotonality with twelve-tone material gained ground. What were the characteristics of this musical thought and work? Undoubtedly, it broke with the avant-garde of the 1950s—the notion that music was mathematical and intellectual. Romantic emotionalism was revived and redefined, and intuition, feeling, and subjectivity were emphasized. Further, there was a new interest in the natural and spontaneous. The Stalowa Wola generation returned to what I call, after Mikhail Bakhtin and Roger Scruton, emotional memory,

23 Osvaldas Balakauskas, “Dodekatonika”, 120. 24 Leszek Polony, “O co nam szło?” [What was it all about?], in Przemiany techniki dźwiękowej, stylu i estetyki w polskiej muzyce lat 70 [Transformation of techniques in sound, style, and aesthetics in Polish music of the 1970s], ed. Leszek Polony (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, Sekcja Muzykologów Związku Kompozytorów Polskich, 1986), 73–74.

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

and were inspired by the work of the American prophetic composer Charles E. Ives and his notion of music as a set of values. The author of the unfinished Universe Symphony believed that music in a process of immanent evolution would develop “a language so transcendent that its heights and depths will be common to all mankind.”25 The Stalowa Wola generation’s Lithuanian peers, that is, Onutė Narbutaitė, Mindaugas Urbaitis, Vidmantas Bartulis, and Algirdas Martinaitis, wrote what was called “natural music,” which favored simplicity, tonality, and formal clarity. Reacting against academic maximalism and rhetorical hypertrophy, the Lithuanians wished to express the self. This naturalness—diatonic melody, euphonic harmony, transparent texture, flexible rhythm, and contemplative form—is now a fundamental part of recent music. As Krzysztof Droba argued at the time: When looking through the titles of the compositions themselves, one may get the impression that we are dealing with an ecological club. The experience of a strong bond with nature, a pantheistic approach to nature is accompanied by a sense that contemporary civilization is a threat. […] The authenticity of the composer’s attitude reinforces the specificity of the depiction of the natural world—we have no doubts: through the sounds we can hear the landscapes and nature of Lithuania.26 Czesław Miłosz states: “Art is not born out of dialectical reasoning: it draws on much deeper and more primordial deposits that have been accumulated in man for generations.”27 Below are a few significant excerpts from the writings of the four Lithuanian “Romantics.” • Onutė Narbutaitė (b. 1956): [W]e attach great importance to the relationship between the present and the past. […] Sometimes I think that the nostalgia that we feel so strongly hangs in the air. I do not use folk material 25 Charles Ives, Essays Before a Sonata and Other Writings, ed. Howard Boatwright (London: Calder and Boyars, 1969), 8. 26 Krzysztof Droba, “Młoda muzyka litewska” [Young Lithuanian music], in Droba, W kręgu muzyki litewskiej. Rozprawy, szkice i materiały, 102. 27 Czesław Miłosz, Zniewolony umysł [The captive mind] (Kraków: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1990), 281.

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in composing, but I know that if it was not for that old well with clear water, I would be someone else. There is so much nonsense around, so much flat “art,” “entertainment,” so much haste and brutality—from which a sense of powerlessness and senselessness is born. Who can shout through this noise?28 • Mindaugas Urbaitis (b. 1952): I accept the Lithuanian musical tradition with respect, but it is more of a sentiment for me than a challenge. […] I hold folklore close to my heart—the pure, authentic version—not its transformation by the classics. […] Contemporary music is not a monolith. There has never in history been such a diversity of directions. In some, I see only a perspective sense, e.g., in relation to exotic cultures. European culture is tired and exhausted. […] Music should be more of a ritual, a rite.29 • Vidmantas Bartulis (1954–2020): The past holds far more significance for me than everyday life. The past, i.e., the customs, traditions, religions of the Lithuanian people, its old music, which exhibits affinities with other (e.g., Eastern) cultures. […] What should music be? First of all, music—not a score of notes, but sounds that shape the human spirit. Music should be beautiful, regardless of the horrible and cruel moments which cannot be avoided. […] Each of my new works has its own guardian angel, for example, when I wrote the symphony, it was Zygmunt Krauze and his Piano Concerto.30 • Algirdas Martinaitis (b. 1950): In music, I try to hear as much “nonmusic” as I can. […] Johann Sebastian Bach—it was a great cosmic explosion. Everything that came after him is only a small part of that event. I would

28 Quoted in Droba, “Młoda muzyka litewska,” 105. 29 Ibid., 106. 30 Ibid., 107.

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

like my music to be modest, less external, and more homely. I want it to be close to me. I’m afraid that with my peasant soul I would fall under the wheels of a train and get dizzy when I see skyscrapers.31 Daiva Budraitytė wrote of the above composers that They contrasted official, rhetorical pathos with minimalist narrative, extravagant experiments with simplicity and intimacy, innovative and modernist tendencies with an increased interest in tradition. These were diatonic compositions, gentle in their monotonous rhythm, full of intentional understatement and unspoken meanings.32 The generation in question returned to the idea of naturalness understood as a harmony between man and work. For them, naturalness also meant nonartificiality, that is, truth, the necessity of expressing themselves. “What is told is stored in the memory as past, and therefore possible to repeat (and thus also to develop). At the same time it is perceived as something that is expected, because it is known and remembered, and therefore also belonging to the future,” writes Marek Zaleski in his book Formy pamięci (Forms of memory, 1996).33 Following Zaleski, we can think of memory, including systemic and emotional memory, in terms of creative action and individual interpretation. It resembles a textually layered palimpsest. Memory also means reestablishing communication with the recipient, fulfilling his expectations: it is, after all, “the present of past things,” to quote St. Augustine. Pursuing freedom, independent Polish and Lithuanian music drew upon national memory. I use the word “national” here without any nationalistic connotations. Rather, I use it to describe the system of fundamental properties and values, both cultural and natural, that shape tradition.

31 Ibid., 108. 32 Daiva Budraitytė, “Młoda muzyka litewska w latach 80-tych – i później” [Young Lithuanian music in the 1980s—and later], in Droba, W kręgu muzyki litewskiej. Rozprawy, szkice i materiały, 109–10. 33 Marek Zaleski, Formy pamięci. O przedstawieniu przeszłości w polskiej literaturze współczesnej [Forms of memory. On representing the past in Polish contemporary literature] (Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich, 1996), 77.

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Tradition and Change “Tradition is inherently non-personal,” explains Roger Scruton. “A single person may have habits, but not tradition. […] Tradition creates a context of common expectations against which variations and originality may arise.”34 Representative postwar Polish and Lithuanian music is marked by a clash between, or encounter with, tradition (the spirit of continuity) and modernity (the spirit of “breaking away from”). Krzysztof Penderecki’s music, which addresses themes that fall under the rubric of “being against,” consciously expresses opposition. “Entering the path of avant-garde art,” the author of Threnody and Polymorphia said, “I had a feeling that you can’t tear yourself away from your spiritual roots.” And he adds meaningfully: “Today […] I see even more clearly that only a homo religiosus may be saved.”35 On music theater and the composer’s sense of drama, Andrzej Chłopecki writes: In each of his operas, Penderecki juxtaposes values that have a universal dimension and, at the same time, ones that flicker with contemporaneity. The theatre of good and evil, God and Satan, clarity and darkness, serio and buffo, eternity and mortality, sacrum and profanum, treatise and article, eternal being and earthy existence. Krzysztof Penderecki is a master of combining opposites into dramatic dialogues. Rebelling against his own time, he carefully keeps his hand on the pulse of history in order to be up to date.36 In Lithuania, Bronius Kutavičius was accused by the authorities of upholding the spiritual values of tradition—and the deepest one at that, “praising the past,”37 which is embedded in the genotype of Lithuanian culture. “Every song is like a performance,”38 he proposed. His innovations sought to “generate” music from sacred ancient ritual. This is why Kutavičius’s reading of Lithuanian folk

34 Roger Scruton, Słownik myśli politycznej [Dictionary of political thought], trans. Tomasz Bieroń (Poznań: Zysk i S-ka, 2002), 412. 35 Krzysztof Penderecki, Labirynt czasu. Pięć wykładów na koniec wieku [The labyrinth of time. Five lectures for the end of the century], ed. Zbigniew Baran (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Resspublica, 1997), 40. 36 Andrzej Chłopecki, “Dziesięć spojrzeń na Krzysztofa Pendereckiego” [Ten glances at Krzysztof Penderecki], Ruch Muzyczny 3 (2009), 9. 37 Gaidamavičiūtė, “Znaczenie i wpływ nietradycyjnego myślenia …,” 92. 38 Ibid., 93.

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

music can be described as phenomenological, that is, focused on reading the essence of a thing. We live—as Przemysław Czapliński aptly calls it—in a “volatile” and “liquid reality.” This reality “forces a redefinition of sovereignty: instead of seeing it as autonomy, that is, being guided by one’s own law, it [reality] forces us to understand sovereignty as an ability to participate—to recognize one’s own responsibility for changes in the whole ecosphere and to take part in restoring its self-repairing potential.”39 Let us add that the map in question is, according to Czapliński, performative in nature and development. The same is true of culture: the native space is included in the process of transformation. “We look at others to understand ourselves. We talk about others in order to develop a narrative about ourselves. That is why cultural geography follows the profits from import, i.e., the narratives of otherness introduced into social communication.”40 The meaning of freedom changes: it is redefined and reinterpreted as a culture requires. Ryszard Nycz points to two aspects of culture-creating activity: stabilizing and modernizing, reproducing and creating. These lead to “attempts at typology of cultures according to a dominant pattern: culture focused on continuity or change, cold or heat, clercism [denoting a distance from the world of politics or an attempt to escape it entirely—M. J.-S] or engagement.”41 In postwar Polish and Lithuanian music, we can see this activity. From one phase to the next, the emphasis changes in accordance with the political and social context. During mental and emotional “enslavement” from above, music was an expression of freedom: first “from something” (e.g., ideological doctrine, imposed aesthetics); and then, as sovereignty was regained, “for something” (e.g., selfhood, spirituality, etc.).

The Memory of Values Mieczysław Tomaszewski42 has compiled a list of the lost values that were rediscovered and reinterpreted by composers in the second half of the twentieth 39 Przemysław Czapliński, Poruszona mapa. Wyobraźnia geograficzno-kulturowa polskiej literatury przełomu XX i XXI wieku [A disrupted map. The geocultural imagination of Polish literature at the turn of the 21st century] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2016), 408. 40 Ibid., 11. 41 Ryszard Nycz, “Wstęp” [Introduction], in Kultura afektu – afekty w kulturze. Humanistyka po zwrocie afektywnym [The culture of affect—affect in culture. The humanities after the affective turn], ed. Ryszard Nycz, Anna Łebkowska, and Agnieszka Dauksza (Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich, 2015), 17–18. 42 See: Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Muzyka w poszukiwaniu wartości zasłoniętych i zagubionych” [Music in search of eeiled and lost values], in Duchowość Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej

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century. Below is the list and representative examples of Polish and Lithuanian high music culture before and after 1989. • Subjectivity against objectivity; a defense of music as a manifestation of spirituality and the humanities. Examples: Eugeniusz Knapik, La libertà chiama la libertà (1993–95) from the opera trilogy The Minds of Helena Troubleyn; Onutė Narbutaitė, Centones mea urbi (1997) and Tres Dei Matris Symphoniae (2003). • Truth of expression against depersonalization; a defense of music as an expression of individual subjectivity. Examples: Anna Zawadzka-Gołosz, Mirrors (1999) and Space Suite (2006); Onutė Narbutaitė, Melody in the Garden of Olives (2000). • A sense of freedom against the enslavement of minds; a defense of music as independence combined with responsibility. Examples: Krzysztof Penderecki, Te Deum (1980) and Polish Requiem (1980–2005); Bronius Kutavičius, Last Pagan Rites (1978) and Our Name—Lithuania (2011). • Beauty against tastelessness and the aesthetics of kitsch; a defense of music as an embodiment of the consciousness of the many varieties of beauty. Examples: Zbigniew Bujarski, Musica domestica (1977) and Lumen (1997); Algirdas Martinaitis, Cantus ad futurum (1982). • Subtlety against banality or vulgarity; a defense of lyricism. Examples: Eugeniusz Knapik, String Quartet (1980); Onutė Narbutaitė, Vijoklis [Climber, 1988]. • Catharsis against the poetics of alienation; music as ethics. Examples: Witold Lutosławski, Symphony no. 4 (1992); Vidmantas Bartulis, Requiem (1989). • Values against relativism; a defense of music as a vehicle of ideas. Examples: Witold Lutosławski, Symphony no. 3 (1981–1983); Osvaldas Balakauskas, Requiem in memoriam Stasys Lozoraitis (1993). • The sacred against the profane; a defense as spiritual and religious. Examples: Krzysztof Penderecki, St. Luke Passion (1966) and Credo (1997–98); Feliksas Bajoras, Missa in musica (1993) and Momenti sacri (2001). ***

w muzyce końca XX wieku [The spirituality of Eastern and Central European music from the end of the 20th century], ed. Krzysztof Droba, Teresa Malecka, and Krzysztof Szwajgier (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2004), 34–36.

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

Postwar Polish and Lithuanian music was entangled in its historical and political contexts until around 1989. Composers stressed artistic independence (e.g., Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and Feliksas Bajoras), the courage to be true to the self, and freedom from aesthetic—or worse, ethical—control from above (e.g., Krzysztof Penderecki or Bronius Kutavičius). To call such music “topoidal,” or meaningfully discursive, signifies that despite its diversity the thought or idea (in a word, “message”) carried by sounds and addressed to listeners is front and center. There is a clear movement from expectation to accomplishment. Aesthetically, we returned the idea of the heteronomical, expressive-symbolic, semiotic nature of sounds. There were calls—from a new perspective, not the speculative-intellectualist one typical of the post-serialist avant-garde—for both a renewal of Romantic emotionalism and for an emphasis on the value of feeling and the subjectivity of composer and listener. These calls were made in the spirit of personalism. Polish and Lithuanian composers were deeply convinced that the essence of music does not lie in form and pitch constellations or in providing the listener with superficial sensual pleasure. Instead, it is found in meanings—emotional or symbolic—that go beyond the world of sounds. This publication is a result of the research project DAINA 1 No. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 funded by The National Science Centre (NCN) in Poland.

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———. “Młoda muzyka litewska” [Young Lithuanian music]. In W kręgu muzyki litewskiej. Rozprawy, szkice i materiały [In the circle of Lithuanian music. Papers, essays, and materials], edited by Krzysztof Droba, 101–8. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1997. ———. “Górecki”. In Encyklopedia Muzyczna PWM. Część biograficzna [PWM music encyclopedia. Biographical part]. Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1987. Gaidamavičiūtė, Rūta. “Znaczenie i wpływ nietradycyjnego myślenia Broniusa Kutavičiusa, Osvaldasa Balakauskasa i Feliksasa Bajorasa na kształtowanie się nowego oblicza muzyki litewskiej” [The influence of the nontraditional thinking of Bronius Kutavičius, Osvaldas Balakauskas, and Feliksas Bajoras on new Lithuanian music. In W kręgu muzyki litewskiej. Rozprawy, szkice i materiały [In the circle of Lithuanian music. Papers, essays, and materials], edited by Krzysztof Droba, 89–100. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1997. Ives, Charles. Essays Before a Sonata and Other Writings, edited by Howard Boatwright. London: Calder and Boyars, 1969. Janicka-Słysz, Małgorzata. Vytautas Bacevičius i jego idee muzyki kosmicznej [Vytautas Bacevičius and his ideas of cosmic music]. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2001. Jarociński, Stefan. Ideologie romantyczne [Romantic ideologies]. Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1979. Lutosławski, Witold. “Zeszyt myśli” [A book of thoughts]. In Estetyka i styl twórcvzości Witolda Lutosławskiego [Aesthetics and and the creative style of Witold Lutosławski], edited by Zbigniew Skowron, 15–29. Kraków: Musica Iagellonica, 2000. Meyer, Leonard B. Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989. Miłosz, Czesław. Zniewolony umysł [The captive mind]. Kraków: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1990. Mirka, Danuta. “Postscriptum: piękno ‘Dodekatoniki’” [Postscriptum: the beauty of “dodekatonic”]. In W kręgu muzyki litewskiej. Rozprawy, szkice i materiały [In the circle of Lithuanian music. Papers, essays, and materials], edited by Krzysztof Droba, 161–65. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1997. Nycz, Ryszard. “Wstęp” [Introduction]. In Kultura afektu – afekty w kulturze. Humanistyka po zwrocie afektywnym [The culture of affect—affect in culture. The humanities after the affective turn], edited by Ryszard Nycz, Anna Łebkowska and Agnieszka Dauksza, 7–24. Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich, 2015. “O muzyce, która pomaga nie kłamać” [On music that helps not to lie]. Landsbergis Vytautas in conversation with Droba Krzysztof. Ruch Muzyczny 18 (1990): 1–5. Penderecki, Krzysztof. Labirynt czasu. Pięć wykładów na koniec wieku [The labyrinth of time. Five lectures for the end of the century]. Edited by Zbigniew Baran. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Resspublica, 1997. Polony, Leszek. “O co nam szło” [What was it all about?]. In Przemiany techniki dźwiękowej, stylu i estetyki w polskiej muzyce lat 70. [The transformation of techniques in sound, style and aesthetics in Polish music of the 1970s], edited by Leszek Polony, 63–82. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, Sekcja Muzykologów Związku Kompozytorów Polskich, 1986. Scruton, Roger. Słownik myśli politycznej [Dictionary of Political Thought]. Translated by Tomasz Bieroń. Poznań: Zysk i S-ka, 2002.

On Forms of Memor y and Freedom

Tarnawska-Kaczorowska, Krystyna, ed. Witold Lutosławski. Prezentacje, interpretacje, konfrontacje [Witold Lutosławski. Presentations, interpretations, confrontations]. Warszawa: Sekcja Muzykologów Związku Kompozytorów Polskich, 1985. Tomaszewski, Mieczysław. “Sonorystyczna ekspresywność i alegoryczny symbolizm: symfonia polska 1944–1994” [Sonoristic expressiveness and allegorical symbolism: the Polish symphony 1944–1994]. In Muzyka polska 1945–1995 [Polish music 1945–1995], edited by Krzysztof Droba, Teresa Malecka, and Krzysztof Szwajgier, 13–40. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1996. ———. “Muzyka w poszukiwaniu wartości zasłoniętych i zagubionych” [Music in search of veiled and lost values]. In Duchowość Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej w muzyce końca XX wieku [The spirituality of Eastern and Central European music from the end of the 20th century], edited by Krzysztof Droba, Teresa Malecka, and Krzysztof Szwajgier, 31–40. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2004. Tuchowski, Andrzej. “The ‘Readable’ and ‘the Writerly’—the Ethical Context of the Art of Krzysztof Penderecki.” In Krzysztof Penderecki—Music in the Intertextual Era: Studies and Interpretations, edited by Mieczysław Tomaszewski and Ewa Siemdaj, 93–112. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2005. Zaleski, Marek. Formy pamięci. O przedstawieniu przeszłości w polskiej literaturze współczesnej [Forms of memory. On representing the past in Polish contemporary literature]. Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich, 1996.

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CHAPTER 3

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom1 Dominika Micał

Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music, Krakow Keywords: Baranów Sandomierski, Sandomierz, music summer schools, music networking, music behind the Iron Curtain, Mieczysław Tomaszewski, Krzysztof Droba

Introduction Summer music schools, workshops, and courses seem to have played an important role in the musical life of the second half of the twentieth century, the best known being the internationally influential Darmstädter Ferienkurse (established in 1946). However, sometimes meetings of a much smaller scale and

1 I would like to offer my special thanks to the Archive of the Academy of Music in Krakow for giving me access to the documents concerning the Musical Meetings in Baranów and Collectanea: The Sandomierz Music Festival and Seminars. I am very grateful for the generosity of Stanisław Kosz, senior lecturer at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, especially for opening his private archive and providing me with otherwise inaccessible documents concerning Musical September in Baranów and Collectanea: The Sandomierz Music Festival and Seminars. I would like to thank Lucjan Dmytrzak, Ryszard Daniel Golianek, Violetta Kostka, Krzysztof Kostrzewa, Iwona Mida, Tomasz Tarnawczyk, and Stanisław Kosz, who agreed and found time to answer my questions. This paper would not have been possible without the support of the abovementioned people and institutions.

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

organized only a few times had a major impact and changed the course of music or, in retrospect, can be seen as having contributed to a given change—for example, the Wardour Castle Summer School (1964, 1965) in Great Britain. In Poland, the most important developments in postwar music took place in academies or at festivals. Warsaw Autumn (Warszawska Jesień, since 1956), for instance, saw the emergence of what is known as Sonorism, and New Romanticism and Postmodernism grew out of the Young Musician for the Young City festival in Stalowa Wola (Młodzi Muzycy Młodemu Miastu, 1975–80). However, the Stalowa Wola festival had a companion—if not explicitly named as such—in Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie [Musical Meetings in Baranów, 1976–81], which itself was followed after a short break by the so-called “little Baranów”—Wrzesień Muzyczny na Zamku [Musical September at the Castle, 1984–86]2 in Baranów Sandomierski. After another pause, there was Collectanea: The Sandomierz Music Festival and Seminars (1988–89). All four cycles of events are now regarded as of crucial importance for the development of Polish musicology and music theory in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and they were all connected to another phenomenon: the so-called Krakow School of Music Theory, a group of researchers gathered around the figure of Mieczysław Tomaszewski (1921–2019), a lecturer at the Academy of Music in Krakow and director and editor in chief of PWM Edition (Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne). This chapter aims to present the ethos of the Krakow School of Music Theory as manifested in three of four cycles (taking place in Baranów Sandomierski and Sandomierz) of summer meetings and to facilitate a broader understanding of the cultural memory of these events. My approach combines a survey of materials from the meetings (program books, conference proceedings, organization committee documents, the correspondence of the organizers and participants), reports on the festivals in Ruch Muzyczny [Musical Movement] magazine (in some years written by more than one person), and, most importantly, memories—printed, published as sound or video files, or provided to me by those at the “little Baranów.”

A Brief History The history of the three cycles is connected with three institutions: the Music Academy in Krakow (until 1979 the State Higher School of Music), especially 2 Musical September at the Castle also had two festivals dedicated only to pianists: 1982 and 1983. As they were on a much smaller scale and were focused strictly on master classes, I do not include them in my paper.

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its Department of Music Analysis and Interpretation, formed in the 1970s and headed by Mieczysław Tomaszewski; the Department of Culture at the Tarnobrzeg Voivodeship; and the Siarkopol Sulfur Mine and Processing Works.3 Since 1967, Tomaszewski had been active as a member of the editorial board of the Res Facta: Texts on Contemporary Music journal (today: Res Facta Nova),4 with Michał Bristiger, Stefan Jarociński, and Józef Patkowski. Res Facta published papers and translations of texts on twentieth-century music, always in a wide cultural context. Its aims were, consciously or not, fairly consistent with the new musicology movement in the USA, the idea of intertextuality emerging in France, and other similar trends. These trends included those that opposed positivist musicology and promoted hermeneutics, interpretation, and seeing music as a part of the larger world of the arts, as well as considering musicology and music theory itself as a discipline in the humanities (to put it simply). The journal, even though important, was not enough on its own, as Tomaszewski remembered: Res Facta was published only once a year. But we felt the need for more frequent and closer relations. Especially meetings, when the generation of professors could enter into discourse with the young. We were lacking something like generational relay.5 Krzysztof Droba (1946–2017), then a young lecturer at the Krakow Academy and a member of the Department of Music Analysis and Interpretation, was in contact with Anna Kochan from the Department of Culture, as they collaborated in organizing the Young Musician for the Young City festival in Stalowa Wola. Kochan had informed Droba that Baranów Sandomierski Castle—a beautiful Mannerist building in a park about 150 kilometers from Krakow— was empty and available for artistic events. As Joanna Wnuk-Nazarowa recollected in 1995: The genesis [of the festival] itself is a story about finding the good Communists and how to—with their help, with their money—create an arcadia, which would bear fruit for many, 3 Later, Collectanea was funded by the Window Glass Factory in Sandomierz and the Agricultural, Industrial, and Commercial Works in Dwikozy. 4 Res Facta Nova, http://www.resfactanova.pl/pismo.html. 5 Mieczysław Tomaszewski and Krzysztof Droba, Odczytywanie na nowo. Rozmowy z Mieczysławem Tomaszewskim [Reading anew. Conversations with Mieczysław Tomaszewski] (Kraków: Academy of Music in Kraków, PWM Edition, Bosz, 2011), 114.

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

many subsequent years. So—just as with Stalowa Wola—it was possible because the person responsible for culture in the Voivodeship Office was the nonparty Anna Kochan, who had a supporter in the mentioned office […]. After the Stalowa Wola festival, A. Kochan had suggested to Krzysztof Droba that there was a building controlled by Siarkopol, a very wealthy sulfurmining company—the glorious Baranów Sandomierski Castle. The castle, was in a disused state but was perfect for a multi-day symposium and festival, which in turn would be beneficial for the Tarnobrzeg region. [We have a], then, triangle: Sandomierz, Stalowa Wola, Tarnobrzeg.6 Droba contacted Tomaszewski and the Musical Meetings in Baranów—a festival, seminars, and a symposium—was established, under the motto “ars nova— ars antiqua.” The program committee included Mieczysław Tomaszewski, Michał Bristiger, Krzysztof Droba, Krzysztof Meyer, Marek Stachowski, and Jan Stęszewski. Unfortunately, the event took place only six times; the introduction of martial law in December 1981 prevented the organization of the seventh one. The Musical Meetings were a mix of concerts, lectures, papers, discussions (among participants or with invited composers), and even films (by directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Miloš Forman, and Andrzej Wajda), theater events, and literary readings. The general social climate in Poland after December 1981 was not conducive to large events. But Droba decided to continue to work with Tarnobrzeg Voivodship on a smaller scale. In 1984, after two festivals dedicated solely to pianists, he established Musical September at the Castle (known as “little Baranów”)—the unofficial name was used by many commentators and by Droba himself—in order to continue Tomaszewski’s cycle of events.7 The new festival was dedicated to musicology, and music theory students were invited by Droba (there was no open call). Participants came as groups from music academies and universities, always with some kind of leader in the form of an

6 Joanna Wnuk-Nazarowa, Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie [Musical meetings in Baranów], in Muzyka polska 1945­–1995. Materiały sesji naukowej 6–10 grudnia 1995. W 20-lecie Zakładu Analizy i Interpretacji Muzyki [Polish music 1945–1995. Proceedings of the December 6–10, 1995, session. Twenty years of the Department of Music Analysis and Interpretation], ed. Krzysztof Droba, Teresa Malecka, and Krzysztof Szwajgier (Kraków: Academy of Music in Kraków, 1996), 322. 7 Krzysztof Droba, “Na koniec” [At the end], Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 11 (2017): 147.

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assistant professor or a lecturer. Each group was asked to prepare a panel of papers on a subject given by Droba himself. Usually, the subject was a musical work or works, or a problem connected to the main topic (in 1984 it was the string quartet and in 1985 and 1986 the symphony). Besides seminars, there were lectures dealing with the main topic, discussions with invited composers, concerts, and—in late in the evening—recitations of Polish literature given by the charismatic Krystyna Jackowska-Pociejowa by candlelight. In 1988, Baranów Sandomierski Castle was no longer available but— once again—Droba decided to start anew and established Collectanea: The Sandomierz Music Festival and Seminars, a direct continuation of “little Baranów” and with a very similar formula. It only ran twice (the main topic of both was Postmodernism, with an emphasis on Lithuanian composers and music). The 1990 festival was prepared with a full schedule and guests already invited, but due to financial problems it did not take place.8

Figure 1. Front page of the 1988 Collectanea: The Sandomierz Music Festival and Seminars program booklet. From the private archive of Stanisław Kosz

8 The schedule, guest list, and correspondence with guests are stored in the Archive of the Music Academy in Krakow, file no. 40/52.

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

Ethos The most notable characteristic of the events (and of the Krakow School of Music Theory in general) were their multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity (but with music always in the center). Even though motto of the Musical Meetings in Baranów was—as already mentioned—“ars nova—ars antiqua” (commentators appreciated the broad scope of the performed works: from Renaissance music to premieres of the newest pieces), every year the program committee proposed a specific topic for the symposium. In those topics alone we can see the urge to broaden the field of musicology and music theory. They were as follows: music in the context of culture; music in music; music and visual art; music and the word; music and theater; and sound, rhythm, music, dance. The 1982 meeting was on music and film. Those invited by the committee were not only music theorists and musicologists representing diverse perspectives and fields (e.g., historical musicology, music theory, ethnomusicology, systematic musicology, and Marxist musicology), but literary scholars (for instance, Jan Błoński, Krzysztof Byrski, Kazimierz Braun, Maria Janion, Zygmunt Kubiak, Zbigniew Osiński, Małgorzata Szpakowska, and Helena Zaworska), philosophers (such as Ewa Bieńkowska and Władysław Stróżewski), art historians (including Lech Kalinowski, Mieczysław Porębski, and Maria Rzepińska), and even physicists (e.g., Andrzej Fuliński). Tomaszewski also always invited artists: poets and writers (such as Jerzy Harasymowicz, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Anna Kamieńska, Maria Kuncewiczowa, and Wisława Szymborska), actors (e.g., Zbigniew Zapasiewicz), and painters and visual artists (for instance, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Janina Krauze-Świderska, Jerzy Nowosielski, and Kazimierz Urbański). Composers and performers were naturally present. His position as a director of the only music publishing house in Poland, and his excellent reputation as a scholar, provided him with a wide network of valuable contacts. All the guests spoke on their art or discipline, but they all discussed issues of music as well, the relationship between the arts, and general aesthetic problems. The multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity of the events served not only to enlarge the field of music and the integration of diverse disciplines and their representations, but also attempted to redefine the status of musicology, music theory, and aesthetics in changing circumstances and take into account new paradigms. The multidisciplinary approach was often stressed in Ruch Muzyczny. In 1977, Małgorzata Dziewulska appreciated “the opportunity to be free from vicious professionalism through contact with live music, relationships with composers, and interdisciplinary confrontations”;9 and Bohdan Pociej reported 9 Małgorzata Dziewulska, “Dziewięć dni na zamku” [Nine days at the castle], Ruch Muzyczny 21, no. 24 (1977): 3.

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that “the expansion of the field of research and observation and breaking the cycle of pure music were particularly valuable and fruitful.”10 Two years later, Pociej repeated his opinion that Baranów was a place where all the arts met.11 Because of his particular point of view—as a music essayist interested mainly in aesthetics—he paid special attention to the presence of philosophy. He also noted that the cohabitation of the arts at Baranów had not always been harmonious; sometimes it had caused tension.12 In later decades Joanna Wnuk-Nazarowa stated: “For the rest of our lives, we will not be able to take what we do out of the cultural context or the context of the people with whom we live and for whom we live.”13 Droba carried on this approach in his two later festivals. As their main function was educational (Krzysztof Szwajgier emphasized their “working” character),14 their multidisciplinarity was considered more to do with Bildung or paideia15 than as a stimulus to reimagine the discipline. At “little Baranów” and Sandomierz, the other arts were represented mainly by the readings given by Jackowska-Pociejowa and lectures of Krzysztof Dybciak and Helena Zaworska. In 1985, Małgorzata Gąsiorowska reported, “Finally, it is worth mentioning the very important, never-neglected trend of the symposia in Baranów, which can be called the development of the spiritual culture of its participants: vernissages, lectures on literature (Krzysztof Dybciak), the recitations of Pociejowa.”16 Attendees have said that viewing of music as the part of the broader cultural context was one of the most memorable aspects of the meetings: All those contacts […] enriched my view on music in diverse contexts, including cultural ones, and introduced me to the community that discussed music.17—Iwona Mida 10 Bohdan Pociej, “Baranów bez dystansu” [Baranów without distance], Ruch Muzyczny 21, no. 24 (1977): 6. 11 Ibid., “Muzyka i literatura (IV ‘Spotkania Muzyczne’ w Baranowie)” [Music and literature (4 Musical Meetings in Baranów)], Ruch Muzyczny 23, no. 22 (1979): 14. 12 Ibid., “Sens Spotkań w Baranowie” [The sense of Baranów Meetings], Ruch Muzyczny 22, no. 25 (1978): 6. 13 Wnuk-Nazarowa, Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie, 326. 14 Krzysztof Szwajgier, “Wspomnienie o Krzysztofie Drobie” [The memory of Krzysztof Droba], droba.polmic.pl, https://droba.polmic.pl/krzysztof-droba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia/krzysztof-szwajgier, accessed Feburary 20, 2022. 15 Bohdan Pociej, “Po Baranowie” [After Baranów], Ruch Muzyczny 30, no. 23 (1986): 16. 16 Małgorzata Gąsiorowska, “Baranowska Symfonia” [Baranów’s Symhopny], Ruch Muzyczny 24, no. 23 (1985): 20. 17 Iwona Mida, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz, electronic correspondence, February 10, 2020.

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

Those workshops were great. I remember inspiring lectures given by Romana Kolarzowa, Krzysztof Dybciak, and Ziuta Zającówna. I considered it a great idea, developing our manners and culture. Poems read by Krystyna Jackowska-Pociejowa (in the castle tower, for which reason we called her “the Owl”) seemed to us a little transgressive, but we bought into the atmosphere and the idea.18—Ryszard Daniel Golianek In my opinion, they [Pociejowa’s readings] essentially determined the atmosphere of the meetings. The afternoons and evenings were organized around them. They also became a canvas for informal discussions between participants.19 —Tomasz Tarnawczyk The inclusion of those elements into musicological reflection was attractive and needed. It gave the feeling that music does not exist in isolation but is a part of diverse creation.20 —Violetta Kostka [T]hey were an indispensable part of the meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz. They were not only added value. They naturally contributed to the climate, the atmosphere of the events, but they also enriched us, widened our horizons, shaped our sensitivity to different kinds of art, that are close to music, after all.21—Stanisław Kosz The natural consequence of (and maybe also the reason for) that multidisciplinarity was the shift of focus from the analysis of music to its interpretation. Even though analysis was the necessary basis for wider reflection (and at Baranów and Sandomierz, it was crucial for students, as the learning of métier), it was 18 Ryszard Daniel-Golianek, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz, electronic correspondence, January 12, 2020. 19 Tomasz Tarnawczyk, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz, electronic correspondence, October 2, 2020. 20 Violetta Kostka, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz, electronic correspondence, February 5, 2020. 21 Stanisław Kosz. Answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz, electronic correspondence, September 17, 2020. Stanisław Kosz participated in Droba’s meetings not as a student but as the leader of the group from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice.

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never the goal itself. As Pociej stated: “After all, it is not our aim to pick and dissect analytically, nor it is a wise intellectual puffing up—it only and exclusively serves the greatness revealed in the work.”22 Zygmunt Mycielski called such interpretation “philosophizing”: “[M]usicologists start philosophizing because technical knowledge, how that work is made, does not explain, does not satisfy the hunger to enter it, to know not only how it is done, and also—why.”23 The breadth of interpretations, views, and philosophical standpoints represented at Baranów and Sandomierz made discussion necessary. Dialogue, the important role played by conversation—official, directed, and private, sometimes lasting long into the night—was another part of the Baranów and Sandomierz ethos. Despite the multidisciplinarity of the events, their focal point, what bound them together, was always the music itself: music performed by both first-class musicians and amateurs or played on tape, and discussed with the composers themselves (e.g., Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Andrzej Krzanowski, Witold Lutosławski, Zygmunt Mycielski, and Konstanty Regamey). For instance, at Baranów in 1977, people heard a recording of Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs before its Polish premiere. Personal experience and listening deeply to musical works were considered the necessary starting point for any other activity. As Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz recalls: What did Krzysztof Droba teach us? […] He taught us to listen to music intently. That it is not only about disassembling this music into its […] components in analysis and interpretation, but also about intent listening to what this music has to tell us. […] It was a lesson in humility before the art of sounds. That the researcher will not discover everything, that there are always some layers of mystery, and that every masterpiece has such a secret within it.24 Something that also connected the participants was an interest in thinking about music and art in terms of truth and freedom, that is, from an axiological perspective. Even though the guests had diverse backgrounds and worldviews, in the Baranów and Sandomierz they felt at home. The general feeling of shared values

22 Pociej, “Baranów bez dystansu”: 7. 23 Zygmunt Mycielski, “Muzyka we wrześniu (I)” [Music in September (1)], Ruch Muzyczny 21, no. 24 (1977): 6. 24 Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz, “Wspomnienie o Krzysztofie Drobie.”

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

was in some mysterious way combined with openness and tolerance.25 Even the notorious Marxist musicologist Zofia Lissa participated in the event (alongside members of the anti-Communist Komitet Obrony Robotników—the Workers’ Defense Committee). Music was seen ethical and humanist. As Pociej stated, one of the main aims of Tomaszewski’s Baranów had been to prove and justify “the high status of music as a humanist art […] that is also woven in[to] the system of ethical values.”26 Even the subject of the last meeting in Sandomierz— Postmodernism—was given a very specific twist by Droba, as reported by Stanisław Kosz. Sandomierz was used by artists as a remedy for the extreme rationalism handed down to us by the art of the 1950s and for the superaesthetic emptiness we inherited from the following waves of avant-garde music. This remedy was imbued by an atmosphere of inevitable catastrophe—of course: another fin de siècle!27 The values promoted in Baranów and Sandomierz were also regarded as spiritual. Some even interpreted them as Christian, in opposition to the openly anti-Catholic public life in Communist Poland. Even though the spiritual atmosphere was generally believed to be good, truthful, and subversive, some participants remember it as ostentatious and even the cause of hilarious absurdities. As Lucjan Dmytrzak recalls: [T]here was a priest collaborating with us at that time in Sandomierz, a man who was a frequent visitor in artistic, medical, etc., circles; that is, he moved among the Sandomierz elite. He helped to organize concerts in churches and … [once] gave a speech before a concert of Lithuanian music in a Romanesque church. I have already mentioned the religious, sacred atmosphere of the late 1980s. His speech was just that, full of lofty phrases, an a priori sanctification of the music that we were about to hear. However, From the Yotvingian Stone28 (if I remember the 25 Usually, at least. One of the participants of Krzysztof Dobra’s event recalls that after a stormy discussion with one of invited composers one student was never invited again. In some people’s memories not everyone could find a common language with Krzysztof Droba. 26 Pociej, “Muzyka i literatura”: 14. 27 Stanisław Kosz, “Ci wspaniali Litwini i postmodernizm” [These wonderful Lithuanians and postmodernism], Ruch Muzyczny 32, no. 25 (1988): 7. 28 By Bronius Kutavičius.

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title correctly), and other works of the time, were full of pagan connotations!29 Student meetings were found a little more homogenous, are remembered as such today. In 1989, Andrzej Chłopecki humorously outlined the figure of a perfect participant: If you have a perfect, unquestioning, certainty that it is in Lithuanian scores that there is the greatest concentration of the spiritual, you will believe that Aldona Dvarionaite is the finest pianist; and if you feel the highest love for both of the Pociejs, then you no longer have to demonstrate your worship of Droba, because it is understood implicitly. You are allowed to go.30 Participants recollect the dominant feeling of unity: “the value system was shared. What mattered: the skill of talking about music beautifully and a mostly friendly attitude towards other participants”31 or “openness, tolerance, and curiosity towards others. I did not get the impression that there were divisions. Everybody seemed united in their views and values.”32 This emphasis on ethics was also displayed in the invitations extended to international musicologists, composers, and performers, especially from other Communist countries (at Sandomierz, the Greek composer Nikos Filaktos also represented Greece). Guests from Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Lithuania (among them the musicologist and later president of Lithuania Vytautas Landsbergis) promoted the music of their countries. Baranów was considered a hub of ideas and a place where people could be connected in order to strengthen the solidarity of citizens of different countries still controlled by the USSR. Wnuk-Nazarowa explains:

29 Lucjan Dmytrzak, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz, electronic correspondence, January 29, 2020. 30 Andrzej Chłopecki, “Mój sandomierski notes” [My Sandomierz’s notebook], Ruch Muzyczny 33, no. 25 (1989): 9. 31 Violetta Kostka, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz. 32 Iwona Mida, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz.

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

There was a mission as well. […] I think all of us—led by Mieczysław Tomaszewski and Krzysztof Droba—had the mission of showing them the spiritually free world. And hope they would take it home, that the plague (in the positive meaning of the word) would spread.33 At Droba’s Baranów and Sandomierz, Lithuanians (Feliksas Bajoras, Osvaldas Balakauskas, Bronius Kutavičius, and Šarūnas Nakas, among others) were the most prominent attendees. The director of Musical September at the Castle and Collectanea was known for his fascination with the country’s culture (which was recognized in 1995 when Droba was awarded the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas) and his many friendships with Lithuanian artists. According to Chłopecki, Droba’s interest in Lithuania was both artistically and sociohistorically motivated: “It is rooted in thinking in terms of value, the feeling of solidarity with the culture which, developing next to ours and having many problems with it, tried to stand up for independence.”34

Figure 2. From the left, Feliksas Bajoras, Krzysztof Droba, Osvaldas Balakauskas, Rima Mikėnaitė, Jūratė Burokaitė. Collectanea festival, Sandomierz, 1989 From the private archive of Krzysztof Droba.

33 Wnuk-Nazarowa, Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie, 325. 34 Chłopecki, “Mój sandomierski notes”: 10.

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To sum up, the ethos of Tomaszewski’s and Droba’s meetings was more or less the same: they were multidisciplinary, but placed music in the center; they reflected upon music and art in terms of value; they shared a value system, stressing freedom, truth, and spirituality; they emphasized the importance of interpretation; they encouraged dialogue and discussion; and they fostered international encounters.

Impact Immediately after the first of the Musical Meetings in Baranów, there was a feeling that a significant moment in Polish music and musicology had just taken place. At that time, Bohdan Pociej dreamt about the future greatness of Baranów and had the feeling that it would survive down through the generations.35 In every report published in the subsequent years in Ruch Muzyczny, a similar impression was expressed. In 1977, Małgorzata Dziewulska wrote: “Today we can say for sure that in Baranów something important happened.”36 That same year, Mycielski compared Tomaszewski’s festival with Darmstadt, IRCAM, and Graz, and expressed the hope that it would provide the environment for new, original, independent opinions on music.37 In 1980, Leszek Polony noted that the Musical Meetings in Baranów were considered major occasions in artistic-humanistic circles.38 Because of reports in Ruch Muzyczny, they also were famous among music lovers. In 1979, the music high school student Maria Stafisz wrote to Tomaszewski that it was her dream (and her friend’s) to take part in the Musical Meetings.39 Tomaszewski answered, inviting her and her friend to Baranów as guests, with food and accommodation provided.40 The influence of the Musical Meetings in Baranów is manifold. First, the event was a hub for ideas, a place where something new in Polish music theory and musicology emerged. Most importantly, it was a place where the abovedescribed ethos was formulated and spread. Two books of the proceedings 35 Bohdan Pociej, “9 Dni w Baranowie” [Nine days in Baranów], Ruch Muzyczny 20, no. 24 (1976): 4. 36 Dziewulska, “Dziewięć dni na zamku”: 5. 37 Mycielski, “Muzyka we wrześniu (I)”: 7. 38 Leszek Polony, “Baranów 1980 – Teatr i muzyka” [Baranów 1980—Music and theatre], Ruch Muzyczny 24, no. 21 (1980): 7. 39 Letter from Maria Stafisz to Mieczysław Tomaszewski, March 1, 1979, the Archive of the Music Academy of Music in Krakow, file no. 40/26. 40 Copy of letter from Mieczysław Tomaszewski to Maria Stafisz, April 21, 1979, the Archive of the Academy of Music in Krakow, file no. 40/26.

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

were published by PWM Edition. They contained lectures and papers, as well as full transcripts of discussions.41 The Meetings integrated the ideas of Polish and scholars, performers, and artists from elsewhere. The event had a positive impact on the cultural life of the region—precisely as the organizers had predicted. The open, festival component was very popular with the people living in the area and provided the only opportunity for some of them to listen to live music. For example, in 1978 the first symphony concert ever in Sandomierz took place (Gustav Mahler’s Symphony no. 5).42 For some concerts, Siarkopol provided a bus for audience members from remote places.43 Baranów, then, had a lasting effect on many. As Wnuk-Nazarowa’s affirms: “After Baranów, each of us became a different person.”44 Two more festivals were organized by Droba to continue the success of the first Baranów. But because their target was different, their impact was also different. As Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz, who was first a participant and then an assistant at the Meetings, recollects: Above all, “Baranów” and “Sandomierz” built and integrated the environment. Their mission was creating the new generation of theorists […]. In Baranów and Sandomierz, a new generation of theorists debuted: Danuta Mirka, Jadwiga Makosz, Iwona Szupiluk, Magdalena Żyłko, Ryszard Daniel Golianek, and the author of those words [i.e. Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz], among others.45 Even though not all the participants continued their careers as musicologists or music theorists, most of them did, and they all consider the experience of Droba’s festivals an important part of their education:

41 Leszek Polony, ed., Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie 1976. Muzyka w kontekście kultury [Musical Meetings in Baranów 1976. Music in the context of culture] (Kraków: PWM Edition, 1978); Teresa Malecka and Leszek Polony, ed., Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie. Muzyka w muzyce [Musical Meetings in Baranów. Music in music] (Kraków: PWM Edition, 1980). 42 Pociej, “Sens Spotkań w Baranowie”: 8. 43 Dziewulska, “Dziewięć dni na zamku”: 3. 44 Wnuk-Nazarowa, Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie, 325–26. 45 Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz, “Wrzesień Muzyczny w Baranowie i Collectanea w Sandomierzu” [Musical September in Baranów and Colectanea in Sandomierz], in Droba, Malecka, and Szwajgier, Muzyka polska 1945­–1995, 327–29.

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I took from Baranów the belief that music, especially contemporary music, is worth taking up and the belief that the community of music theorists and musicologists is a group of people infecting others, especially the young. In some part, Baranów shaped me as a musicologist.46—Violetta Kostka I met outstanding researchers, artists, and musicians, as well as students interested in research on music. I could familiarize myself with ways of discussing music, with analysis of musical works, with various contexts of knowledge about music and culture. The contacts I made then have survived to this day and I appreciate them very much. It was the experience that formed me as a musicologist.47—Ryszard Daniel Golianek Contact with composers, theorists, and students from all over Poland revealed a different perspective, forced us to go beyond the framework of one school—the Krakow one. Besides, we started preparing for the seminars early on, which meant working with, for example, Jacek Targosz, with whom I did not have regular classes […]. Working with Jacek Targosz resulted in my professional path. I owe him my position at the Władysław Żeleński State Secondary School of Music in Krakow. […] Naturally, if I had continued research work, the effect of these meetings would probably have been more tangible. However, I became a high school teacher, so my analytical activity in music theory was severely limited, and many matters from the Baranów and Sandomierz seminars were lost in the darkness of oblivion.48—Lucjan Dmytrzak Janicka-Słysz’s career was also linked to the meetings organized by Droba. After a visit by Wanda Bacewicz to Baranów, and because of Droba’s encouragement,

46 Violetta Kostka, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz. 47 Ryszard Daniel Golianek, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz. 48 Lucjan Dmytrzak. answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz.

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

she wrote a doctoral dissertation on the music of her brother, the PolishLithuanian composer Vytautas Bacevičius.49 When the Baranów–Sandomierz era was over, Krzysztof Droba strengthened his collaboration with Lithuanians and set up Polish-Lithuanian musicological conferences that have taken place in Vilnius and Krakow since 1989. The Polish-Lithuanian research project DAINA 1. Music of Change: Expression of Liberation in Polish and Lithuanian Music Before and After 1989,50 can be viewed as a development of Droba’s 1970s work.

Oases of Freedom? In reports and memories from Baranów and Sandomierz, one particular image often comes up—the that of a distant, safe place outside the real world: an oasis, utopia, arcadia, a paradise, a fairy tale, an island, or a retreat and time outside the ordinary. Almost from its inception, Baranów Sandomierski was viewed as a different realm. In 1977, Dziewulska wrote: “In the dispersed light, the calm town, the castle, and the garden look like some kind of utopia for the chosen.”51 In 1995, Wnuk-Nazarowa called Tomaszewski’s Baranów “Arcadia,”52 and in 2011 Tomaszewski himself used the term: “We stayed in Arcadia. Discussions flowed freely as if the tough reality determined by the Polish People’s Republic did not exist.”53 The geographical remoteness of the towns favored the participants’ separation from the world and made the experience of the festivals an immersive one. The atmosphere of the historical castle and garden in Baranów and the old town in Sandomierz further contributed to the feeling. In 1978, Pociej recalled the “unusual, truly magical” atmosphere;54 in 1986, he mentioned “a different, better world, a spiritual microclimate.”55 Jacek Targosz highlighted “conditions for work and music that one can only dream of.”56 In 1984, Gąsiorowska said of

49 Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz, Vytautas Bacevičius i jego idee muzyki kosmicznej [Vytautas Bacevičius and his idea of cosmic music] (Kraków: Academy of Music in Kraków, 2001). 50 Project no. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 funded by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland. 51 Dziewulska, “Dziewięć dni na zamku”: 3. 52 Wnuk-Nazarowa, Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie, 322. 53 Tomaszewski and Droba, Odczytywanie na nowo. Rozmowy z Mieczysławem Tomaszewskim, 119. 54 Pociej, “Sens Spotkań w Baranowie”: 7. 55 Ibid., “Po Baranowie”: 16–17. 56 Jacek Targosz, “Wrzesień Muzyczny w Baranowie” [Musical September in Baranów], Ruch Muzyczny 30, no. 23 (1986): 16.

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days at the castle: “We could literally immerse ourselves in the sound of a string quartet for a week.”57 In 2020, she added: For me—a mere radio journalist—contact with people of the [Music Analysis and Interpretation—D. M.] Department and with artists and scholars invited to the Musical Meetings in Branów Sandomierski was like walking through the gates of Paradise. Surrounded by Baranów Castle, detached from trivial, everyday life, we young people grew in our knowledge of music and its relations with other arts. … Mieczysław Tomaszewski called those Meetings from the late 1970s “Arcadia” because they were an enclave of complete freedom of thought, against “outside” conditions.58 Teresa Malecka remembered Baranów Sandomierski the same way: It was strange, an absolute enclave […], the humanities at its best […]. Times were difficult then. As you know, until 1989 it was very hard. However, we were active all the time and all the time we felt that in that environment we were at home and we were free.59 Sandomierz had a similar memory of it. Stanisław Kosz called it a “musical retreat.”60 He noted that during Musical September and Collectanea there was an “extraordinary atmosphere of community […] here we are together, focused on essential matters [… and] for a moment forget about the gray reality surrounding us. Like a fairy-tale world.”61 Iwona Mida remembers “the atmosphere

57 Małgorzata Gąsiorowska, “Baranów Anno Domini 1984” [Baranów Anno Domini 1984], Ruch Muzyczny 28, no. 24 (1984): 10. 58 Małgorzata Gąsiorowska, “Wspomnienie” [Memory], droba.polmic.pl, https://droba.polmic.pl/krzysztof-droba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia-do-czytania/malgorzata-gasiorowska, accessed 26 October, 2020. 59 Teresa Malecka, “Wspomnienie” [Memory], drobo.polmic.pl, https://droba.polmic.pl/ krzysztof-droba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia/teresa-malecka, accessed February 20, 2022. 60 Stanisław Kosz, “Wspominając Krzysztofa” [Remembering Krzysztof], drobo.polmic.pl, https://droba.polmic.pl/krzysztof-droba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia-do-czytania/stanislaw, accessed February 20, 2022. 61 Stanisław Kosz, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz.

The Musical Meetings in Baranów and Sandomierz as Oases of Freedom

of festivity.”62 According to Daniel Golianek, “We felt like being on some distant, exotic island, like a group of people who were unaware of the rough situation in the Polish People’s Republic.”63 Lucjan Dmytrzak pointed out the difference between ordinary musicological sessions and Droba’s event: “The seminar formula and the fact that it took place during a several-day trip, away from everyday life, made it possible to concentrate on music. It was, however, not as tiring as a typical, rushed and busy musicological session.”64 Guests brought their children to Baranów and Sandomierz, and trips around the beautiful area were organized. These imponderabilia—atmosphere, shared time, and values—were as important as the music and thinking. But it was a utopia in the shadow of a dystopia. The organization of the meetings required diplomatic skills and was only possible because of a few sympathetic people working in the administration and the extraordinary stamina and charisma of the visionaries Mieczysław Tomaszewski and Krzysztof Droba. At least a few times, however, the sociopolitical situation invaded the musical arcadia—sometimes in the form of small inconveniences. In 1976, some mysterious men (probably from the security service) ordered Tomaszewski to cancel a lecture by Michał Bristiger (who had a connection with the Workers’ Defense Committee); Tomaszewski refused and, fortunately, nothing happened.65 In 1978, Vytautas Landsbergis had to ask for another letter of invitation because the previous one had not followed official protocol (the official one had to be sent to the address of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union); the new invitation also had to include his wife’s name if she was to attend the festival.66 In 1980, Józef Tischner had to cancel his visit because he was going to Gdańsk for the August Agreements. The August Agreements, watched together on TV by the Meeting participants, were perceived by Wnuk-Nazarowa as the culmination of the festival after which something changed.67 Finally, the introduction of martial law in 1981 made Tomaszewski resign the position as an organizer of Musical Meetings in Baranów. Droba decided to arrange a new festival, but on a much smaller scale: “That modest scale and full independence were my conditions to 62 Iwona Mida, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz. 63 Ryszard Daniel Golianek, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz. 64 Lucjan Dmytrzak, answers for Dominika Micał’s questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz. 65 Tomaszewski and Droba, Odczytywanie na nowo, 119. 66 Letter from Vytautas Landsbergis to Mieczysław Tomaszewski, June 21, 1978, the Archive of Academy of Music in Kraków, file no. 40/25. 67 Wnuk-Nazarowa, Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie, 325.

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come back to Baranów. After martial law and Jaruzelski’s smuta it was not appropriate to swagger around or promote—but to do the job.”68 The last time History made its entrance at Sandomierz was with the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. The reconstruction of the state and market changes made Collectanea impossible in the 1990s. The main sponsors withdrew, as they were in financial trouble because of the sudden change from socialism to capitalism system (in its wild and extremely unjust form). Krzysztof Droba concluded stoically: “we wanted New Poland, so we have it, and it is being born reluctantly.”69 This publication is a result of the research project DAINA 1 No. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 funded by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland.

Sources Documents concerning the Musical Meetings in Baranów, stored in the Archive of the Academy of Music in Krakow, file nos.: 40/23, 40/24, 40/25, 40/26, 40/27, 40/28. Documents concerning Collectanea: The Sandomierz Music Festival and Seminars, stored in the Archive of the Academy of Music in Krakow, file no. 40/52. Answers to questions on Krzysztof Droba’s festivals in Baranów and Sandomierz, by email or in person: Lucjan Dmytrzak, January 29, 2020. Ryszard Daniel Golianek, January 12, 2020. Iwona Mida, February 10, 2020. Violetta Kostka, February 5, 2020. Krzysztof Kostrzewa, July 9, 2020. Stanisław Kosz, September 17, 2020. Tomasz Tarnawczyk, October 2, 2020.

Bibliography Chłopecki, Andrzej. “Mój sandomierski notes” [My Sandomierz notebook]. Ruch Muzyczny 33, no. 25 (1989): 9–10. Droba, Krzysztof. “Na koniec” [At the end]. Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 11 (2017): 143–50.

68 Droba, Na koniec, 147. 69 Copy of letter from Krzysztof Droba to Jadwiga Makosz, August 8, 1990, the Archive of the Academy of Music in Kraków, file no. 40/52.

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Dziewulska, Małgorzata. “Dziewięć dni na zamku” [Nine days at the castle]. Ruch Muzyczny 21, no. 24 (1977): 3–5. Gąsiorowska, Małgorzata. “Baranowska Symfonia” [Baranów’s Symhopny]. Ruch Muzyczny 24, no. 23 (1985): 18–20. ———. “Baranów Anno Domini 1984” [Baranów Anno Domini 1984]. Ruch Muzyczny 28, no. 24 (1984): 10–12. ———. “Wspomnienie” [Memory]. droba.polmic.pl. https://droba.polmic.pl/krzysztofdroba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia-do-czytania/malgorzata-gasiorowska. Accessed February 22, 2022. Janicka-Słysz, Małgorzata. “Wrzesień Muzyczny w Baranowie i Collectanea w Sandomierzu” [Musical September in Baranów and Colectanea in Sandomierz]. In Muzyka polska 1945– 1995. Materiały sesji naukowej 6–10 grudnia 1995. W 20-lecie Zakładu Analizy i Interpretacji Muzyki [Polish music 1945–1995. Proceedings of the December 6–10, 1995, session. Twenty years of Department of Music analysis and interpretation], edited by Krzysztof Droba, Teresa Malecka, and Krzysztof Szwajgier, 326–29. Kraków: Academy of Music in Kraków, 1996. ———. “Wspomnienie o Krzysztofie Drobie” [The memory of Krzysztof Droba]. droba.polmic. pl. https://droba.polmic.pl/krzysztof-droba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia/malgorzata-janickaslysz. Accessed February 20, 2022. ———. Vytautas Bacevičius i jego idee muzyki kosmicznej [Vytautas Bacevičius and his idea of cosmic music]. Kraków: Academy of Music in Kraków, 2001. Kosz, Stanisław. “Ci wspaniali Litwini i postmodernizm” [These wonderful Lithuanians and postmodernism]. Ruch Muzyczny 32, no. 25 (1988): 6–7. ———. “Wspominając Krzysztofa” [Remembering Krzysztof]. droba.polmic.pl. https://droba. polmic.pl/krzysztof-droba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia-do-czytania/stanislaw-kosz. Accessed February 20, 2022. Malecka, Teresa. “Wspomnienie” [Memory]. droba.polmic.pl. https://droba.polmic.pl/krzysztofdroba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia/teresa-malecka. Accessed February 20, 2020. Malecka, Teresa, and Leszek Polony, eds. Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie. Muzyka w muzyce [Musical meetings in Baranów. Music in music]. Kraków: PWM Edition, 1980. Mycielski, Zygmunt. “Muzyka we wrześniu (I)” [Music in September (I)]. Ruch Muzyczny 21, no. 24 (1977): 6–7. Pociej, Bohdan. “Baranów bez dystansu” [Baranów without fistance]. Ruch Muzyczny 21, no. 24 (1977): 6–7. ———. “Muzyka i literatura (IV ‘Spotkania Muzyczne’ w Baranowie)” [Music and literature (IV “Musical meetings in Baranów)”]. Ruch Muzyczny 23, no. 22 (1979): 14–16. ———. “Po Baranowie” [After Baranów]. Ruch Muzyczny 30, no. 23 (1986): 16–17. ———. “Sens Spotkań w Baranowie” [The meaning of Baranów meetings]. Ruch Muzyczny 22, no. 25 (1978): 6–8. Polony, Leszek. “Baranów 1980—Teatr i muzyka” [Baranów 1980—Music and theatre]. Ruch Muzyczny 24, no. 21 (1980): 7–9. ———, ed. Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie 1976. Muzyka w kontekście kultury [Musical meetings in Baranów 1976. Music in the context of culture]. Kraków: PWM Edition, 1978. Res Facta Nova. http://www.resfactanova.pl/pismo.html. Accessed February 20, 2022. Targosz, Jacek. “Wrzesień Muzyczny w Baranowie” [Musical September in Baranów]. Ruch Muzyczny 30, no. 23 (1986): 15–16.

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Tomaszewski, Mieczysław, and Krzysztof Droba. Odczytywanie na nowo. Rozmowy z Mieczysławem Tomaszewskim [Reading anew. Conversations with Mieczysław Tomaszewski]. Kraków: Academy of Music in Kraków, PWM Edition, Bosz, 2011. Szwajgier, Krzysztof. “Wspomnienie o Krzysztofie Drobie” [The memory of Krzysztof Droba]. droba.polmic.pl. https://droba.polmic.pl/krzysztof-droba/oddzwieki/wspomnienia/krzysztofszwajgier. Accessed February 20, 2022. Wnuk-Nazarowa, Joanna. Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie [Musical Meetings in Baranów]. In Muzyka polska 1945­–1995. Materiały sesji naukowej 6–10 grudnia 1995. W 20-lecie Zakładu Analizy i Interpretacji Muzyki [Polish music 1945–1995. Proceedings of the December 6–10, 1995, session. Twenty Years of the Department of Music Analysis and Interpretation], edited by Krzysztof Droba, Teresa Malecka and Krzysztof Szwajgier, 322–26. Kraków: Academy of Music in Kraków, 1996.

CHAPTER 4

Rebellion and Identity: A Generational Breakthrough in Polish Music in the 1970s Kinga Kiwała

Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music, Krakow Keywords: Polish music, New Romanticism, Romantic turn, artistic generation, Generation 33, Stalowa Wola Generation, Górecki, Penderecki, Knapik, engaged music, artistic freedom

Generation: Definition and Scope Aesthetic reflection in the twentieth century on the phenomenon and significance of generationality in literature and art originated in sociology. The founding text was Karl Mannheim’s “The Problem of Generations” (1928), in which he developed the concept of the “generational unit” (Generationseinheit).1 Mannheim pointed out that belonging to a given “generational unit,” of which there may be many within the same biological generation, is determined by a “uniform direction of response” to reality. Referring to the role of the common experience of a group of peers in how a given generation is constituted, Mannheim showed that the issue of generationality is not only limited to a biological approach. Polish sociologists and literary critics—such as Kazimierz Wyka and Hanna Świda-Ziemba—followed this path, and by emphasizing aesthetics, thereby significantly enriched our understanding of generationality. In particular, Polish work on the phenomenon of generationality in art owes its focus on aesthetic and spiritual bonds between the members of a generational 1 Karl Mannheim, “The Problem of Generations,” in Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge: Collected Works, vol. 5, ed. Paul Kecskemeti (New York: Routledge, 1952), 283.

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group to Wyka. He developed a theory of “generational experience”—that is, an event (or a group of events)—which is very significant from a historical perspective and that determines the common experience of the world of given generational artistic group at its inception.2 Of greatest value is Wyka’s statement that artists, who can be described as a “generation,” always introduce an important new quality and thus change the image of the existing world; the new generation therefore appears at moment when a paradigm is uncertain and exhausted.3 However, Hanna Świda-Ziemba, while influenced by the work of her predecessor, opposes this view and stresses the key role played by a common worldview: By “generation” I mean a collection of young people who, subject to similar processes of socialization in a certain historical period, develop a system of conceptual categories through which they perceive reality, define their own identity, make life choices and evaluate current situations. This system of categories can be described as a “community of worldviews,” a “collective worldview,” which is the basis for the communication of a generation, independent of all individual differences.4 When a new generation appears, a clash of two generations, the young and the middle, often occurs. Intergenerational relationships are sometimes ones of opposition; Piotr Szukalski writes: Speaking […] of conflict […] between generations, it should be remembered that they are based on intergenerational differences, which are the result of different experiences at the time that the members of a given generation acquire their social competences, as well as distinctions in the course of life […]. These dissimilar experiences translate into a diversity of feelings, thoughts, knowledge, and behavior.5 These distinctions are of particular importance in the context of artistic generations. 2 Kazimierz Wyka, Pokolenia literackie [Literary generations] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1977), 50. Kazimierz Wyka’s work dates back to around 1938 and has been lost for many years—found and published after the author’s death in 1977. 3 Ibid., 89. 4 Hanna Świda-Ziemba, Młodzież PRL. Portrety pokoleń w kontekście historii [Youth of the Polish People’s Republic. Portraits of generations in the context of history] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2010), 9. 5 Piotr Szukalski, Solidarność pokoleń: dylematy relacji międzypokoleniowych [Generational solidarity: dilemmas of intergenerational relationships] (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2012), 49–50.

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Generational Exchange and Romantic Turn in the Polish Music of the 1970s Polish culture lives by the rhythm of endless returns of Romanticism and to Romanticism; Polish culture may even be referred to as a “Romantic System.” At least, this is what the eminent Polish historian and expert on Romanticism, Maria Janion, proposes.6 In the twentieth century, the most important Romantic turn in Polish culture, literature, and music took place in the 1970s. It coincided with significant political and social changes—the Communist system slowly began to falter, Poles increasingly demanded respect for civil rights (there were student protests in 1968, workers’ protests on the coast in December 1970, strikes in 1976, the establishment of the Workers’ Defense Committee in 1976, and then the emergence of the Solidarity independent trade union in 1980). A crucial event was the election of Krakow’s Cardinal Karol Wojtyła as pope in 1978 and his first visit to Poland in 1979, which for most marked the “awakening of consciences and minds,” the beginning of true community among people. All of these events provoked the Communist government to react, sometimes brutally, and martial law was introduced in 1981. Polish literature and music of that time was partly a response to events. After the end of the 1960s, literature, especially that of young writers, tended towards socially engaged writing. Those of the literary generation called the New Wave (typically born in the 1940s) called for an art of “non-naive realism”: their work was about the tragedy of the individual trapped within a soulless system.7 Music also experienced a shift, especially that of two generations of composers: Generation 33—Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Krzysztof Penderecki, Zbigniew Bujarski, and Wojciech Kilar (all born in 1933, apart from Kilar who was actually born in 1932); and the generation that debuted in the mid-1970s—Generation 51 or the “Stalowa Wola Generation,” best known for the composers Eugeniusz Knapik, Andrzej Krzanowski, and Aleksander Lasoń. The most significant year was 1976— the year of the official debut of Generation 51—which also brought forth Górecki’s most famous work, Symphony no. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) and Penderecki’s Violin Concerto. These two compositions were milestones; however, the harbingers of this breakthrough appeared in the works of both composers even earlier with the return to the great tradition of European music from Gregorian chant to nineteenthcentury Romanticism (connected however with the postwar avant-garde, post-serial music, and sonorism), most obvious in Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion (1966). 6 Maria Janion, “Dwie wizje ludowości romantycznej” [Two visions of romantic folklorism], Rocznik Towarzystwa Literackiego im. Adama Mickiewicza 10 (1975): 9. 7 Julian Kornhauser, “Realizm nienaiwny” [Non-naive realism], Poezja 9 (1970).

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A desire for “something new,” for a reversal of the avant-garde paradigm that dominated Polish music in the 1960s, had been growing steadily since the beginning of the 1970s. This desire was evident in Górecki’s compositions on religious subjects, starting with Ad Matrem (1971), Two Sacred Songs for Baritone and Piano (1971), Symphony no. 2 (Copernican, 1972), Euntes Ibant et Flebant for Chorus a Cappella (1972), and Amen for Chorus a Cappella (1975). In Penderecki’s music, the return to Romanticism was clearly anticipated in his The Awakening of Jacob (1974), considered by critics to be a restoration of the genre of the symphonic poem.8 But, as mentioned above, the true watershed 1976. That year, the radicalism of Górecki and Penderecki surprised even the closest observers of the Polish music scene. It was also then that the “extraordinary meeting and alliance of two generations” took place: Generation 33 and Generation 51).9 It should be noted immediately, though, that people saw fundamental differences between them in terms of aesthetics and style.

The Romantic Turn of Generation 33 The reception of a “Romantic turn” in the works of Generation 33 composers— particularly in Górecki and Penderecki—took place in 1977 after the famous premieres of Górecki’s Symphony no. 3 and Penderecki’s Violin Concerto. In case of the former, his radical rejection of avant-garde techniques unambiguous embrace of “simpler” approach (it is Romantic, emotionally direct (expressive), neotonal and neomodal, lyrical, and employs religious text which plays a fundamental role in the work) came as a surprise. The composer explicitly drew upon the Polish folk tradition—through motifs, modality, the use of folk melodies, and Marian and maternal themes typical for the Polish folk tradition. In short, he embarked on the same path as the “father” of twentieth-century Polish music, Karol Szymanowski (Stabat Mater). A reduction of musical material and a maximum intensification of expression, which serves to convey specific meanings and verbal content through the music, is characteristic of Górecki’s style of the time. The dominant expressive category is the sublime. 8 “Konwersatorium na temat Przebudzenia Jakuba Krzysztofa Pendereckiego przedstawia Krzysztof Droba” [Seminar on Krzysztof Penderecki’s The Awakening of Jacob presented by Krzysztof Droba], in Muzyka w kontekście kultury. Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie 1976 [Music in the context of culture. Musical Meetings in Baranów 1976], ed. Leszek Polony (Kraków: PWM, 1978), 67–75. 9 Leszek Polony, “Pokolenie 33 na przełomie tysiącleci. Między sonoryzmem, nowym romantyzmem i postmodernizmem” [Generation 33 at the turn of the millennium. Between sonorism, new romanticism and postmodernism], Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 3 (2013): 35.

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Penderecki was very obviously taking inspiration from late Romanticism (Brahms, Mahler, and Bruckner, as well as Shostakovich) in his concertos and symphonies, which prompted critics to describe his work as “retroversive” and post-neoromantic.10 Yet continued the monumental, religious line he began with St. Luke Passion, in which he also borrowed from late Romanticism (in the Passion, he juxtaposes avant-garde and sonoristic thinking with earlier music). In the 1970s, Penderecki’s large-scale orchestral work was engaged music, addressing the Polish situation of the period. His interest in the political, besides the tone of at the heart of his writing, was most evident in his use of quotation. Musical quotation plays a subconsciously expected, culminating point of narration. The composer mainly quoted well-known songs, which in Polish national and religious tradition serve as anthems or prayer songs sung at times of danger or war. Under Communism, these songs became a sign of opposition to, and disagreement with, the official state narrative. Introducing the supplication from a Polish religious song, for instance “Święty Boże, święty mocny” [Holy God, holy almighty] in Penderecki’s Polish Requiem, has the same function as does “Boże coś Polskę” [God! Thou surrounded Poland] in Te Deum, dedicated to Pope John Paul II. In the 1970s and 1980s, “Boże coś Polskę,” having a religious and patriotic nature, played a social and political role in Poland; it was a major symbol of resistance against Communism. Penderecki consciously used the song’s double meaning in Te Deum, including of the original words in the verbal text. The phrase “Return to us our free Fatherland, oh Lord!” was sung instead of the officially sanctioned “Bless our free Fatherland, oh Lord!” Contrast also plays an important role in this section of Penderecki’s work. The choir’s pianissimo a cappella singing of the song “Boże coś Polskę” was introduced during the dramatic part of Te Deum linked to the words Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus. In the context of the dynamic, sometimes almost dramatic “action” of the music, this calm fragment, defined by the composer as quasi da lontano, is indeed perceived as an “opening of perspective” into a different reality. Penderecki’s Polish Requiem became a symbol of engaged music (musica adhaerens). He dedicated each part of the piece to people and events from recent Polish history: Lech Wałęsa, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński (the unyielding primate of Poland, who was interned in the mid-1960s), the Warsaw Uprising, 10 See: Mieczysław Tomaszewski, Krzysztof Penderecki i jego muzyka. Cztery eseje [Krzysztof Penderecki and his music. Four essays] (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1994), 75, 102; Regina Chłopicka, Krzysztof Penderecki między sacrum a profanum. Studia nad twórczością wokalno-instrumentalną [Krzysztof Penderecki between the sacred and profane. Studies of vocal and instrumental work] (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2000), 191; Irina Nikolska, “O ewolucji twórczości instrumentalnej Krzysztofa Pendereckiego” [On the evolution of Krzysztof Penderecki’s instrumental work], Muzyka 1 (1987): 47–48.

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the victims of the Katyń massacre (a series of mass executions of Polish military officers carried out by the Soviets in April and May 1940). This was uncomfortable for the Communists. The Polish Requiem was written over a period of more than twenty-five years and became a kind of testimony to the recent history of Poland: its first part was Lacrimosa, commissioned in 1979 by Lech Wałęsa and the Solidarity movement, and the last part—the purely instrumental Chaconne—was composed in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II.

The New Romanticism of Generation 51 When talking about Generation 51 in Polish music, I mean the smaller generation within the group of Polish composers born at the beginning of the 1950s; it was the first distinct and interesting generational formation of composers after Generation 33. Its representative composers—Eugeniusz Knapik, Andrzej Krzanowski, and Aleksander Lasoń—were Silesian graduates of the Katowice State Higher School of Music; they were initially connected with Górecki (Knapik and Krzanowski were his students) and then with the Young Musicians for a Young City Festival, during which they made their debuts. The festival was established in the mid-1970s, and from 1975 to 1980 it was held annually in a small, provincial workers’ town in the east of Poland, Stalowa Wola (hence the other name for this group of musicians: the Stalowa Wola Generation). The festival’s objective was to promote the work of young Polish composers and performers. The initiator of the festival, the Krakow music theorist Krzysztof Droba, chose the father of American contemporary music, Charles Ives, as its patron; during the festival’s brief existence, a number of the American’s works were performed, most of them for the first time in Poland. Focusing on truth and freedom, and resulting from his adoption of the principles of American transcendentalism, Ives’s aesthetic and philosophical attitude permeated the atmosphere of Stalowa Wola. Droba wrote: In keeping with the message propagated here by the music of Ives […] liberation from all forms of restriction, and finally freedom, are to serve the highest good which is the truth that sets you free—that’s how I would describe the meaning of Ives’s at Stalowa Wola.11 11 Krzysztof Droba, “Przybliżanie muzyki: Ives, nowy romantyzm i wychowanie estetyczne” [Exploring Music: Ives, new romanticism and aesthetic education], Klucz 10 (2011) [a magazine published by Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, special edition]: 8.

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The Communist government’s security service did not operate as vigorously in the Polish province as in larger urban centers; consequently, the festival soon became a kind of oasis of freedom where attendees could take refuge and try to “be themselves.” This sense “escape” from the frustrating “here and now” (hic et nunc) was stressed by the composers debuting at Stalowa Wola. The young composers, inspired by Ives’s idea of artistic creation for and in the face of higher values, rejected the scientism and nihilism of the passing avant-garde with a Romantic gesture of opposition. As Knapik said: Our work—the work of composers taking part in the festival at Stalowa Wola—was probably a form of opposition against the avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s; against newness as a value in itself; against total destruction.12 However, they also rejected the monumentalism, religiosity, and nationalism of the older generation’s music. Admittedly, music was to be a new vehicle of meanings and senses; nevertheless, the young artists rather addressed a wide range of universal subjects, such as nature and enduring existential questions. These subjects were often conveyed in an oblique way—for example, in the titles of works, the kinds of texts included, and even the music itself; for example, Eugeniusz Knapik’s Le Chant for Solo Soprano and Orchestra (1976), which contained excerpts of Paul Valéry’s “Le Cimetière marin”), Comme au bord de la mer … for Instrumental Ensemble and Tape (1977), Islands for String Orchestra (1983); Aleksander Lasoń’s The Mountains for Symphony Orchestra (1980), Cathedral for Symphony Orchestra (1987–89); Andrzej Krzanowski’s Over the rainbow for Viola, Percussion, and Accordion (1985–87). The community and nation in these works were replaced by the individual human being. Instead of explicit religious references, there was an atmosphere of universal spirituality imbued with a Romantic love of nature. The aesthetic attitude of these artists was not far from nineteenth-century Symbolism. Although the styles of these composers varied, they were fundamentally in tune with the radical subjectivity of historical Romanticism; their music was characterized by deep personal expression. Thus, the works of these composers were hailed as the “New Romanticism,” which differed significantly not only from the passing avant-garde, but also from the monumental, religiously and nationally involved works of Generation 33—above all from the works of Krzysztof Penderecki. Andrzej Krzanowski was the only member of the Stalowa Wola Generation who (mainly in the crucial 12 Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz, “Eugeniusza Knapika spojrzenie na siebie i na muzykę” [Eugeniusz Knapik’s view of himself and music], Studio 1 (1995): 24.

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series of six Programmes) gestured towards politics by incorporating contemporary engaged Polish poetry. The poetry spoke of the tragedy of the system’s oppression of the individual, but without affirming the religious-national myths Penderecki sought to resurrect in order to unite society. Leszek Polony, one of the leading young music critics associated with the festivals in Stalowa Wola, wrote about the work of the debuting artists: What the young composers offered at Stalowa Wola testifies to the fact that separate new aesthetics of music is being formed and developed. The young people advocate for a music of great emotion and intense experience. They reject abstract intellectualism and sterile aesthetic play. They benefit fully from the abundance of traditional and contemporary artistic means, but they subject them to careful selection and discover new, modern meanings within them. They are sparing with words, concise in musical expression, immersed in contemplation of the human world, fascinated with beauty. In compositional technique they can be rational, but always in the name of a higher purpose, a crucial message.13 The works of Generation 51 also substantially differed from those of Generation 33, the latter unmistakably borrowing from nineteenth-century and traditional musical forms. The search for a lost paradise, typical for young artists, and also characteristic of historical Romanticism, led to the emergence of the well-known moto per aspera ad astra (through the thorns to the stars), that is, a teleological model, directed towards the cathartic finale of the work.14 The central role of lyricism, neotonality, neomodality, and Romantic slow running time are present in many works, especially Knapik’s, as the point of narration—they manifest themselves in culminating moments, preceded and prepared by music that originated from the experiences of modernism and the twentiethcentury avant-garde, including Polish sonorism (atonality, dissonance, and new articulation techniques). These avant-garde techniques, however, are harnessed for expression and they foreground, by contrasting with the post-avant-garde methods 13 Leszek Polony, “Drogi nowej muzyki” [The ways of new music], in Leszek Polony, W kręgu muzycznej wyobraźni [In the realm of iusical Imagination] (Kraków: PWM, 1980), 197–98. 14 Leszek Polony wrote about the realization of this model in Mieczysław Karłowicz’s music, while Maria Piotrowska analyzed it in the context of ethical and moral eighteenth-century concepts relating to the spiritual transformation of the hero and the symphonies of Beethoven Symphonies No. 3, 5, 9. See: Leszek Polony, “Nowe spojrzenia na muzykę Karłowicza” [A new perspective on Karłowicz’s music], Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 10 (2017): 39; Maria Piotrowska, Neoklasycyzm w muzyce XX wieku [Neoclassicism in 20th-century music] (Warszawa: Akademia Teologii Katolickiej, 1982), 128–29.

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of Generation 51, consonance, melody, and beauty, in the traditional sense of the word (see Knapik’s and Lasoń’s per aspera ad astra work in figs. 1–6, below).

Figure 1. Eugeniusz Knapik, String Quartet no. 1, Part 1 Thickness (source: Eugeniusz Knapik, I Kwartet Smyczkowy [score], Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Kraków 2001)

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Figure 1. (Continued)

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Figure 2. Eugeniusz Knapik, String Quartet no. 1, Part 2 Singing (source: Eugeniusz Knapik, I Kwartet Smyczkowy [score], Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Kraków 2001)

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Figure 3. Eugeniusz Knapik, Le Chant for Solo Soprano and Orchestra, beginning (instrumental phase) (source: Eugeniusz Knapik, Le Chant na sopran solo i orkiestrę do fragmentu z poematu “Cmentarz morski” [score], Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Kraków 1980)

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Figure 4. Eugeniusz Knapik, Le Chant for Solo Soprano and Orchestra, final section (vocal-“instrumental phase) (source: Eugeniusz Knapik, Le Chant na sopran solo i orkiestrę do fragmentu z poematu “Cmentarz morski” [score], Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Kraków 1980)

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Figure 5. Aleksander Lasoń, The Mountains for Symphony Orchestra, beginning (source: Aleksander Lasoń, Góry na orkiestrę symfoniczną [score], Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Kraków 1987)

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Figure 6. Aleksander Lasoń, The Mountains for Symphony Orchestra, main theme (source: Aleksander Lasoń, Góry na orkiestrę symfoniczną [score], Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Kraków 1987)

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Conclusion The Faces of Polish “Romanticism” in the Music of the 1970s and 1980s—between Universalism and National-Religious Myth Maria Janion, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, writes the following about the specificity of Polish Romanticism: The history of Polish Romanticism is dominated by a dynamic process of a flow of inspiration between the individual and the national community. The nation understands itself and finds its way in the actions of its heroes; the prerequisite and criterion for the greatness of an individual is his or her relationship with the feelings, dreams, and aspirations of the community, with the “thought of the people,” with the consciousness and memory of the nation. The romantic “I” is anchored in the historical existence of the community. The flow of existential time is connected with the passage of historical time.15 The tension between that which is individual and that which is communal (social) and national is characteristic of Polish Romanticism. In the nineteenth century Poland did not exist on the map of Europe (it was under the occupation of neighboring states), and the outbreak of Polish Romanticism and Romantic rebellion was a direct respond to Poland’s lack of freedom. The Romantic turn in Polish literature and music of the twentieth century was also to some extent a reaction to the repression of freedom in the states that were in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. Lech Giemza’s observation is pertinent here: “Romanticism is a reaction to the inertia of the world.”16 The “creative” negation of the existing situation is one of the most frequently emphasized distinguishing features of the Romantic attitude.17

15 Maria Janion, Maria Żmigrodzka, Romantyzm i egzystencja: fragmenty niedokończonego dzieła [Romanticism and existence: fragments of an unfinished work] (Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2004), 24. 16 Lech Giemza, Nowa Fala wobec historii [The new wave in the face of history] (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2008), 92–93. 17 See: Leszek Szaruga, Literatura i życie. Ważniejsze wątki dyskusji literackich 1939–1989 [Literature and life. Major themes in literary debates in 1939–1989] (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2001), 121.

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There were two ways that artists protested in 1970s Poland. The first was the construction of a communal national ethos; the second was an attempt to escape social and political oppression by finding freedom (including creative freedom) within. Did this difference result from the generation gap between artists? To a certain extent, yes. Young artists often try to differentiate themselves from their predecessors. Years after his debut in the 1970s, Eugeniusz Knapik said that, despite his interests, he did not touch upon religion because he felt that it belonged to older composers.18 The two generations opposing forms of Romanticism may also have been due to the backgrounds of those involved and the periods in which they lived. Penderecki and his associates remembered life before WWII, survived it, and then witnessed the creation of a new reality within the Eastern bloc. The younger generation only knew the grayness of Communist Poland. And last but not least, Knapik, Krzanowski, and Lasoń came from Silesia, a region that always stood apart from the rest of the country because of its history and location (it was where Polish, German, and Czech influences met). Perhaps this contributed to their rejection of nationalism in their work. What must be stressed, however, is that both of these generations shared an affinity for musical traditions (genres, musical language, and traditional musical functions); in other words, they looked for the universal values that the avant-garde had buried. One Romantic may rebel against or try to destroy reality; another might attempt to forge an entirely new reality. On the relationship between Polish music of the 1970s and historical Romanticism, Leszek Polony wrote: Nineteenth-century romanticism […] was a spiritual impulse against stagnation, opening new perspectives for freedom. It was a rebellious romanticism, full of defiance against stagnant forms and aesthetic canons, classical ideals of balanced and static beauty. […] The problem faced by contemporary man, instead, one of controlling the chaos of events and the excess of stimuli coming from the reality in which we live. […] Today’s music challenges the music of the past with an ideal of form reintegration, a restoration of order and peace; a sense of dignity and an exceptional calling that surpasses aesthetics. The current turn 18 Kinga Kiwała, “Ad origine. Eugeniusz Knapik w rozmowie z Kingą Kiwałą” [Ad origine. Eugeniusz Knapik in conversation with Kinga Kiwała], Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 6, no. 6 (2015): 150.

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therefore seems in some respects to be the opposite of what happened at the beginning of the 19th century. We are evidently dealing with a reference to certain categories of philosophy, aesthetics, and Romantic style. However, this reference has a palliative, or perhaps even more, purifying and regenerating effect today.19 This publication is a result of the research project DAINA 1 No. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 funded by The National Science Centre (NCN), Poland.

Bibliography Chłopicka, Regina. Krzysztof Penderecki między sacrum a profanum. Studia nad twórczością wokalno-instrumentalną [Krzysztof Penderecki between the sacred and profane. Studies of vocal and instrumental work]. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2000. Droba, Krzysztof. “Konwersatorium na temat Przebudzenia Jakuba Krzysztofa Pendereckiego przedstawia Krzysztof Droba” [Seminar on Krzysztof Penderecki’s The Awakening of Jacob presented by Krzysztof Droba]. In Muzyka w kontekście kultury. Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie 1976 [Music in the context of culture. Musical Meetings in Baranów 1976], edited by Leszek Polony, 67–75. Kraków: PWM, 1978. ———. “Przybliżanie muzyki: Ives, nowy romantyzm i wychowanie estetyczne” [Exploring music: Ives, new romanticism and aesthetic education]. Klucz 10 (2011): 7–12. Giemza, Lech. Nowa Fala wobec historii [The new wave in the face of history]. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2008. Janicka-Słysz, Małgorzata. “Eugeniusza Knapika spojrzenie na siebie i na muzykę” [Eugeniusz Knapik’s view of himself and his music]. Studio 1 (1995): 23–25. Janion, Maria. “Dwie wizje ludowości romantycznej” [Two visions of romantic folklorism]. Rocznik Towarzystwa Literackiego im. Adama Mickiewicza 10 (1975): 5–24. Janion, Maria, and Maria Żmigrodzka. Romantyzm i egzystencja: fragmenty niedokończonego dzieła [Romanticism and existence: fragments of an unfinished work]. Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2004. Kiwała, Kinga. “Ad origine. Eugeniusz Knapik w rozmowie z Kingą Kiwałą” [Ad origine. Eugeniusz Knapik in conversation with Kinga Kiwała]. Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 4, no. 6 (2015): 139–52. “Konwersatorium na temat Przebudzenia Jakuba Krzysztofa Pendereckiego przedstawia Krzysztof Droba” [Seminar session on Krzysztof Penderecki’s The Awakening of Jacob presented by Krzysztof Droba]. In Muzyka w kontekście kultury. Spotkania Muzyczne w Baranowie

19 Leszek Polony, “Jeszcze o nowym romantyzmie” [More on new romanticism], in Leszek Polony, W kręgu muzycznej wyobraźni [In the Realm of Musical Imagination] (Kraków: PWM, 1980), 218–219.

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1976 [Music in the context of culture. Musical Meetings in Baranów 1976], edited by Leszek Polony, 67–75. Kraków: PWM, 1978. Kornhauser, Julian. “Realizm nienaiwny” [Non-naive realism]. Poezja 9 (1970): 61–65. Mannheim, Karl. “The Problem of Generations.” In Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge: Collected Works, vol. 5, edited by Paul Kecskemeti, 276–323. New York: Routledge, 1952. Nikolska, Irina. “O ewolucji twórczości instrumentalnej Krzysztofa Pendereckiego” [On the evolution of Krzysztof Penderecki’s instrumental work]. Muzyka 1 (1987): 31–53. Piotrowska, Maria. Neoklasycyzm w muzyce XX wieku [Neoclassicism in 20th-century music]. Warszawa: Akademia Teologii Katolickiej, 1982. Polony, Leszek. “Nowe spojrzenia na muzykę Karłowicza” [A new perspective on Karłowicz’s music]. Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 10 (2017): 35–44. ———. “Pokolenie 33 na przełomie tysiącleci. Między sonoryzmem, nowym romantyzmem i postmodernizmem” [Generation 33 at the turn of the millennium. Between sonorism, new romanticism and postmodernism]. Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 3 (2013): 33–44. ———. “Drogi nowej muzyki” [The ways of new music]. In Leszek Polony, W kręgu muzycznej wyobraźni [In the realm of musical imagination], 193–210. Kraków: PWM, 1980. ———. “Jeszcze o nowym romantyzmie” [More on new romanticism]. In Leszek Polony, W kręgu muzycznej wyobraźni [In the realm of musical imagination], 212–230. Kraków: PWM, 1980. Szaruga, Leszek. Literatura i życie. Ważniejsze wątki dyskusji literackich 1939–1989 [Literature and life. Major themes in literary debates, 1939–1989]. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2001. Szukalski, Piotr. Solidarność pokoleń: dylematy relacji międzypokoleniowych [Generational solidarity: Dilemmas of intergenerational relationships]. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2012. Świda-Ziemba, Hanna. Młodzież PRL. Portrety pokoleń w kontekście historii [Youth of the Polish People’s Republic. Portraits of generations in the context of history]. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2010. Tomaszewski, Mieczysław. Krzysztof Penderecki i jego muzyka. Cztery eseje [Krzysztof Penderecki and his Music. Four essays]. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1994. Wyka, Kazimierz. Pokolenia literackie [Literary generations]. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1977.

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THE MUSICAL EXPRESSION O F C U LT U R A L AND POLITICAL L I B E R AT I O N

CHAPTER 5

The Idea of Freedom in Krzysztof Penderecki’s Works: From Experience to Expression Iwona Sowińska-Fruhtrunk

Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music, Krakow Keywords: freedom, Isaiah Berlin, Krzysztof Penderecki, Mieczysław Tomaszewski, expression, Iron Curtain

La liberté est un mystère. —Arthur Schopenhauer1

Difficult Freedom Freedom is a complicated subject; but it becomes even more complicated when discussed in relation to art. As Mortimer J. Adler notes, the concept of freedom is difficult to analyze because of the number of problems involved, the variety of doctrines and theories there are, the range of issues the idea encompasses, and even the forms of argumentation that can be applied to the subject.2 Nevertheless, he proposes that, in essence, there are three fundamental ideas of 1 Arthur Schopenhauer, Essay on the Freedom of the Will (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005), 99. 2 Guido Adler, The Idea of Freedom (Garden City: Doubleday, 1958), 83.

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freedom: “circumstantial freedom,” “acquired freedom,” and “natural freedom.”3 Circumstantial freedom emphasizes external factors (see Aristotle, Spinoza, Rousseau, Voltaire, Kant, Hume, Hegel, Burke, and Freud). The term “circumstantial” means that external conditions may prevent or facilitate, contract or expand opportunities. As Adler observes, “usually the authors of theories of circumstantial freedom call for reforms or changes in the environment.” Those authors interested in “acquired freedom” seek to reform the individual, not society or the environment. According to thinkers like Plato, Seneca, Plotinus, Augustine, Luther, Leibniz, Dewey, and Russell, this kind of freedom is only available to people “who have developed a certain state of mind or character.” “Natural freedom” is inherent to all people, regardless of circumstances, state of mind, or character. Finally, Adler argues that there are three distinctive modes of self that correspond with these three types of freedom (table 1). We should also observe the relationship between the modes of self and modes of possession of freedom (table 2). Table 1. Three modes of self according to Mortimer J. Adler Tag Word

Tentative Formulation of Meaning

“Self-realization”

An individual’s circumstantial ability to act as they wish.

“Self-perfection”

An individual’s acquired ability to live as they ought.

“Self-determination”

An individual’s natural ability to determine for themselves what they wish to do or to become.

Table 2. The relationship between the modes of self and modes of possession of freedom Mode of Self

Mode of Possession

Self-Realization

Always circumstantial.

Self-Perfection

Always acquired.

Self-Determination

Always natural.

Circumstantial

Perhaps self-realization, self-perfection, or self-determination.

Acquired

Perhaps self-realization or self-perfection.

Natural

Always self-determination

Before we move to strictly musical issues, I will briefly present Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of freedom (or liberty).

3 Ibid., 107.

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Two Concepts of Liberty It is important to remember that freedom has never been a purely philosophical matter; it has always contained a political component. One of the most influential works on the matter is Two Concepts of Liberty by Isaiah Berlin (originally given as a lecture at Oxford in 1958). Berlin identifies two major types of freedom: negative and positive. Generally speaking, negative freedom is “a matter of which doors lie open to you, it is concerned exclusively with opportunities,” while “positive freedom is a question of whether or not you can go through the doors, whether you are master of your life.”4 Berlin also points out that “historically the concept of positive freedom has been used to control and repress individuals in the name of liberty.” Berlin states that “negative freedom” answers the question, “What is the area within which the subject—a person or group of persons—is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?”; whereas “Positive freedom” answers the question, “What, or who, is the source of control or interference, that can determine someone to do, or be, one thing rather than another?” Therefore, we should refer to positive freedom as “freedom to” and negative as “freedom from.” Although Berlin is interested here in the political meanings of freedom, his definitions are helpful for analyzing music too. According to Mieczysław Tomaszewski, there are four kinds of musical creation: authentic (musica vera), rhetorical (musica conventionalis), hyperbolic (musica convivalis), and panegyrical (musica falsa). Additionally, the factors that play an important role in these kinds of creation are: the specific moment of creation (determination, historical circumstances); the attitude of the composer; and the aspect of engaging the listener in a play. Authenticity can then be seen in different light—not only as a feature of the musical work, but also the status and disposition (in terms of the artistic and sociopolitical freedom) of the composer. It is also crucial when talking about politically engaged music to remember the words of Alfred Schnittke: When you do something to react against a rigid system, the product loses its authenticity. Rather one has to act as though the system doesn’t exist at all. That’s the only way music continues to be viable in the longer term.5

4 Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 155. 5 Alfred Schnittke, “Between Hope and Despair,” in The Voice of Music: Conversations with Composers of Our Time, ed. A. Beyer (London: Routledge, 2000).

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There is a vast weight of literature devoted to the issue of witness. However, we sometimes forget that being a witness does not automatically mean giving testimony. The act of being involved requires being a participant (which does not simultaneously exclude being a witness); and true participation is possible only in Tomaszewski’s musica vera mode. Musicae conventionalis and convivalis (more naive than cynical) and falsa do not imply engagement—rather, observing with a distance that is not even conscious. Alexei Yurchak writes of still another mode, which he calls “internal emigration”: Unlike emigration, internal emigration captures precisely the state of being inside and outside at the same time, the inherent ambivalence of this oscillating position.6 All of the abovementioned require us to think about political art in two basic ways: as expressing liberation in purely musical terms and as expressing liberation in solely human terms (table 3). Table 3. Positive freedom versus negative freedom Positive Freedom—“Freedom to”: Acting Regardless of Obstacles

Negative Freedom—“Freedom from”: No Obstacles

To act (compose)

From acting (composing in a certain mode, style or genre)

To choose (material, technique, etc.)

From choosing

To name (title, dedication, etc.)

From naming

To convey (a message; political or personal/ spiritual protest)

From conveying

To express

From expressing

Being a Witness and Participant—Involved

Being a Witness—Observing

Natural freedom

Circumstantial, acquired freedom

Musica vera

Musicae: conventionalis, convivalis, falsa

These distinctions can get very complex, as the “freedom from” mode arises under numerous conditions. This negative freedom—from acting, from 6 Alexei Yurchak quoted in: Peter J. Schmelz, Such Freedom, if Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music during the Thaw (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 15; Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).

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choosing (employing a politically forbidden compositional method or musical subject), from naming (e.g., placing an allusion in the title of a work), from conveying (a political, religious, or spiritual message), and, finally, from expressing (the attitude of the composer)—can be summed up as the situation of the individual who is an observing witness, but who does not engage in oppositional thinking or networking. We may call this kind of freedom circumstantial or acquired freedom, and, applying Tomaszewski’s terms, it refers to musicae conventionalis, convivalis, and falsa.

Krzysztof Penderecki’s Three Values of “Natural Freedom”—Elevating, Supporting, Commemorating Writing about so-called Soviet music, Alexei Yurchak argues that [w]hat tends to get lost in the binary accounts is the crucial and seemingly paradoxical fact that, for great numbers of Soviet citizens, many of the fundamental values, ideals, and realities of socialist life (such as equality, community, selflessness, altruism, friendship, ethical relations, safety, education, work, creativity, and concern for the future) were of genuine importance, despite the fact that many of their everyday practices routinely transgressed, reinterpreted, or refused certain norms and rules represented in the official ideology of the socialist state.7 Peter Schmelz continues this line of thought: [M]any of the unofficial composers reacted against the perceived confines of their earlier abstract compositions and turned to more mimetic, representational styles. They moved from serial techniques to aleatory devices and a range of familiar tonal gestures and harmonies, including direct quotations of familiar compositions from the past. Moreover, they often juxtaposed the divergent styles aligned with these various techniques to narrate very detailed plots.8

7 Yurchak in Schmelz, Such Freedom, 16; after: Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, 8. 8 Schmelz, Such Freedom, 12.

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Penderecki’s stated aim as a self-conscious avant-gardist in the early 1960s was to “liberate sound beyond all tradition.” Many years later, he said: I aimed all the time for the creation of a universal language, which would allow me to compose music in a natural way, just as I feel it, without constraints, without any pressure from the environment and place in which I live. A composer should feel free.9 Being honest to oneself and one’s art is possible only if we speak about self-determination. Self-realization and self-perfection can never achieve such a goal by themselves; and self-determination is a feature of “natural freedom.” Regina Chłopicka observes that in Poland’s difficult historical and political situation, “both religious rites and artistic activity acquired a patriotic function. They were used to defend universal and national values and create a symbolic space for fostering freedom of thought.”10 Penderecki does not only place Poland in European culture, but also emphasizes the role of its “ancient roots and Christian spiritual formation.”11

Elevating—Te Deum, 1979/80 Penderecki wrote: “Te Deum, and especially Requiem, is a summary of my evolution and at the same time summing up everything that happened in music around this time.”12 Mieczysław Tomaszewski contends that Penderecki always reacted to “man’s faith and historical events with the responsivity of a barometer.”13 The ’70s was indeed a special moment, from both a human and historic point of view—the choice of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. Apart from the hymn, the composer included an important Polish text—a fragment of the song “Boże coś Polskę” [God, thou hast Poland], which, has a religious and patriotic function in the work. It is necessary to remember that at around 9 Krzysztof Penderecki, “Muzyki nie można zaczynać od początku, mówi Krzysztof Penderecki,” Ruch Muzyczny 22 (1987): 9. 10 Regina Chłopicka, “Links Between Penderecki’s Music and the Polish National Tradition,” in Nationale Musik im 20. Jahrhundert: Kompositorische und soziokulturelle Aspekte der Musikgeschichte zwischen Ost- und Westeuropa, ed. Helmut Loos (Leipzig: Gudrun Schröder, 2004), 279. 11 Ibid., 280. 12 Penderecki, “Muzyki nie można zaczynać od początku, mówi Krzysztof Penderecki”: 9. 13 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, Penderecki: Bunt i wyzwolenie [Rebellion and liberation], vol. 1, Rozpętanie żywiołów [Unleashing the elements] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 2008), 61.

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1980 this song served as the unofficial national anthem and spoke of the longing for freedom in the country. Ignoring censorship, Penderecki used the original words: “Ojczyznę wolną racz nam wrócić Panie” [Restore a free fatherland to us, o Lord”].14 For Tomaszewski, this is an example of a musical and expressive climax through epiphany—understood as the manifestation of deeply religious music in the work15—an epiphany that elevates the whole nation, that could only been created by someone who possesses truly “natural freedom.”

Reacting and Supporting—Polish Requiem The Polish Requiem, constructed around the Lacrimosa, that was commissioned by Lech Wałęsa for the unveiling of a statue at the Gdańsk Shipyard to commemorate those killed in the Polish antigovernment riots in December 1970. The title was perceived as both a specific protest against the attempt to suppress national aspirations and a broader reflection on the tragic history of the Poland.16 As Tomaszewski writes: “Each of the Polish Requiem’s parts […] is dedicated to something, which encourages the listener to see places, events, and people as symbols of Polish martyrdom and heroism.”17 Agnus Dei was composed in 1981 in memory of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. Recordare was written in 1982 for the beatification of the Franciscan Maximilian Kolbe, who had died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Dies irae was written in memory of the Warsaw Uprising of August and September 1944. Libera me, Domine was written in commemoration of the victims of the Katyń massacre. Sanctus was composed years later, in 1993, and Chaconne, in memory of John Paul II, in 2005. In 2009, Penderecki said: “Composing sacral music was an expression of my rebellion. […] In Western Europe I was conceived as the first composer from the Eastern bloc writing religious works.”18 Penderecki’s attitude may be described as one that reacts to tragic events and supports the memory of the victims. 14 Ibid., 61. 15 Anna Wieczorek, Te Deum w muzyce polskiej przełomu XX i XXI wieku. Gatunek, funkcja, przesłanie [Te Deum in Polish music of the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Genre, function, message] (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2018), 193. 16 Chłopicka, “Links between Penderecki’s Music and the Polish National Tradition”, 282. 17 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Penderecki między sacrum a profanum” [Penderecki between the sacred and profane], Pro musica sacra: czasopismo Uniwersytetu Papieskiego im. Jana Pawła II w Krakowie poświęcone muzyce kościelnej 11 (2003): 116–17. 18 J. Słodkowski, “Krzysztof Penderecki” [an interview with], Gazeta Wyborcza, August 30, 2009, https://lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz/1,35135,6981604,Penderecki__bardzo_nie_lubie_prawykonan. html.

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Figure 1. Krzysztof Penderecki, Te Deum, mm. 30–34 (Schott Edition, 1980)

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Figure 2. Krzysztof Penderecki, the Lacrimosa, mm. 6–9 (Schott Edition, 1981)

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Commemorating—Kadisz Krzysztof Penderecki’s Kadisz was composed during summer 2009 to commemorate the sixty-fifth anniversary of the liquidation of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto (present-day Lodz). The composer had already dealt with the subject of the Holocaust in two previous works: Brygada śmierci [The death brigade] (1961) and Dies irae (1967).19 The Kadisz score contained a dedication that was removed by the composer from the first edition of the score: “To the little Abrams from Lodz, who wanted to live; to the Polish people, who were saving the Jews.” The text of the piece is draws from a variety of sources: verses by Abram Cytryn (a teenager, who was then transported to Auschwitz and murdered there), fragments from Lamentations20 and Daniel,21 as well as the full text of Kaddish Jatom. A kaddish is a hymn of praise to God that is recited in Jewish prayer services. Mourners say Kaddish Jatom to show that, despite their loss of a parent, they still worship God. According to tradition, the soul must be purified; the purification period for the worst human beings lasts twelve months. In order to avoid the suspicion that the departed was a bad person, the son should say the prayer for only eleven months. In Kadisz, religious texts coexist with secular ones. The child’s protest against death is expressed in poetry, which allows them to be liberated, at least partly, from the burden of overwhelming reality. The protest from Jeremiah is straightforward and full of rage; the quiet claim of the men in the furnace—full of pensiveness. Although they are filled with unshakeable faith, there is still a slight shade of doubt in the face of “unimaginable experience.”22 Each of the texts contains, explicitly or implicitly, an allusion to the Holocaust. Penderecki recalled: Composing the music to Kadisz I referred to diverse prayers of east Galicia, Ukraine, or even Romania. I asked my friend Boris Carmeli for help. Just before his death in mid-July, he was still correcting the accents and giving me advice. He sang to me

19 Regina Chłopicka, “Krzysztof Penderecki, Pieśni chińskie i Kadisz. Między pięknem natury a grozą historii” [Krzysztof Penderecki, Chinese songs and Kadish. Between the beauty of nature and the horror of history], Muzyka religijna – między epokami i kulturami 3 (2012): 88. 20 Lamentations 2:21, 3:53–55, 3:59, 3:64–66. 21 Daniel 3:34, 35, 3:37. 22 Term proposed by Elie Wiesel (among others) for describing the experience of the Holocaust: see Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006).

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Figure 3. Krzysztof Penderecki, Kadisz, part 1, mm. 99–105 (Schott Edition, 2015)

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different melodies, sung to him by his grandfather, which means tunes from at least half of the 19th century.23 Chłopicka remarks: In Kadisz, Penderecki has joined two traditions: Jewish and Catholic, preserving at the same time their distinctiveness. […] Part one refers to the genre of orchestral song […] and as such it is a kind of continuation of the composer’s musical language and the existential character of Symphony no. 8. Part three undertakes anew the idiom of sacred music for a capella choir, that originates in the Renaissance and Baroque tradition. The second and fourth parts refer to another tradition—they are bound with religious observance—Judaic.24 The composer’s experience of the world, transmitted through music, raises questions not only about the origins of the work and its biographical details. It is also a kind of statement, a testimony reworked through art. One of the major experiences of the twentieth century, manifested in art in many different ways, was the Holocaust; but as Ryszard Nycz argues, it was “an experience that did not exist,” since “we can doubt if it was an experience as such?”25 According to Giorgio Agamben, “The one who cannot bear witness is the true witness, the absolute witness.”26 Nevertheless, the experience of the Holocaust exerted a powerful presence not only in the output of mid-century composers, but also in the work of later ones whose lives had not coincided with it. For the latter, it was a way of settlement with the past. Thus, in the work of these composers music is not experienced aesthetically: it is also experienced ethically. Sol Roth, elaborating on Isaiah Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty, avers that “The Jewish idea associates freedom with the state of dependence. The right of independence—for individual as well as nation—is essentially alien to the Jewish perspective.”27 For Jews, freedom never meant a right; it has been always a power.

23 Słodkowski, “Krzysztof Penderecki.” 24 Chłopicka, “Krzysztof Penderecki, Pieśni chińskie i Kadisz”: 93. 25 Ryszard Nycz, Poetyka doświadczenia. Teoria – nowoczesność – literatura [Poetics of experience. Theory—modernity—literature] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2012), 142. 26 Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive, trans. Daniel HellerRoazen (New York: Zone Books, 2002), 150. 27 Sol Roth, “Two Concepts of Freedom”, Tradition: a Journal of Orthodox Thought 13, no. 2 (1972): 61.

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Wherein lies the difference between an authentic witness of the Holocaust and a composer “giving testimony” or simply being a secondary musical witness?28 According to Giorgio Agamben, we are dealing with two dimensions of experience here—as the delivery of testimony and as survival.29 In some cases, survival depends on a determination to deliver testimony and thereby “ensure that the witness does not perish.”30 Abram Cytryn is, alas, not a survivor; but he was a witness and participant. His words “I desire to live, although my wings are broken!” express his conviction that life is the most precious value. The Talmud says that the whole of the human race originated in one man. To save one life, then, means to save the whole world; and to destroy one life is comparable to the annihilation of the entire world. Cytryn writes: I am like a wounded bird. I want to take wing, I can’t, Yet I can see clearly the path I have to tread. Through valleys, over mountains, through the clouds, Like a bird with silver plumage, I shall soar upwards. He accepts that he will gain freedom through death. Penderecki takes a reflective position, delivering the moment of true commemoration and, at the same time, rendering a truly filial homage to the victims. Although full of remorse, by choosing to utter the kaddish we also free ourselves from the temptation to judge. This publication is a result of the research project DAINA 1 No. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 funded by The National Science Centre (NCN), Poland.

Bibliography Adler, Guido. The Idea of Freedom. Garden City: Doubleday, 1958. Agamben, Giorgio. Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. New York: Zone Books, 2012. Berlin, Isaiah. Two Concepts of Liberty. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.

28 Amy Lynn Wlodarski, Musical Witness and Holocaust Representation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 11. 29 Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz, 132. 30 Ibid., 15.

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Chłopicka, Regina. “Krzysztof Penderecki, Pieśni chińskie i Kadisz. Między pięknem natury a grozą historii” [Krzysztof Penderecki, Chinese songs and Kadish. Between the beauty of nature and the horror of history]. Muzyka religijna – między epokami i kulturami 3 (2012): 82–94. ———. “Links Between Penderecki’s Music and the Polish National Tradition”. In Nationale Musik im 20. Jahrhundert: Kompositorische und soziokulturelle Aspekte der Musikgeschichte zwischen Ost- und Westeuropa, edited by Helmut Loos, 276–290. Leipzig: Gudrun Schröder, 2004. Nycz, Ryszard. Poetyka doświadczenia. Teoria – nowoczesność – literatura [Poetics of experience. Theory – modernity – literature]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2012. Penderecki, Krzysztof. [An interview with J. Słodkowski]. Gazeta Wyborcza, August 30, 2009. https://lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz/1,35135,6981604,Penderecki__bardzo_nie_lubie_ prawykonan.html. Roth, Sol. “Two Concepts of Freedom”. Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Thought 13, no. 2 (1972): 59–70. Schmelz, Peter J. Such Freedom, if Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music during the Thaw. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Schnittke, Alfred. “Between Hope and Despair.” In The Voice of Music: Conversations with Composers of Our Time, edited by A. Beyer, 239–242. London: Routledge, 2000. Schopenhauer, Arthur. Essay on the Freedom of the Will. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005 Tomaszewski, Mieczysław. Penderecki: Bunt i wyzwolenie [Rebellion and liberation]. Vol. 1, Rozpętanie żywiołów [Unleashing the element]. Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 2008. ———. “Penderecki między sacrum a profanum” [Penderecki between the sacred and profane]. Pro musica sacra: czasopismo Uniwersytetu Papieskiego im. Jana Pawła II w Krakowie poświęcone muzyce kościelnej 11 (2003): 111–21. Wieczorek, Anna. “Te Deum w muzyce polskiej przełomu XX i XXI wieku. Gatunek, funkcja, przesłanie” [Te Deum in Polish music of the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Genre, function, message]. PhD diss., Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 2018. Wlodarski, Amy Lynn. Musical Witness and Holocaust Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Yurchak, Alexei. Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005.

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CHAPTER 6

Nodes and Turning Points in the Life and Art of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki as a Resonance of Polish Politics and History in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century Teresa Malecka

Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music, Krakow Keywords: history, Górecki, turning points, freedom

For a man to know where he is going, he must know where he is coming from. A nation without history errs like a man without memory.1 Everyone was born somewhere, on some piece of land. I don’t regret having been born here, for this land is beautiful […]. I can feel these genes.2

1 Norman Davies, Boże igrzysko. Historia polski [God’s playground: A history of Poland], vol. 2 (Kraków: Znak, 1998), 706. 2 Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, “Już taki jestem zimny drań. Z H. M. Góreckim rozmawia W. Widłak” [I’m just such a rotten cad. W. Widłak talks to H. M. Górecki], Vivo 1 (1994): 39.

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Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s attachment to his native country is tantamount not only to his interest in Poland’s people, landscape, nature, or people, but above all to his deep roots in its history, religion, and culture. Since we tread this land, we are responsible for it somewhat and there is something of this land in us. Miłosz, Słowacki, Szymanowski, Chopin—they are what they are because they come from somewhere. […] This yoke cannot be discarded.3

Periodizations of  Górecki’s Oeuvre: A Survey of  Possibilities While Górecki’s music underwent many technical and stylistic transformations, it is also a uniform whole in terms of its general principles of form and expression. His creative path led from the influence of neoclassicist aesthetics in his youth, closely followed by serial technique, through sonorism, to a reduction of means combined with strong expression, to a renaissance of melodics and harmony necessary to render his religious and humanist message, and then to simple folk themes, religiousness, and, at the same time, to the chamber character of his instrumental music or the modest means of his a cappella chorus. Finally, there were the pieces left undiscovered before his death, again showing a shift in performance means and the messages. Studies of Górecki have attempted to divide his output into periods, but focusing on a particular timespan they have failed to assess his entire career4 or have applied inconsistent criteria for identifying changes in his oeuvre (e.g., both musical language [serial and diatonic] and type of expression. Górecki’s biographers, Adrian Thomas and Krzysztof Droba, identify phases in his output that, for obvious reasons, do not take a general view of the phenomenon and differ in detail yet are somewhat related nevertheless (table 1). Both authors agree about the key turning points in the composer’s career, as they are marked by major pieces that are radical in conception and execution: Refrain (1965) and Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (1976).5 According to Droba, 3 Ibid. 4 Danuta Mirka, “Góreckiego musica geometrica” [Górecki’s musica geometrica], Dysonanse 1 (1998): 20–30; Martina Homma, “Das Minimale und das Absolute. Die Musik Henryk Mikołaj Góreckis von der Mitte der sechziger Jahre bis 1985,” Musik Texte 44 (1992): 40–58. 5 Adrian Thomas, “Górecki, Henryk Mikołaj,” in Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001, last accessed February 23, 2011, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630. article.11478.

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Refrain “is the composer’s greatest achievement in reduction technique and, at the same time, his most perfect realization of reduced music.”6 Thomas wrote of Symphony no. 3 that it “was not the start of a new train of thought but a culmination, a locus classicus of the ideas and techniques that he had been developing for over a decade.”7 Table 1. Górecki’s creative phases according to Krzysztof Droba and Adrian Thomas Krzysztof Droba

Adrian Thomas

I. Early phase: 1955–57 Motoric constructivism, explosive music Sonata for 2 Violins (1957); Songs of Joy and Rhythm (1956)

I. Songs of Joy and Rhythm (1956)

II. Serial constructivism: 1957–61 Vitalism: Scontri (1960)

II. Collisions Scontri (1960)

III. Sonorist phase: 1962–63 “Primal,” intense music Genesis (1962–1963)

III. Genesis 1962–1963

IV. Reductive constructionist phase: 1964–70 “Reduced,” expressionist music Refrain (1965); Old Polish Music (1969)

IV. Old Polish Music (1969)

V. Synthetic constructivist phase: 1971–85 Elevated, religious music Ad Matrem (1971)

V. Sacred Songs (1971)

Symphony no. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, 1976) VI. Broad Waters (1979) Miserere (1981), Marian Songs (1985), Church Songs (1986) VII. Quasi una fantasia Lerchenmusik I.  String Quartets: no. 1 (Already It Is Dusk, 1988) II.   no. 2 (Quasi una fantasia, 1990–1991) III. no. 3 (They Sing Songs, 1993–1995; 2005)8

6 Krzysztof Droba, “Górecki Henryk Mikołaj,” in Encyklopedia muzyczna, vol. 3, PWM, 1986, 428. 7 Adrian Thomas, “Musical Iconography and Górecki’s String Quartets—A Polish Paradigm?” Paper given at the 2nd Festival of Polish Music Conference, Krakow, November 11, 2006. 8 New pieces appeared after the publication of Thomas’s book: Kyrie, Symphony no. 4 (Tansman Episodes), Sanctus Adalbetus, and Two Tristan Postludes and Chorale.

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Droba proposes that (up to 1985) Górecki went through five phases; he takes into account composition technique, form of expression, and the ideas the music communicates. He notes, of course, that the phases are not clear-cut and that they can overlap or draw on earlier styles. By contrast, Thomas refuses to speak in terms of creative phases or periods (up to 1997), instead discussing Górecki’s oeuvre in chronologically defined “chapters.” He names the chapters after their most significant works.

Periodizations of Górecki’s Oeuvre in Relation to Tomaszewski’s Concept of Nodes9 For Mieczysław Tomaszewski, nodes and turning points in the lives and work of composers (Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin) are highly important; and he links life events with changes in aesthetics. The question is: Does Tomaszewski’s thinking align with the periodizations proposed by Droba and Thomas? Table 2. The periodization of Górecki’s creative phases in comparison with Tomaszewski’s concept of nodes Krzysztof Droba

Adrian Thomas

Mieczysław Tomaszewski

I. Early phase: 1955–57 Motoric constructivism, explosive music Sonata for 2 Violins Songs of Joy and Rhythm

Prelude I. Songs of Joy and Rhythm

I. Initial phase

II. Serial constructivism: 1957–61 Vitalist music Scontri

II. Collisions Scontri

II. Early output phase

III. Sonorist phase: 1962–63 “Primal,” intensive music Genesis

III. Genesis

IV. Reductive constructionism phase: 1964–70 IV. Old Polish Music “Reduced,” expressionist music Refrain (1965) Old Polish Music V. Synthetic constructivism phase: 1971–85 Elevated, religious music Ad Matrem

V. Sacred Songs

III. Mature output phase

IV. Apogee phase

(Continued) 9 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Życia twórcy punkty węzłowe. Rekonesans” [Nodes in an artist’s life. Reconnaissance], in Muzyka w dialogu ze słowem [Music in dialogue with word] (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna 2003), 42–44.

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Table 2. (Continued) SYMPHONY no. 3 (SYMPHONY OF SORROWFUL SONGS, 1976) BEATUS VIR, 1979 V. Late output phase VI. Broad Waters, Miserere, Marian Songs, Church Songs Teresa Malecka Kyrie, Symphony no. 4 (Tansman Episodes), Sanctus Adalbetus, Two VI. Last phase Tristan Postludes and Chorale

1. The initial output phase (1955–57)10 coincides with Górecki’s studies with Bolesław Szabelski and the beginning of his lifelong fascination with the music of Szymanowski. This phase is what Tomaszewski calls Górecki’s “acceptance of his heritage” and “direct continuation”; this is also the period, in the words of Droba, of the composer’s motoric constructivism and explosive music, culminating in Songs of Joy and Rhythm. 2. The early output phase (1957–63) covers Górecki’s initial fascination with novelty—first with serial technique, then with the total serialism of Scontri, the central piece of the period Collisions (according to Thomas), and then the sonorism of the tripartite Genesis cycle, described by Droba as a “treatise on the form-shaping function of color.”11 3. The mature output phase (1964–70) is when Górecki finds his voice, with Refrain and Old Polish Music as the key pieces. He reverts to traditional instrumentation, his musical material becomes diatonic, and his form approximates traditional models—all this in the service of the power of expression. Droba describes proposes that the essence of Górecki’s music during these years is one “relationship” or an “amalgamate” of “minimal material and maximal expression.” Tomaszewski seems to be expressly speaking of Górecki when he defines the Sturm und Drang phase. 4. The apogee phase (1975–79), the composer’s second mature phase, features religious music (Droba). Thomas’s periodization regards Sacred Songs as a definitive key work. The phase begins with Ad Matrem, through Symphonies no. 2 and 3, to Beatus vir. Górecki’s increasing commitment to religious text sis accompanied by a radical shift towards traditional musical qualities: melody, harmony (modal and tonal), simple yet monumental instrumentation, and the resulting enhancement of the importance of expression. In Tomaszewski’s view, this phase involves a “significant encounter” and the 10 All “phases” are according to Tomaszewski’s periodization. 11 Droba, “Górecki Henryk Mikołaj,” 428.

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artist “achieves the pinnacle of his potential,” which allows him to “run ‘full sail.’” 5. The late output phase (1980–88, or ongoing) is characterized by choral religious music (and adaptations of folk and church songs)and, later on, chamber music. It is a departure from Górecki’s large ensembles and profound ideas; it seeks folk and church simplicity and chamber-like intimacy. Tomaszewski later speaks of this phase as a “moment of endangered existence,” of a “shadow line” appearing in the artist’s life, but also as the moment of the Górecki’s liberation from “internal and external limitations.” 6. The sixth phase seems the most difficult one to recognize. It could coincide with the string quartets (1988–2010). Full of spirituality, they are probably Górecki’s most unfathomable works. The last pieces have both a religious emphasis and a Wagnerian scope. According to Tomaszewski, the music of this phase is a farewell. There is a feeling of loneliness; it is fragmentary and yet achieves coherence at a higher level.

Nodes in Polish History in Górecki’s Time It seems that Tomaszewski’s ideas about the relationship between the artist’s life and his art can be discussed on a number of levels, just as there are many possible meanings for the artist’s life itself. In the case of a composer who died in 2010, there is not enough perspective or perhaps not enough distance to examine the connections between the facts from the life of an individual and his art. This is why it might be a good idea to discuss this problem in a more tangible sphere, one of particular significance to Polish composers of the twentieth century, one that—when confronted with the above-quoted confession on Górecki’s strong ties to his native land and its Christian culture—seems, indeed, fundamental: the sphere of Polish and European history. It should be added that “history” is denoted here in a spiritual rather than a political sense, and focuses on the captivity/freedom opposition according to the understanding proposed by Weigel, who defines the freedom achieved in Poland in 1989—soon followed by other countries of Central Europe—as a “final revolution,” characteristic in its being a spiritual one.12 12 George Weigel, Ostateczna rewolucja: Kościól sprzeciwu a upadek komunizmu [The final revolution: The resistance church and the collapse of communism], trans. Wojciech Buchner (Poznań: W drodze, 1995).

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Below the nodes, or turning points, in Polish history after World War Two are presented that potentially coincide with the life and creative work of Górecki: 1946–1947—the Communists consolidate their rule in Poland (1946— referendum, 1947—parliamentary election rigged by the Communists) 1949—Socialist realism becomes the official doctrine in music 1956—the momentary “thaw” ( June strike in Poznań, Gomułka assumes power in October; the first Warsaw Autumn festival) 1968—student revolt in March 1970s—emergence of opposition 1976—Workers’ Defence Committee 1978—the Polish Pope elected 1979—John Paul II on first pilgrimage to his country 1980—August strikes and the emergence of Solidarity 1981—martial law 1989—the first free election, defeat of Communists, the Mazowiecki government, the fall of the Berlin Wall 1990—Communist Party disbanded in Poland, the fall of the Soviet Union Let us try to find possible connections between the above nodes in history with critical moments in Górecki’s creative path. Table 3. Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s creative phases in comparison with political history of Poland Krzysztof Droba

Adrian Thomas

Mieczysław Tomaszewski

I. Early phase: 1955–57 Motoric constructivism, explosive music Sonata for 2 Violins Songs of Joy and Rhythm

I. Prelude Songs of Joy and Rhythm

I. Initial phase

II. Serial constructivism: 1957–61 Vitalist music Scontri

II. Collisions Scontri

II. Early output phase

III. Sonorist phase: 1962–63 “Primal,” intensive music Genesis

III. Genesis

1956— momentary “thaw”

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Krzysztof Droba

Adrian Thomas

Mieczysław Tomaszewski

IV. Reductive constructionism phase: 1964–70 “Reduced,” expressionist music Refrain (1965) Old Polish Music

IV. Old Polish Music

III. Mature output phase

Student revolt of March 1968

V. Synthetic constructivism phase: 1971–85 Elevated, religious music Ad Matrem

V. Sacred Songs

IV. Apogee phase

1970s—emergence of opposition

1978—Polish Pope elected 1979—John Paul II makes first pilgrimage to Poland

SYMPHONY no. 3 (SYMPHONY OF SORROWFUL SONGS, 1976) BEATUS VIR (1979) VI. Broad Waters, Miserere, Marian Songs, Church Songs

V. Late output phase

1981—martial law

VII. Quasi una fantasia, Lerchenmusik, String quartets: no. 1 (Already It Is Dusk) no. 2 (Quasi una fantasia) no. 3 (They Sing Songs)

Late output phase

1989—the first free elections

Teresa Malecka Kyrie, Sanctus Adalbertus, Symphony no. 4 (Tansman Episodes), Two Tristan Postludes and Chorale

VI. Last output phase from 2000

Górecki’s generation enters the history of music at a time of political crisis after Stalin’s death, a time referred to in Poland as October ’56, a moment of transitory thaw, especially visible in art and culture. His debut as a composer coincides with the first international music festival, Warsaw Autumn. The years of his studies, his acceptance of his heritage, immediately followed by a fascination with novelty (dodecaphony, serialism, and sonorism) is a progression common for many Polish composers of the time.

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The year 1968, that of the student revolt in March, a protest against the reborn power of Communist dictatorship, seems to be preceded by a breakthrough in Górecki’s art, with Refrain as its strongest manifestation and the opposition between the reduced means and the heightened role of expression. The gradual acceleration of political events in Poland in the 1970s—the emergence of opposition, the Workers’ Defence Committee, the election of a Polish pope, and the first pilgrimage of John Paul II to his native country—are very clearly connected with major changes, in terms of both style and ideas, in the composer’s oeuvre as defined by his most eminent works (Ad Matrem [1971], Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs [1976] and Beatus vir [1979]), dedicated to John Paul II. The martial law of 1981 coincides with a domination of religious themes, of choral songs both folk and religious in nature for Górecki, while the victory of freedom of 1989 is a time of chamber music (especially of his string quartets)— as his “late output.”

The Individual Case of Górecki: His Road to the Third Symphony and Beatus Vir As can be seen, Górecki’s creative path followed the rhythm of change in Poland since 1956—perhaps more so than in any other composer. It is a consequence of the changes; at times, the changes seem to be foreshadowed or preceded by those in his art. And just as history follows critical moments culminating in the election of a Polish pope in 1978 and his first pilgrimage to his country of 1979, and then through martial law to eventual freedom, the composer’s oeuvre runs towards a significant moment; towards his phase of apogee that includes some of his greatest masterpieces of music with a clearly religious message, to Symphony no. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, 1976) and the psalm Beatus vir (1979), and then recedes into the universe of choral and chamber music. In terms of musical material, this is a road of a gradual “clearing the field”: from serialism, sonorism, still-dissonance diatonics, in Refrain, through oscillation or struggle between the dissonance and the consonance in Ad Matrem; to an emancipation of consonance in modal or tonal order, to an emancipation of melodics that functions in the traditional sense and that, together with harmony, constructs powerful emotional tension and the associated powerful expression.

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In Ad Matrem,13 a work dedicated “To the memory of my mother,” the means of composition serve all at once to express the dramatic exclamation of “Mater mea” (following a long section of repetition in gc, tp, and tmb towards the end— dissonant chords in chorus and orchestra and, in the horizontal dimension, a tritone relationship), to present an ideal, indeed an idyllic image of the mother’s world (relationships closer to consonance, shift from tritone to perfect fourth) and, finally, and to express a prayer to Mary in pain under Christ’s cross (Solo Soprano), in the words of a Stabat Mater sequence: “Mater mea lacrimosa, dolorosa.” Górecki sees his Symphony no. 314 as his most groundbreaking piece; it is generally understood as a manifestation of the strongest turn to tradition in art music of the twentieth century; it is, at the same time, a work of great breakthrough, both in his own oeuvre and in Polish music in general. Soon after its premiere in 1977, the composer said, “This is a strange work in my output. I don’t know if I am going to continue along these lines, or if it was a one-time experience.”15 The phenomenon of Górecki’s Symphony no. 3 consists in its reverting to values rejected by the avant-garde and, at the same time, in its truly extraordinary success in contemporary world culture. The most important sources of Górecki’s musical inspiration include, apart from the tradition of European music and his attachment to his country, manifest in his interest in its nature, the landscape, and people and, above all, his deep roots in history, religion, and Christian culture. The work itself (both music and 13 Ad Matrem for Soprano Solo, Mixed Choir, and Orchestra, op. 29 (1971). Text: Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, from the sequence Stabat Mater. Dedication: “In memory of my Mother.” First performance: September 16, 1972, Warsaw Autumn Festival. Award: First Prize, UNESCO Rostrum, Paris 1973. 14 Symphony no. 3 (Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs) for Solo Soprano and Orchestra, op. 36 (1976), in three parts:

1. LENTO, sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile (texts: anon., mid-fifteenth century, “Lament świętokrzyski” [Holy cross lament]). 2. LENTO e LARGO, tranquilissimo-cantabilissimo, dolcissimo-LEGATISSIMO (text: Helena Wanda Błążusiakówna, graffito, 1944, Zakopane). 3.  LENTO, cantabile—semplice (text: anon. Opole folksong, 1919–21).

Commission: South-West German Radio, Baden-Baden. Dedication: “To my wife.” First performance: Royan International Festival of Contemporary Art. Awards: Best-Selling CD in 1993, Gramophone’s Recording of the Year 1993, Classical Music Awards in London (1994). 15 Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, “Powiem Państwu szczerze” [I will be Honest], 2nd Musical Meeting in Baranów Sandomierski 1977, Vivo 1 (1994): 44.

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lyrics) is significantly rooted in old Polish folk and religious songs, with their clearly lamentative character. The lyrics, although differentiated in terms of history, language, and style, produce a coherent tripartite structure on the textual level, concentrated on the relationship of the mother/lost child in both a human and a divine dimension. The music is constructed simply and naturally yet in a refined manner and almost autonomously creates the tragedy of a mother’s pain. The construction of the tripartite serial form is based on the principle of repetitive phrases, motifs, or even single tones in the micro dimension. The peculiar “tonal-harmonic” system of Symphony no. 3 is characteristic in the dominant role of modality (with instability typical of folk music), a weakening of functional dependencies, and the presence of some chromatics that influence expression. One of Górecki’s greatest discoveries is his restoration of the significance of melodics, the main features of which include the simplicity and the ease of the union between word and tone. The uniformly slow tempo of all three movements of the piece defines the unique and slow-flowing time of the work. Its color is dominated by the great string ensemble, enriched with a colorist treatment of piano and harp, its piano-mezzopiano dynamics, quasi-constant yet abounding in crescendo and diminuendo. First-order significance is restored to expression, among other things through the use of detailed performance instructions. The tripartite cycle is uniform in all its elements, especially in agogics, and this leads to the question of its genre: Is it a symphony or, perhaps, a song cycle? It seems closer to the idiom of song with orchestra; yet its deeply religious, personal and, at the same time, universal message is both that of a song and of a symphony. Postmodernist discussion mistakenly evokes the case of Górecki’s Symphony no. 3, while the work’s seriously religious and humanist message is the very negation of postmodernism. This work is the apogee (Tomaszewski) towards which Górecki’s entire oeuvre seems to have been moving. The composer achieves in his Third the full self-realization mentioned by Tomaszewski, and that through both his mastery of composing technique and his power of expression; he reaches the ultimate depth and pinnacle of his potential. Yet the presented outline results in a paradox in Górecki’s case. Indeed, the moment of “encounter,” according to Tomaszewski a significant element of the apogee of the creative path which equally influences the artist’s life, takes place sometime after rather than before the creation of Symphony no. 3. The encounter is that of the composer’s first contact with Cardinal Karol Wojtyła on the occasion of the commission of a work for the nine hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Stanislaw, one of Poland’s medieval patron saints, then of the critical

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moment of the election of the Polish pope, and finally of their personal encounter at the performance of Beatus vir16 at Franciscan Church in Krakow in June 1979. According to the composer himself, this was the most important moment of his life, culminating in a short yet highly emotional conversation between the composer and the man whom the world in April 2004 was to acclaim as “Santo subito,” and who in fact changed the political and historical situation of Poland and the whole of Europe. The tension that accompanied the emergence of this work (both political and personal) required much spiritual strength; without Tomaszewski’s “full sail,” the work that aspired to the idea of the sacred would have never been born. Its text was compiled from several psalm fragments to combine two symbolic figures into the one and universal “blessed man.” The collective and individual prayer (Chorus/Solo Baritone) is a plea for mercy, a credo, a commendation, and a moral. This prayer is clothed in music, at once simple—typical for Górecki at the time (modal scales, yet also tonal associations, oscillations of the tonal center between C minor, E-flat major and C major, the significant role of repetition)—and exalted, full of internal tension, leading to powerful climaxes and then retreating away from them. Connotations to folk music (tonal instability) are interspersed with allusions to church music; the quasi-quotation of a psalmic one17 with the fundamental words “Taste and see how sweet is the Lord, blessed is he who has hope in Him,” performed by chorus a cappella in its final, part ushers in a different, a seemingly unearthly reality. The above means of composition are akin to those described by musicological studies as typical for sacred music,18 and the abovementioned quasi-quotation can be probably described as “a moment of epiphany.” That is exactly the term

16 Beatus vir for Solo Baritone, Mixed Choir, and Large Orchestra, op. 38 (1979). Texts: Psalms 142–143; 30–31; 37–38; 66–67; 33–34. Commission: Kardynał Karol Wojtyła, 1977. Dedication: “To the Holy Father, John Paul II.” First performance: June 9, 1979, Krakow. 17 Kinga Kiwała, “Problematyka sacrum w polskiej muzyce współczesnej na przykładzie wybranych utworów związanych z osobą Ojca Świętego Jana Pawła II” [The sacred in Polish contemporary music on the basis of selected cases related to Our Holy Father John Paul II] (Master’s thesis, Akademia Muzyczna, 2002), 74. 18 E.g., Bohdan Pociej, “Sacrum w muzyce dzisiaj. Problem estetyki” [The sacred in contemporary music. The problem of aesthetics] (Lublin: Referat wygłoszony na sesji Wartościowanie w badaniach literackich, 1982); Joachim Waloszek, “Kategorie ‘sacrum’ i ‘profanum’ we współczesnej literaturze muzykologicznej” [Categories of the sacred and profane in current musicology], in Księga pamiątkowa poświęcona pamięci Ks. Karola Mrowca, Roczniki Teologiczno-Kanoniczne 34.7 (1987), 47; Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Semplice e divoto,” in Nad pieśniami Karola Szymanowskiego [On songs by Karol Szymanowski] (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna, 1998), 95–96.

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Tomaszewski uses to denote the appearance of a new, alien element that relates to the idiom of the sacred.19 In 1980, Bohdan Pociej asked a “surprised” question about the Psalm Beatus vir in a radio discussion: “Where does it come from, this extraordinary revelation of greatness in music? Why is it now that the most eminent of religioninspired works appears?”20

The Late Output Phase/The Late Style? The enthusiasm in modern Polish history of 1978, 1979, and 1980 was followed by the time of martial law. In Górecki’s oeuvre of the time, after his apogee, the culmination of the sacred, in his masterpiece of concert music—the Harpsichord concerto of 1980—a reduction of means set in; the artist’s work receded into modest simplicity (folk and church songs for a cappella chorus), which was characteristic of his late phase. This is not identical with late style as defined by Mieczysław Wallis. According to the latter, It is in the final phase of their creative life that some artists produced their best works—works of the greatest poignancy, works most deeply human—or works that paved the way for the art of the future.21 Górecki’s case is closer to that described by Tomaszewski, when the artist’s very existence is endangered, when a “shadow line” appears. Norman Davies wrote that The workings of Providence might seem whimsical in the last decade: the great hopes of 1978 have preceded the great disappointment of the years following December 1981.

19 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Sacrum i profanum w muzyce. Z prof. M. Tomaszewskim rozmawia M. Janicka-Słysz” [The sacred and profane in music. Prof. M. Tomaszewski interviewed by M. Janicka-Słysz], Maszkaron 1 (2003): 30. 20 Bohdan Pociej, [Talk] in Forum kompozytorskie H.M. Góreckiego (Polskie Radio II, 1980). 21 Mieczysław Wallis, Późna twórczość wielkich artystów [Late works by great artists] (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1975), 9.

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What have the Poles done to have deserved such a cruel fate? The last decade has done much to change the perspective, the nation had to suffer much to understand the dimensions of its moral victory.22 And finally came the year 1989, described by Weigel as a moment of “the final revolution.” It is usually maintained that despite the great breakthrough of regained freedom, it did not bring radical stylistic change in the art of Polish composers. To revert to the categories of Thomas, Górecki seems to enter the time of the string quartet, the noblest genre of chamber music, a frequent guest during the so-called late or even last output of the great masters, with obvious emphasis on the last and the final string quartets of Beethoven. The quartet is present in the work of the Bonn master throughout his life; in Górecki, it only appeared in his last years. Yet Beethoven’s impact on Górecki continued almost since the latter’s childhood, when, fascinated with the Ninth, he made the important decision of trading his ping-pong bat for a score of the symphony. Beethovenian inspirations are manifest in Górecki in many pieces and at many levels.23 He said of his Second Quartet (Quasi una fantasia): “It is thanks to Beethoven that I was able to write it.”24 And, as suggested by the title borrowed from Beethoven’s famous piano sonata Quasi una fantasia, unconventional form, and the presence, in a sense, of an improvisational, incoherent character, are a significant feature of Górecki’s quartets. Adding to the above the knowledge that the title of Quartet no. 3 (They Sing Songs) was derived by the composer from a poem by Velimir Khlebnikov: When horses die, they breathe, When grasses die, they wither, When suns die, they go out, When people die, they sing songs. It seems that the cycle—for that is probably what it really is—of his three string quartets of 1988–2005 is situated at the threshold of the late and the last phases. This is evidenced by the fragmentariness, the lack of uniformity, the formal disintegration (all last phase characteristics) on the one hand, and on the other, by the continuing reduction of means (instrumentation) and the novelty, since 22 Norman Davies, Boże igrzysko. Historia Polski, 709. 23 Teresa Malecka, “Górecki Faces Beethoven,” in Beethoven 4. Studien und Interpretationen. Beethoven und Resonanz; Beethoven. Musik und Literatur; Beethoven und sein Wien, ed. Mieczysław Tomaszewski and Magdalena Chrenkoff (Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna, 2009), 119–34. 24 Adrian Thomas, Górecki (Kraków: PWM, 1998), 178.

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Górecki had until then never produced quartets (late phase). This is exactly why the quartets might one day be considered as part of the late style in Wallis’s terms—as “works that paved the way for the art of the future.”25

Post-Scriptum And then: the final style. The world learned of Górecki’s unfinished works only after his passing. His son Mikołaj, who trained as a composer as his father looked on, preserved his heritage. The works were completed, published, and, what is more, could come to life in performance. These are Symphony no. 4 (Tansman Episodes, 2006), the oratorio Sanctus Adalbertus (2004), Two Tristan Postludes and Chorale, op. 82 (2004), and Kyrie (2006).26 It is now evident that while Górecki’s works for a cappella chorus, his chamber music, and particularly his string quartets are quite clearly part of the late style category, the composer’s final pieces—due the extent of their diversity in terms of performance means, formal structure, expression, and numerous references to the past that do not lend themselves to easy interpretation—come together as a group that is closest to anything that can be defined as final style. To use the concepts proposed by Mieczysław Tomaszewski, they contain “mystical and metaphysical accents” (Kyrie, Sanctus Adalbertus), they are “fragmentary” and “soliloquial” (Symphony no. 4 [Tansman Episodes]), and they are imbued with a certain valedictory aura (Two Tristan Postludes and Chorale). At this time of historical freedom, and perhaps against its grain, he spoke of his doubts in the very sense of music. He said, “Music is a great mystery” or he quoted Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski’s words, “music is a guest from another world.”27 This publication is a result of the research project DAINA 1 No. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 funded by The National Science Centre (NCN), Poland.

Bibliography Davies, Norman. Boże igrzysko. Historia Polski [God’s playground: A history of Poland], vol. 2 Kraków: Znak 1998. Droba, Krzysztof. “Górecki Henryk Mikołaj.” In Encyklopedia muzyczna, vol. 3, 420–32. Kraków: PWM, 1986. 25 Wallis, Późna twórczość wielkich artystów, 9. 26 The music was not published and performed in the order of composition. 27 Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, “Honorary Doctorate Lecture at the Academy of Music in Kraków,” Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 3 (2016): 104.

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Górecki, Henryk Mikołaj. “Honorary Doctorate Lecture at the Academy of Music in Kraków.” Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje 3 (2016): 103–118. ———. “Już taki jestem zimny drań. Z H. M. Góreckim rozmawia W. Widłak” [I’m just such a rotten cad. W. Widłak talks to H. M. Górecki]. Vivo 1 (1994): 37–39. ———. “Powiem Państwus zszerze” [I will be honest]. Text written for 2nd Musical Meeting in Baranów Sandomierski, 1977. Vivo 1 (1994): 43–48. Homma, Martina. “Das Minimale und das Absolute. Die Musik Henryk Mikołaj Góreckis von der Mitte der sechziger Jahre bis 1985.” Musik Texte 44 (1992): 40–58. Kiwała, Kinga. Problematyka sacrum w polskiej muzyce współczesnej na przykładzie wybranych utworów związanych z osobą Ojca Świętego Jana Pawła II” [The sacred in Polish contemporary music on the basis of selected cases related to our Holy Father John Paul II]. Master’s thesis, Akademia Muzyczna, 2002. Malecka, Teresa. “Górecki Faces Beethoven.” In Beethoven 4. Studien und Interpretationen. Beethoven und Resonanz; Beethoven. Musik und Literatur; Beethoven und sein Wien, edited by Mieczysław Tomaszewski and Magdalena Chrenkoff, 119–34. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna, 2009. Mirka, Danuta. “Góreckiego musica geometrica” [Górecki’s musica geometrica]. Dysonanse 1 (1998): 20–30. Pociej, Bohdan. “Sacrum w muzyce dzisiaj. Problem estetyki” [The sacred in contemporary music. The problem of aesthetics]. Lublin: Referat wygłoszony na sesji Wartościowanie w badaniach literackich, 1982. Pociej, Bohdan. [Talk]. In Forum kompozytorskie H. M. Góreckiego. Polskie Radio II, 1980. Thomas, Adrian. Górecki. Kraków: PWM, 1998. ———. 2001. “Górecki, Henryk Mikołaj.” In Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. Last modified, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.11478. ———. “Musical Iconography and Górecki’s String Quartets—A Polish Paradigm?” Paper given at the 2nd Festival of Polish Music Conference, Kraków, November 11, 2006. Tomaszewski, Mieczysław. “Sacrum i profanum w muzyce. Z prof. M. Tomaszewskim rozmawia M. Janicka-Słysz” [The sacred and profane in music. Prof. M. Tomaszewski interviewed by M. Janicka-Słysz]. Maszkaron 1 (2003): 30–32. ———. “Semplice e divoto,” In Nad pieśniami Karola Szymanowskiego [On songs by Karol Szymanowski], 95–96. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna, 1998. ———. “Życia twórcy punkty węzłowe. Rekonesans” [Nodes in an artist’s life. Reconnaissance]. In Muzyka w dialogu ze słowem [Music in dialogue with word], 35–48. Kraków: Akademia Muzyczna 2003. Waloszek, Joachim. “Kategorie ‘sacrum’ i ‘profanum’ we współczesnej literaturze muzykologicznej” [Categories of the sacred and profane in current musicology]. Księga pamiątkowa poświęcona pamięci Ks. Karola Mrowca. Roczniki Teologiczno-Kanoniczne 34.7 (1987), 46 Wallis, Mieczysław. Późna twórczość wielkich artystów [Late works by great artists]. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1975. Weigel, George. Ostateczna rewolucja: Kościól sprzeciwu a upadek komunizmu [The final revolution: The resistance church and the collapse of communism]. Translated by Wojciech Buchner. Poznań: W drodze, 1995.

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CHAPTER 7

The Dimensions of Freedom in Wojciech Marczewski’s Movie Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema and Witold Leszczyński’s Siekierezada (Axiliad): Music Functions in Films Ewa Czachorowska-Zygor

Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music, Krakow Keywords: film music, functions, freedom, Marczewski, Leszczyński

What would happen if one day—one fine day—Poland regained freedom in political life? Would that wonderful spiritual tension, characteristic of, if not the whole nation, then certainly its fairly numerous and somewhat democratic elite, be sustained? Would churches be deserted? Would poetry—as is the case in happy countries—become the food of a bored handful of experts, and cinema become one of the branches of commercialized entertainment? Would all that was saved in the Polish situation, saved from flood, from destruction, even raised above the danger like a high wall; everything that was created as an answer to the dangerous challenge of totalitarianism; would all this cease to exist on the very same day that this challenge disappeared?1 1 Adam Zagajewski, Solidarność i samotność [Solidarity and loneliness] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Zeszytów Literackich, 1986), 27.

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Looking at the development of Polish culture during the transformation period from a certain, though still short, distance, the questions posed by Adam Zagajewski in his essay of 1986 can be read as prophetic. They outline the threats and challenges faced by artists in the new political reality in an extremely accurate way. The lack of censorship and freedom to choose the problems to be tackled meant that the invisible, spiritual wall, previously constructed as a protection against the flood of propaganda, no longer had a raison d’être. It seems natural, in this situation, to want to settle accounts with the reality of the Polish People’s Republic in all its manifestations: political, social, and cultural. The other spectrum is constituted by artistic expressions drawing on previously forbidden and nonexistent topics, or those which were presented in a veiled way at best. In this group, freedom becomes one of the basic categories, considered in various contexts and from various perspectives, relating to both the community and the individual, understood in an external and spiritual dimension. In film, Wojciech Marczewski and Witold Leszczyński, among others, take the floor in the ongoing debate. Each of them, while remaining in the world of auteur cinema they have created, emphasizes different aspects. In Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema (1990)—bearing in mind the possibility of a multilevel intertextual reading of the film—this will be an attempt to transform the main character, the censor, set firmly in the context of social upheaval, which gives the whole picture the dimension of a metaphorical story about the process of political transformation in Poland. In Siekierezada (1986) the focus will be on the problem of seeking inner freedom, even at the cost of surrendering purely human happiness. Both directors decide to use already existing pieces of music as their film score, which affects the shape of the audiovisual relationship, while at the same time opening up wider possibilities for interpretation. Exploring the function the music plays in both films will allow us to answer the question of whether it also amplifies the message of the main idea of each work, thus contributing to a deepening of the audience’s perception.

Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema and Siekierezada: The Visual Layer and its Meaning The plot layers of Marczewski’s film, and to an even greater extent Leszczyński’s, can be summed up in a few sentences. One gets the impression that they are somehow cleansed of an excess of events, allowing the filmmakers to draw the viewer’s attention to the overarching idea, developed beyond the significance of the image itself. Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema is the story of a censor,

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Rabkiewicz (performed by the phenomenal Janusz Gajos), a cynical, self-confident representative of the system, who is nearing his fifties. Formerly a poet and a literary and theatre critic, he now heads a censorship office in a large city (Lodz?).2 A rebellion breaks out in the world he believes he controls: during a screening of the film Dawn at the Liberty Cinema, the actors abandon their roles, come to life on screen, and start talking to each other, involving the audience. The censor, summoned to the scene, tries to intervene, but in the end the actors’ rebellion becomes an opportunity for the censor himself to shed his mask, which has become almost permanently attached, becoming something natural. Watching the “liberated” actors, talking to Margaret (one of the heroines of Dawn), he discovers in himself the desire to be free like them—he crosses over to the other side of the screen (in order to protect the rebels from punishment—the burning of the film copy). However, the new reality does not allow him to break away from the past. As he follows the other actors of Dawn onto the roofs of tenement houses, towards freedom, he sees figures from his former life, many of whom have already faded from his memory. The voices of those wronged by the censor do not allow him to forget, they demand justice. The censor flees from them, exits the screen into an empty cinema auditorium, only to find himself back in the privacy of his darkened flat. Marczewski’s film can be examined on many different levels. In the most literal sense it is a story about the tragedy of a man caught up in the dictates of the system. It may be viewed as a portrayal of issues that are ever-present in art: good and evil, crime and punishment, guilt and forgiveness. However, due to the time and place of its creation, and the artistic “here and now,” it seems that one of the most important interpretations relates to the sociopolitical changes taking place in Poland at the end of the 1980s. Going a step further, it is also an attempt to settle accounts with Poland’s Communist past, a desire to define the state of Polish cinematography, accompanied by an assessment of the role of the artist and film in the face of ongoing changes. In the multilayered structure of a film about film, the director employs broad intertextual strategies—some of which are obvious, others remaining more covert.3 Among the most notable references, the following should be mentioned: Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s

2 A city in Poland associated with cinematography, the home of Lodz Film School, which was founded in 1948. 3 A detailed analysis of Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema from an intertextual perspective was presented by Andrzej Szpulak, cf. Andrzej Szpulak, Filmy Wojciecha Marczewskiego [Wojciech Marczewski’s film] (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2009).

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Crime and Punishment and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem. The most complex discourse involves Bulgakov’s work and takes place on many planes. Marczewski develops or limits borrowed motifs depending on the needs of the adopted concept of the whole (the motif of the moon, the name of one of the heroines—Margaret—the imperative of singing, the artistic aspect of the place where the changes take place, theatre/cinema, a patient visiting the censor [entering through a balcony] in a psychiatric clinic). Particularly noteworthy, especially in the context of the choice of song, is the “epidemic” of singing that is spreading ever wider, becoming an expression of rebellion and a desire for freedom. Marczewski borrowed the idea of including a film within the film from an American colleague who had made his Rose just a few years earlier (1985). In Allen’s movie, Tom Baxter’s leaving the screen transfers fiction into the real world. For the Polish director, the vector of actions is the opposite—the censor goes to the other side of the screen, giving film fiction the illusion of reality. In Marczewski’s film, the boundary between the symbolism of the film world and reality is slowly but steadily blurred (Rabkiewicz’s coat finds its way to one of the characters in Dawn, the ticket-taker at the Liberty Cinema serves tea to the on-screen Margaret). The censor, penetrating the film space, reaches the roofs of Lodz tenement houses, which he saw from his flat windows. There, he notices— as he did from his flat—a piece of paper spinning like a “kite,” carried by the wind (perhaps a film poster) and he meets an actor dressed as Raskolnikov (a reference to Dostoyevsky), with whom he had earlier talked on the staircase. This encounter means the end of his hopes to escape the old world—the actor reminds him of his censorship sins from the past, giving the scene the character of a court judgment (at the musical level this is already announced by Mozart’s Rex tremendae majestatis from the Requiem resounding as he climbs the rooftops). Rabkiewicz, however, flees from responsibility, unable to admit his mistake and ask for forgiveness. Leaving the screen, he chooses to return to the old world of hypocrisy and loneliness (symbolically reflected in the final scene, in which he covers a window in an empty and dark flat). From a broader perspective, the figure of the censor is a portrait of Polish society—repressed, incapacitated, but at the same time co-responsible because, as Marczewski argued, there were no innocent people in the Polish People’s Republic—there were forty million censors, not 532.4 The director conveys the Polish reality of the 1980s through a variety of means—not only the silhouettes of the characters, but also 4 Furdal, Małgorzata. “Siłą sztuki jest błąd. Mówi Wojciech Marczewski” [The power of art is an error. Wojciech Marczewski speaks]. Kino 10 (1993): 25–26.

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the camerawork, set design, and costumes, the expressionless faces of the people gathering in front of the cinema, the drab tenement houses, the greyness of the surroundings intensifying the sense of hopelessness, and the film Dawn being in fact a parody of the “achievements” of Polish cinematography (which comes to the fore particularly when juxtaposed with Woody Allen’s work). The Liberty Cinema—the place of the “rebellion of matter” becomes a synonym for change, and the film—usually only an illusion of reality—acquires the power to transform reality. The first version of the screenplay of Siekierezada was prepared by the director in collaboration with Edward Stachura, the author of the novel Siekierezada albo Zima leśnych ludzi (Axing, or the Winter of the forest folk), which served as the framework for the film. The idea of a screen adaptation appeared as early as the beginning of the 1970s (the book was published in 1971), but the script was not accepted for production at the time as it was “too pessimistic.” Leszczyński returned to the task of making the film—rewriting the script—a dozen or so years later, after Stachura’s tragic suicide in 1979. The film’s protagonist, Janek Pradera, a poet, globetrotter, and “sensitive” unable to find his place in a world full of restrictions and hypocrisy, decides to leave Gałązka Jabłoni (Apple Branch), as he calls his beloved, and embark on a journey in search of an uncomplicated world that celebrates primary values and allows him to retain his freedom and autonomy. During his wanderings, he ends up in a forest where a forester with a philosophical approach to life employs him as a logger and gives him quarters with Grandmother Oleńka. He meets Peresada, Wasyluk, and Batiuk—simple, open people with whom he makes friends while working— with whom he spends his free time and meets on Sundays at the inn. During a village party he is saved from trouble by Michał Kątny, another “refugee” from the world who, like Janek, lives with Grandmother Oleńka and who becomes his kindred spirit. At the same time, he engages in an uninterrupted internal dialogue with Gałązka Jabłoni (Apple Branch), for whom develops an overwhelming longing. In a dream, he sees bees crawling over her face—and decides to leave. His inability to resolve his contradictory impulses lead him under the wheels of a white locomotive. Compared to Stachura’s novel, Leszczyński’s Siekierezada is definitely more concise in nature (the director’s preference for such a concise model of adaptation is visible in his earlier production Żywot Mateusza [The days of Matthew]).5 Leszczyński’s ascetic approach, both in terms of images and plot, brings out the

5 Żywot Mateusza based on the novel by Tarjei Vesaas Fuglane [The Birds], 1967.

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smallest details which gain in importance. The audience perceives film reality through the eyes of Pradera, upon whom the director’s attention is focused. The gap between the external world and the spirituality of the poet-idealist forces Janek to abandon what he knows, to embark on a journey that seems to be salvation. Setting out on this road, he decides to walk alone, against the tide; in a conversation with the engine driver Bartoszko he describes himself as a “more road-oriented” man—the motif of the road, a journey established in culture appears here as the essence of action which leads to freedom, that is, knowledge and cognition. When he thinks of the future, however, he is overwhelmed by fear: the unknown causes anxiety and makes it impossible to for him to act. This inability to overcome his fear results in growing frustration; the need to overcome the evil in the world conflicts with his innate idealism. The only way out of the chaos of conflicting tensions and emotions is suicide.6 Many critics pointed to the similarity of the main character to the author of the novel. Tadeusz Szyma claimed that it is impossible […] to think about a screen adaptation of “Siekierezada,” […] without realizing the necessity of taking into consideration the broader context of Stachura’s writing, as well as his person, when adapting this work.7 Tadeusz Sobolewski saw the film “not only as an adaptation of one text, but as an interpretation of a whole character.”8 Leszczyński, who knew both the work and the author, spoke openly about his desire to show Stachura’s dual nature in the film: This is not about one screen character, but two: Janek Pradera and Michał Kątny. Whatever Stachura wrote, he wrote about himself. At the same time, two main vectors dominated his writing: the drive towards life and the drive towards death. Thus, when making “Siekierezada,” I thought about one man,

6 An interesting suggestion for interpretation from a psychological point of view was offered by Bartosz Marzec: Bartosz Marzec, “O ‘Siekierezadzie’ (1985) Witolda Leszczyńskiego” [About ‘Siekierezada’ (1985) by Witold Leszczyński], Tak tylko patrzę, 24 July, 2017, https://taktylkopatrze.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/siekierezada-witolda-leszczynskiego/ comment-page-1/. 7 Tadeusz Szyma, “Siekierezada,” Tygodnik Powszechny 4 (1987): 6. 8 Tadeusz Sobolewski, “Najłagodniejszy buntownik” [The gentlest rebel], Kino 234 (1986): 10.

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but broken down into two characters: Janek Pradera (Edward Żentara) is the one “towards death” and Michał Kątny (Daniel Olbrychski) is the one “towards life.” This duality is perhaps best seen in the film’s finale. Janek Pradera goes on to meet the white locomotive rushing towards him—to meet death. Michał Kątny tries to stop him by shouting: Janek! […] (implying: don’t do it!). And even though Pradera dies, Kątny sings.9 The two protagonists are shown together several times in the frame, in a symmetrical arrangement, as if they are mirror images of each other (which is further emphasized by Żentara’s physical resemblance to Olbrychski). In transferring the novel onto the screen, Leszczyński refers to many symbols. “This fog, this fog” that appears so often in the novel is depicted on screen not only in a literal way: it is also the white steam gushing from the locomotive of a train transporting logged wood. This scene, shown at the very beginning of the film, heralds Janek’s gradually increasing internal conflict, leading to the tragic finale. The white locomotive towards which he walks in one of the last scenes is a symbol of death, which returns several times in various texts by Stachura (mainly songs). Nature (which can be considered one of the most specific features of the director’s style) also gains special significance in the film as a whole. The austerity of the forest, its primeval character, becomes a symbol of what is natural and valuable, and what allows man to remain in harmony with the surrounding world (Władysław Kopaliński writes that a forest is, among other things, a symbol of shelter, escape from people, and meditation, but also a temple and holiness).10 It is there that Pradera spends most of his time, sitting by the fire and having a conversation with God, with whom—as he tells Peresada—he cannot come to an agreement. The scene where a pine tree is cut down, with the final amen from Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater (RV 621) reverberating on the soundtrack, takes on an equally symbolic dimension. It may be interpreted as a distant foreshadowing of the protagonist’s death and thus the collapse of his world.

9 Witold Leszczyński, Mariusz Miodek, “Ku życiu i ku śmierci” [Towards life and towards death], Film 39 (1986): 18–19. 10 Władysław Kopaliński, Słownik symboli [The dictionary of symbols] (Warszawa: Rytm Oficyna Wydawnicza, 2017), 186–88.

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Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema and Siekierezada— The Auditory Layer Both Marczewski and Leszczyński adopt a similar principle in relation to the method of shaping the sound sphere. In both cases, music is “dispensed” in a very conscious way—and in Leszczyński’s case, sparingly. The films use preexisting compositions, well-established in the musical tradition: in Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema, it is Mozart’s Requiem, the composer’s last work, and in Siekierezada, the amen from Antonio Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater. Thus, even on a general level, we are dealing—to use Gérard Genette’s term11—with the most literal transtextual relation, that is, with intertextuality.12 In Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema, music functions on three different levels: as “film-in-film” music, that is, the music of Dawn, which is screened at the Liberty Cinema; as diegetic music, that is, being a part of the presented world (Mozart’s Requiem); and as nondiegetic music, that is, appearing outside the filmic time-space (Konieczny’s leitmotif). The artificiality, conventionality and artistic mediocrity of Dawn concerns both its visual and auditory layers. A cloying, pseudo-romantic cantilena oozes from the film, attracting no attention at all—it is an unsophisticated melodic line accompanied by an equally simple harmonic flow (short segments appear twice, resembling the sound of a synthesizer, which further emphasizes the shallowness of the image). The director mentioned his choice of the Requiem in a conversation with Magdalena Sendecka at the Stary Theatre in Lublin: Mozart? Why Mozart? Mozart, at least at the time, but now I probably wouldn’t change much, it was something most beautiful, especially the Requiem, something the most moving and most beautiful that I have heard. It seemed to me that in a story about a fallen intellectual who is trying to rise, who is trying to fight for his dignity; it’s right there in his roots, in his past; there

11 Gérard Genette, Palimpsesty. Literatura drugiego stopnia [Palimpsests. Literature in the Second Degree] (Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2014). 12 The term “intertextuality” in literary theory was first defined by Julia Kristeva based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theses, cf. Julia Kristeva, “Słowo, dialog i powieść” [Word, dialogue, and a novel] in Bachtin: dialog—język—literatura, ed. Eugeniusz Czaplejewicz and Edward Kasperski (Warszawa: PWN, 1983). The problem of the presence of other texts in a text, and their resulting imbrication, is taken up by numerous literary scholars, including Stanisław Balbus, Ryszard Nycz, Henryk Markiewicz, and Michał Głowiński.

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are so many beautiful things that he may have partially forgotten and now regrets, but they stick with him.13 Taking into consideration the perspective of audiovisual relations, it seems obvious that the choice of fragments of Mozart’s work used—the Introitus and Dies irae, with a definite predominance of the latter—is not accidental with regard to the film’s interpretation of the funeral mass’s text. The sounds of the funeral mass appear in various forms: sung by individual characters, as well as in its full form, in the real world, and in the cinematic space of Dawn. Next to fragments of the funeral mass, Zygmunt Konieczny14 introduces his own motif, or rather theme which, due to its repetitiveness, can be described as a musical ostinato or leitmotif. Its formal elements are typical of the composer’s style: repetitive sound cells, syncopated shifts, and the use of short, seemingly jagged motifs. The whole is made up of three planes, two of which are ostinato in nature; motifs of several notes are focused around the center, entwining it with second and third interval steps. Although both are entrusted to string instruments, they have a clearly distinct shape thanks to the use of pizzicato and arco (it is worth noting that, even in the latter case, the composer recommends marcato articulation, which corresponds to the overall expression of the theme). Against this background, ephemeral two- and three-note clarinet motifs appear, giving the impression of being interrupted, unfinished. Consequently, the whole acquires a somewhat obsessive quality, at the same time introducing a sense of anxiety and uncertainty. The musical layer in Siekierezada, whose arrangement Leszczyński entrusted to Jerzy Satanowski,15 is pointedly simple and limited. It is based almost exclusively on the final amen from Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater (this fragment, performed by Hanna Banaszak, appears five times in the film). The soundscape of the movie

13 “Wojciech Marczewski in conversation with Magdalena Sendecka,” Kino w Teatrze Starym [Cinema in the Stary Theatre], Teatr Stary w Lublinie, 2012, https://ninateka.pl/film/ wojciech-marczewski-kino-w-teatrze-starym, last accessed May 3, 2021). 14 Zygmunt Konieczny (b. 1937)—composer of theatre and film music, author of literary songs, from 1959 closely related to the cabaret of the Krakow Piwnica pod Baranami, for whose performers (including Ewa Demarczyk) he composed numerous songs to the texts of outstanding Polish and foreign poets (Miron Białoszewski, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Bolesław Leśmian, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński). 15 Jerzy Satanowski (b. 1947)—author of theatre and film music, composer of stage songs to the texts of, among others, E. Stachura, A. Osiecka, and J. Kofta, which were performed by leading Polish artists (e.g., Krystyna Janda, Hanna Banaszak, Piotr Fronczewski, Ewa Błaszczyk); conductor and theatre director.

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is thus created by an alto solo accompanied by a baroque orchestra. The director mentioned using preexisting music while making one of his earlier films: In my past practice, I have always auditioned different types of music when starting to work on a script. Listening to already completed compositions, I tried to find one that would intuitively fit into the still vague script idea. When I found the right music, I immediately gained a lot—I had a ready-made piece of music, with a specific expression, composed in a specific form.16 Unlike in Marczewski’s film, in Siekierezada a composition taken from the musical tradition functions in the movie’s nondiegetic space. This is complemented by a song that appears at the end of the film, “Czy warto” [Is it worth it], written by Satanowski and using Edward Stachura’s text. It is performed in the film by Daniel Olbrychski (with guitar accompaniment): Zwalić by można się z nóg Co rusz, Co krok. Co noc, To szloch I rozpacz. Ale czy warto? Może nie warto? Chyba nie warto … Raczej nie warto. Nie, nie – nie warto. Zginąć by można jak nic: Do żył Jest nóż. Lub w dół Na bruk Z wysoka. […] Jechać by można do miast Lub w las Na błoń. Na koń I goń Nieboskłon. […] Ech, chyba warto … Tak, tak – warto. Bardzo to warto. O, tak – to warto. Jeszcze jak warto!

You could just drop off your feet Every move, Every step Every night, It’s sobbing And despair. But is it worth it? Maybe not worth it? I don’t think it’s worth it … Rather not worth it. No, no—not worth it. You could die like hell: Into the veins There’s a knife. Or down To the pavement From on high. […] You could go to the cities Or into the woods To the fields. On a horse And chase The sky. […] Oh, it’s worth it … Yes, yes, it’s worth it. Very worth it. Oh, yes—it’s worth it. Very worth it!

16 Witold Leszczyński, “Muzyka w filmie ‘Żywot Mateusza’“ [Film music in “Mathew’s Days”], Kino 2 (1968): 25–28.

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The sense of the text become a starting point for the musical arrangement of the song. Particularly noteworthy is the melorecitation,17 which actually replaces the melodic line, and the strong and sharp sound of the chordal accompaniment. The feisty, almost chanting voice forces the listener to take in the significance of the text. The composer spoke of its crucial role in the compositional process: Text has always been for me the principal impulse to write […]. My devotion to words has greatly influenced my choice of performers. I looked for those for whom thought is more important than flawless intonation, impressive ornamentation, or the presentation of captivating timbre.18 Diegetic music, that is, music resulting from the plot, appears only once—in the scene of a village party—and thus introduces a completely different, functional character. The big band on the makeshift stage plays gently swinging dance music, which adds color to the image.

Music and Image: Connections, Functions, Audiovisual Relations Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema was the third joint project for the MarczewskiKonieczny duo (after Nightmares, 1978 and The Housemaster, 1979). As it is always the case with the Kracovian composer, the final effect of the music is one of lively cooperation with the director. The film script invariably remains the starting point of this collaboration. In an attempt to understand the essence of Konieczny’s thinking about music in film, it is worth recalling his statement in which he clearly emphasizes the importance of the word, in this case the script (the same is true of theatre and literary song): “Thinking about music for theatre and film began with literary songs, i.e., with works where music interprets the text. It is similar in film and theatre: the music has to interpret what is happening on stage and on screen.”19 Elsewhere, he adds: “Theatrical or film music always carries some kind of meaning—as I said before, it’s very much linked with what 17 Melorecitation is a kind of declamation with music. 18 Jerzy Satanowski. 100 piosenek. Antologia [ Jerzy Satanowski. 100 songs. Anthology], CD booklet (Warsaw: Agencja Artystyczna MTJ, 2016). 19 Zygmunt Konieczny, “Zaginiona trąbka” [Missing trumpet], in Notacje [Notations—TV show] (Narodowy Instytut Wizualny, TVP/NInA, 2013), https://ninateka.pl/film/ zaginiona-trabka.

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we see. Therefore, it has to have a certain content, structural and timbral coherence, coherence with the scenes and actors’ dialogues.”20 This coherence between sound and image is very clear in Marczewski’s work. On the level of the “film within a film,” the illustrative nature of the audiovisual relationship seems to emphasize the fictional character of film reality, while at the same time making it a reflection of the real world. The actors’ first words of rebellion, those uttered by the professor, Margaret’s father, are accompanied by a sudden eruption of Chopin on the radio, as if the music’s timeless beauty could not coexist with the distorted film image. The discrepancy between these layers does not, however, concern only the plot: it is a mirror image of Polish reality. In the face of surrounding hypocrisy, words of protest are spoken in the world of fiction and become the origin of real change. The actors’ rebellion travels beyond the frame of the screen and one of the spectators jumps up shouting, “Quiet! I’m going to sing.” The “epidemic” of singing spreads ever wider. In subsequent scenes, the manager of the cinema, customers at a dodgy bar, the censor’s assistant, and even the party secretary become “infected”—the music becomes the bearer of truth. Rabkiewicz also hears his funeral mass and Margaret, talking from the screen to a character sitting in an empty room, dedicates “The Requiem for the Censor” to him. The Introitus from the Requiem, which booms out at this point, can be interpreted as a symbolic end of an era, the beginning of inevitable changes that will exceed all expectations. It spurs the protagonist into action, making him fight for his soul. Very soon, however, it becomes clear that simply crossing to the other side of the screen is not enough. The Introitus leads to the Dies irae (this is the dominant fragment from the composer’s piece in the film). The censor, crushed by the burden of the past, yet choosing to escape to the “old” world, is again accompanied by the Introitus—this time a symbol of his defeat. The diegetic musical set is overlaid with music composed by Zygmunt Konieczny. Although comprised of only one motif (it appears at the very beginning of the film), the music has a significant impact on the semantic side of the image, often enhancing its effect (in one of the final scenes it is superimposed on a fragment from the Requiem). This is determined not only by its purely musical qualities, but also by the fact of its frequent combination with two visual leitmotifs: the image of the moon and a piece of paper carried by the wind. The tone of anxiety characteristic of Konieczny’s music is also a musical feature of the censor’s mental state. He always appears when we hear the leitmotif (with 20 “Rozmowy. Zygmunt Konieczny: Towarzyszenie rytuałom” [Conversations. Zygmunt Konieczny: Accompanying rituals], https://archive.is/5b91I/, http://www.teatry.art.pl/ !rozmowy/towarzyszenier.htm, accessed May 3, 2021.

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the exception of the film’s opening, when the motif accompanies the credits). As Łucja Demby writes: “Marczewski, through perfectly integrated visual means and music, achieves a distinct claustrophobic effect. […] It is, rather, shortness of breath and claustrophobia, comparable to Sartre’s nausea—existential breathlessness, a realization of life’s absurdity.”21 From this perspective, the moon seems to be something distant, but its insistent presence in the censor’s consciousness increases the sense of unease. Although the cultural texts that Marczewski deliberately selected (in both the verbal and musical sense) function in the film—to use Genette’s terminology— as intertextual material, one notices a certain difference in the way they are evoked.22 Mozart’s Requiem is the most obvious form—a quotation of which the author of Palimpsests writes as “the most explicit and literal form.”23 The Master and Margarita and Crime and Punishment, although still part of the first transtextual relations category distinguished by Genette, no longer appear so directly. They should instead be read in terms of allusion, which requires the recipient to “perceive the connection between it [the utterance] and another text.”24 Knowing the existing dependencies, it becomes important to determine the audiovisual relations from the perspective of the function music plays in Marczewski’s film. Among the classifications of music functions in film which appear in the relevant literature, the suggestions of the following authors deserve particular attention: Zofia Lissa (who takes aesthetic considerations as her starting point),25 Claudia Gorbman (who considers the semiotic aspect in film music research),26 and Claudia Bullerjahn (who examines the role of society and the individual in the process of audiovisual perception).27 Lissa would argue that he use of the “film within a film” technique, with the director’s clear depreciation of Dawn, means that the music heard at that moment should be read as the basis for the viewer’s immersion in the content of the film screened at the Liberty

21 Łucja Demby, “Dlaczego śpiewają. Rola muzyki w ‘Ucieczce z kina ‘Wolność’ Wojciecha Marczewskiego” [Why do they sing? The meaning of music in “Escape from the ‘Liberty’ Cinema” by W. Marczewski], https://www.academia.edu/44479871/, accessed May 3, 2021. 22 The problem of complex, multilevel transtextual relations in Marczewski’s film would require an entire research project. Attention should be paid, for example, to the motif of the moon (visual leitmotif), the motif of the singing imperative understood in a broader context as a way of understanding music, its significance and impact. 23 Gérard Genette, Palimpsesty. Literatura drugiego stopnia, 8. 24 Ibid., 8. 25 Zofia Lissa, Estetyka muzyki filmowej [The aesthetics of film music] (Kraków: PWM, 1964). 26 Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). 27 Claudia Bullerjahn, Grundlagen der Wirkung von Filmmusik (Augsburg: Wiβner-Verlag, 2001).

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Cinema. The director draws a very clear line between fiction (Dawn) and reality, which makes the music seem incompatible with the story Marczewski is telling. It unambiguously belongs to its image. The triviality of the approach applies to both the visual and auditory sphere. This correlation would indicate narrative and connotative functions according to Gorbman or epic functions according to Bullerjahn. The Requiem should be interpreted on a different level. As music belonging to the presented world, it appears in its natural role (Lissa), but at the same time— largely due to intertextual relations—it becomes the basis for the author’s commentary (Lissa). The reference to a well-known piece situates it—to use Gorbman’s term—in the sphere of musical codes of a cultural nature. The reference to the funeral mass as a genre intensifies the meaning of the film image and, consequently, influences its interpretation (Mozart’s Requiem thus functions in a narrative and connotative dimension). The dramaturgical tasks (Bullerjahn) result from the music’s direct incorporation into the dramatic action (the director himself indicated the use of the Requiem as early as at the stage of script writing), which promotes its involvement in creating tension on a macro-form scale. Although the recurring Konieczny motif should be regarded as a formally unifying means (Lissa), it seems to play a much more important role as a background for the spectator’s immersion in the film’s content. Zofia Lissa writes: The repetitiveness of one music passage, one more extensive musical phrase, which permeates the whole film […]. It constitutes a kind of common emotional denominator for the whole, not by attaching itself to individual episodes, but by emphasizing the overall character, creating a specific central “note,” which imbues the entire film.28 Similar elements seem to be relevant in the adaptation of Bullerjahn’s model (structural and persuasive functions respectively). The concept of the musical layer Konieczny suggested not only corresponds with the semantic message of the film—a growing discord in the censor’s psyche resembles a recurring leitmotif—but also illustrates the composer’s views on film music:

28 Lissa, Estetyka muzyki filmowej, 234.

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I think that just as a film is a single work, music should also be a single work, which means it should have a common denominator, it should be similar somehow. Not in the way that some composers describe it: one theme, another theme, then yet another, here something, there something else […]. I think that music has to be connected—the beginning, the middle, and the end must all be in unison, must be interconnected. The music in “Escape from the ‘Liberty’ Cinema” resulted from the same instrumental idea.29 Konieczny’s leitmotif thus becomes part of cinematic musical codes, that is, those constructed for the needs of a specific film (Gorbman). Its appearance in both the film’s opening and ending provides it with narrative and referential features. This is also supported by the motif ’s clear musical distinctiveness in relation to the other two musical planes. The recurrence of the leitmotif, on the other hand, reminds us of such an important attribute of film music as coherence, which in Gorbman’s semiotically oriented approach seems particularly significant. Music, approached ascetically in Siekierezada, as in Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema, appears on three levels which are, however, planned in a clearly different way. The “recreational” music, which accompanies the village party, is of marginal importance. Being a part of the film’s diegesis, it appears in its natural role (Lissa). It is integrally connected with the plot, defining the film space and co-creating the mood of the scene it accompanies, which gives it a dramaturgical function (Bullerjahn). By building a certain type of mood, largely through references to recognizable patterns (swing-like dance music), it acquires narrative and connotative features (Gorbman). From the point of view of the dramaturgical continuum Leszczyński builds, the final fragment from Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater used in the film soundtrack is musically the most significant (like the Requiem in Marczewski’s film, it functions as a cultural musical code). Once again using on Genette’s terminology, it belongs to intertextual material. The resounding “Amen,” “so be it” several times, reinforces the narrative of the story (Bullerjahn), consequently building a higher level of audiovisual relationship. It is not simply a formally unifying means, as Lissa might say, or a structural one in Bullerjahn’s perspective, or a factor determining the coherence of the auditory layer (Gorbman). It is, above all, a basis for the viewer’s immersion in the 29 Zygmunt Konieczny in an online conversation with Ewa Czachorowska-Zygor, April 1, 2021.

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film’s content and, at the same time, a means of anticipating the plot (Lissa). The baroque sound always accompanies the main character. Two scenes assume particular significance: during the film’s initial phase (the second—after the opening—when the theme enters) and during the ending (immediately before the song that incorporates text by Stachura). In each of the previously mentioned scenes, we see Pradera walking through the forest and at some point stopping (full camera close-up). The next shot shows the falling trunk of a felled tree (this frame is exactly repeated at the film’s finale—it appears after the last notes of Vivaldi resound and after Janek’s implicit suicide, being a transition to the final closing song “Czy warto”). The meaning of the word “amen” thus acquires a deeper sense, allowing us to anticipate the finale right from the beginning of Leszczyński’s story. As Lissa writes: [I]t is obvious that using it [music] in this way increases its activity in respect to visuality, places independent dramaturgical tasks on its shoulders, increases its responsibility, and tightens its cooperation with the plot layer, [and] strengthens—for the viewer—the sense of continuity of visual episodes.30 Such a distinctive combination of visual and auditory layers in the aforementioned scenes also reinforces the film’s narrative and its formal framework, granting Vivaldi’s music narrative and referential functions (Gorbman). The final song impacts the audience primarily on the semantic level. Satanowski and Leszczyński, striving to minimize the risk of misunderstanding the text, insert it into the image—they seem to “force” the viewer to listen to every word, vividly articulated. Thus, they contribute to enhancing the film’s message, which indicates the song’s narrative and connotative features (Gorbman). The fact that it is the lyrics that become the foreground element can be read as a desire to express the author’s commentary, which Lissa describes as being influential “no longer merely as a means of aesthetic experience, but as a means of shaping the viewer’s consciousness”31 (the same considerations determine the epic tasks that are entrusted to the work).

30 Lissa, Estetyka muzyki filmowej, 245. 31 Ibid., 188.

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Final Notes Marczewski’s and Leszczyński’s films both deal with the problem of freedom, although each filmmaker addresses it from a different perspective. Both stories can be read in the simplest way, literally, as fictional stories presenting a specific sequence of events. The wider context, however, imposes itself very strongly, almost forcing the viewer to rise to a higher level of interpretation. Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema is an image of Poland at the threshold of change, an attempt to perceive the political and social conditions affecting an individual. Siekierezada poses questions about individual freedom, albeit internal freedom. One could say that this kind of film could have been made at any time. But the fact that it appears in the mid-1980s, that it refers to the prose of the Polish “cursed artist” (as Edward Stachura is sometimes called), whose work is not in itself politically charged but in the 1970s and 1980s gained cult status, is no coincidence. The powerful message of both films is largely constructed by the director’s vision contained in the image, but its special character is determined by the audiovisual relationship and the way the music is “composed” into the film. There is no doubt that the quantitative limitation of music, while at the same time its conscious and direct connection with the dramaturgy of the image, has a significant influence on the perception of ideas built over and above the message of the image itself. It is also no coincidence that both directors use compositions that already exist and are well known. This opens the way for multilevel connections and mutual relations of a transtextual nature which, due to the use of various cultural texts, deepens the significance of the movies. Witold Leszczyński writes: [F]inished music, selected as early as during the initial preparatory stage of film production, can become a powerful inspiration for formal and stylistic solutions; finished music provides the possibility to better imagine its future effect in the film, and thus allows to plan the concept of its use more accurately; having finished music at hand when writing the script and during the shooting, individual scenes can be developed in terms of the requirements imposed by the music, providing the music great expression.32

32 Leszczyński, “Muzyka w filmie ‘Żywot Mateusza’”: 28.

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It is worth emphasizing that in both films vocal-instrumental works are applied, which—due to this fact—already carry specific semantic meanings in themselves. Woven into the image, they interact with it in a specific way, which tightens the audiovisual relationship. The use of the leitmotif technique serves the same purpose. The combination of all these factors contributes to the fact that music in Marczewski’s and Leszczyński’s films opens up new possibilities for their interpretation. Perhaps this convergence in understanding the place of music in film was the reason why Marczewski worked several times with Konieczny, who stated: “First of all, music must have an appropriate content, a content which is carried by the combination of sound and image. If there is none of that, if all that remains is a [sound] formal play, then it’s not good.”33 The concept of the musical layer, devised by Zygmunt Konieczny and Jerzy Satanowski, not only facilitates understanding of the functions entrusted to music in relation to the image, but also—and most importantly—all leads to a more profound expression of both films. The essence of this relationship is perhaps best expressed by Leszek Możdżer, one of today’s most eminent Polish jazz musicians, pianist, and also composer and creator of film music. In a conversation with Łukasz Waligórski he said: “[Film music] is music that has to operate within space and is not quite an independent value. It should be treated as a vehicle on which a given scene can be transported into another dimension.”34 In the case of Marczewski and Leszczyński, this “other dimension” refers not to scenes but to film in its fullest extent. This publication is a result of the research project DAINA 1 No. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 funded by The National Science Centre (NCN), Poland.

Bibliography Bullerjahn, Claudia. Grundlagen der Wirkung von Filmmusik. Augsburg: Wiβner-Verlag, 2001. Demby, Łucja. “Dlaczego śpiewają. Rola muzyki w ‘Ucieczce z kina ‘Wolność’ Wojciecha Marczewskiego” [Why Do They Sing? The Meaning of Music in “Escape from the ‘Liberty’ Cinema” by Wojciech Marczewski]. Unpublished manuscript. https://www.academia. edu/44479871/. Accessed May 3, 2021.

33 Zygmunt Konieczny in an online conversation with Ewa Czachorowska-Zygor. 34 Łukasz Waligórski, “Wywiad z Leszkiem Możdżerem” [Interview with Leszek Możdżer], Muzykafilmova.pl, 2011, http://muzykafilmowa.pl/artykuly/mozdzer.htm, accessed March 15, 2021.

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Furdal, Małgorzata. “Siłą sztuki jest błąd. Mówi Wojciech Marczewski” [The Power of art is an error. Wojciech Marczewski speaks]. Kino 10 (1993): 25–29. Genette, Gérard. Palimpsests. Literature in the second degree. Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Gorbman, Claudia. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Jerzy Satanowski. 100 piosenek. Antologia [ Jerzy Satanowski. 100 songs. Anthology], CD booklet. Warsaw: Agencja Artystyczna MTJ, 2016. Konieczny, Zygmunt. “Zaginiona trąbka” [Missing trumpet]. Notacje [Notations—a TV show]. Narodowy Instytut Wizualny, TVP/NInA, 2013. https://ninateka.pl/film/zaginiona-trabka. Accessed May 3, 2021. ———. Online conversation with Ewa Czachorowska-Zygor, April 1, 2021. Kopaliński, Władysław. Słownik symboli [The dictionary of symbols]. Warszawa: Rytm Oficyna Wydawnicza, 2017. Leszczyński, Witold, and Mariusz Miodek. “Ku życiu i ku śmierci” [Towards life and towards death]. Film 39 (1986): 18–19. Leszczyński, Witold. “Muzyka w filmie ‘Żywot Mateusza’” [Film music in “Mathew’s Days”]. Kino 2 (1968): 25–28. Lissa, Zofia. Estetyka muzyki filmowej [The aesthetics of film music]. Kraków: PWM, 1964. Marzec, Bartosz. “O ‘Siekierezadzie’ (1985) Witolda Leszczyńskiego” [About “Siekierezada” (1985) by Witold Leszczyński]. In Tak tylko patrzę, 24 July. https://taktylkopatrze.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/siekierezada-witolda-leszczynskiego/comment-page-1/. “Rozmowy. Zygmunt Konieczny: Towarzyszenie rytuałom” [Conversations. Zygmunt Konieczny: Accompanying rituals]. https://archive.is/5b91I/, http://www.teatry.art.pl/!rozmowy/ towarzyszenier.htm. Accessed 03.05.2021). Sobolewski, Tadeusz. “Najłagodniejszy buntownik” [The gentlest rebel]. Kino 234 (1986): 10. Szpulak, Andrzej. Filmy Wojciecha Marczewskiego [Wojciech Marczewski’s film]. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2009. Szyma, Tadeusz. “Siekierezada.” Tygodnik Powszechny 4 (1987): 6. Waligórski, Łukasz. “Wywiad z Leszkiem Możdżerem” [Interview with Leszek Możdżer]. MuzykaFilmova.pl, 2011. http://muzykafilmowa.pl/artykuly/mozdzer.htm. “Wojciech Marczewski in a conversation with Magdalena Sendecka.” In Kino w Teatrze Starym [Cinema in the Stary Theatre]. Teatr Stary w Lublinie, 2012. https://www.ninateka.pl/vod/ rozmowy/wojciech-marczewski-kino-w-teatrze-starym/. Accessed May 3, 2021. Zagajewski, Adam. Solidarność i samotność [Solidarity and loneliness]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Zeszytów Literackich, 1986.

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Appendix Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema—Synopsis In a big Polish city (not mentioned by name), unusual events take place in the Liberty Cinema. During a screening of the movie Dawn, the actors rebel against their roles and the mediocre script and start having conversations with each other, in which they also involve the audience. The bizarre situation draws larger and larger crowds to the movie theatre. The head censor Rabkiewicz, a man of about fifty, formerly a theatre critic and poet, is summoned to the cinema. Surprised by the magnitude of events, he wants to react, but faints as he leaves the cinema hall. As a result, he ends up in hospital, where the cinema director visits him. Although the censor orders all tickets for all screenings to be bought up, the situation does not change. After leaving the hospital, Rabkiewicz returns to the cinema where he had left his coat. While talking to one of the rebellious actresses, Margaret, he realizes his enslavement. In the meantime, the censor’s assistant and the secretary of the regional committee arrive and decide to show the newly imported film The Purple Rose of Cairo. The images from both films are superimposed and a character from the Woody Allen film transitions into Dawn. Fearing an escalation of the whole situation, the decision-makers order the copy of the movie to be burned. Unwilling to let this happen, Rabkiewicz crosses over into the screen and, together with the actors in Dawn, escapes to the roofs of the tenement houses. However, he does not regain his composure, as there he encounters actors whom he, as a censor, removed from various films in the past, destroying their careers. Unable to find a place for himself, he returns to reality, leaves the cinema, and returns to his empty, dark flat.

Axiliad [Siekierezada]—Synopsis Janek Pradera, a sensitive poet, decides to leave his beloved, whom he calls Gałązka Jabłoni (Apple Branch), and embarks on a search for freedom, simplicity, and naturalness, which he has failed to find in a world that is too complicated for him. He comes across a forester, a self-made philosopher, who employs him as a seasonal worker in logging and tells him to stay with his grandmother Oleńka. Pradera meets and befriends other workers—Peresada, Wasyluk, young Batiuk, and Selpka—with whom he also spends time after work, sometimes having conversations about the strange nature of the world. At the same time, he carries on an uninterrupted dialogue with his beloved, whom he misses

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immensely. Through hard, physical work and frank and open interpersonal relationships, he discovers the “miracles” of everyday life. During a village party, when he is surrounded by drunken locals, Janek is saved from trouble by Michał Kątny, a traveler similar to Pradera, who has also been sent to grandmother Oleńka’s house. The two “fugitives from the world” quickly establish a good rapport, understanding each other perfectly. After a subsequent dream, in which he sees the face of Apple Branch with empty eye sockets and devoured by bees, Janek leaves his quarters and sets off on his journey back. However, inner tension and existential angst lead him to the railway tracks and under the wheels of an oncoming white locomotive.

CHAPTER 8

Lithuanian Music in Transition: Independent Festivals of the 1980s and 1990s Vita Gruodytė

Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre Keywords: happenings, performance, action, independent festivals, nineties, Lithuanian music, George Mačiūnas, John Cage, Ričardas Kabelis, Gintaras Sodeika, Snieguolė Dikčiūtė, Bronius Kutavičius.

An atmosphere of the smell of blood, winds of freedom, and hazy timelessness was lingering in the air.1 —Virginijus Kinčinaitis

The decade from mid-1980s to the mid-1990s is difficult to define. It was a period of radical social change and lacked clear contours, paradoxically closed and autonomous: it no longer belonged to the totalitarian, occupational Soviet cultural policy, which was ineffective and coming to a close, and did not yet belong to an era of ideologically unfettered, uncensored creative dissemination. We might consider that period as the most eclectic, hybrid, and even chaotic

1 Virginijus Kinčinaitis, “Exformos laikmetis” [An exforma period], in Rūšių atsiradimas. 90-ųjų DNR [The origin of species. 1990s DNA], ed. Danguolė Butkienė, Vaidas Jauniškis, and Miglė Survilaitė (Vilnius: MO muziejus, 2020), 75.

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span in the history of Lithuanian music, one that was full of anachronisms. At that time, the model of the previous society stratified and conflicted with the emerging model of the new society. It was simultaneously a coda of the hegemony of Soviet cultural policy in Lithuania and an introduction to the structural reorganization of the field of music in line with democratic principles.

Explosion and Liberation Revolutions are prolonged celebrations.2 —Vaidas Jauniškis

The new characteristics of composition in Western music after the 1950s were described by Jean Molino as “liberation and explosion”: “liberation from the prohibitions imposed by neo-serialism” operated as if “the lid had been removed from the dominant musical discourse”; the “change in atmosphere” that accompanied the student movement of that period marked the “emergence of a new generation and a new culture”; it was the “angry young men” who “played the role of provocateurs with respect to the previous generation”; it was also a generation that expressed its liberation through an “abundance of musical experiments,” a “hybridization of forms,” and “pluralism.”3 Any restriction initiates a response. In this sense, the reaction of young composers to neoserialism in the West after the 1950s corresponded to the reaction of young creators to the Soviet system in Lithuania after the 1980s, on the eve of its collapse. It was extremely easy for young people to reject an ideology that was coercively entrenched in society because it did not reflect their own choice or even the choice of the generation before them; it was an externally imposed and stylistically limited compositional thinking that the most advanced composers had tried to circumvent one way or another for several decades, by maneuvering through a labyrinth of ideological (post-Zhdanov) permissions-prohibitions. The reaction did not provoke any radical stylistic changes, as both the youngest as well as the most progressive Lithuanian composers of the older generation had reinvented their music language much earlier. Postmodernism had already gained momentum and acquired certain local forms: in Lithuania it manifested itself in the forms of neoromanticism, “machinist” generation music, repetitive minimalism, and musical theater. 2 Vaidas Jauniškis, “Žvilgsnio galimybės” [Possibilities of perspective], in Butkienė, Jauniškis, and Survilaitė, Rūšių atsiradimas. 90-ųjų DNR, 11. 3 Jean Molino, “Pour une autre histoire de la musique”, in Musiques. Une encyclopédie pour le XXI siècle, vol. 4, ed. Jean-Jacques Nattiez (Paris: Actes Sud/Cité de la musique, 2006), 1416.

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The gesture of liberation from ideological culture meant a new approach to composing and a new kind of interaction with space, with the audience, and with everyday life. Speaking an artistic language that matched the era was a new experience. The revolution of Bronius Kutavičius’s music language, which began in the 1970s, was inspired by the historical, pre-Christian past, from which it borrowed content, forms, and syntax. The minimalist and repetitive language of Kutavičius’s pagan oratorios contributed to creating a distance from the routine of the occupation. In the 1980s, everyday life returned to an artistic orbit and began to shape images and forms; more than that, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, it began to offer visions for the future. The act of creation developed to the rhythm of political change. It changed not the style nor the genres, but the perception of the creative act and the artist’s position in society. Improvisation, spontaneity, collectivity, anonymity, and genre and material hybridization became new creative tools. The feeling of being in everyday life and in the process of creation—euphoria—was born from an analogous feeling of instability, surprise, and expectation associated with new hopes. The former system was deteriorating and, simultaneously, a new one was forming, taking shape, and emerging before the eyes those watching, while music participated in that space of change and in that time of change through recording these changes, enabling action, visualizing, and conveying its emotional and sensory manifestations. Thus, no revolution in music took place in the year 1990; however, music did take part in the revolution. That was probably one of the main reasons why the period was not taken more seriously for a long time: the playful engagement of the younger generation of creators in that revolution was both directly and metaphorically perceived rather as the sabbatical year of students of that time.

A Wave of Festivals Since Lithuanian music was not at a dead end at the close of the Soviet era, what the Lithuanian composition school needed during the independence restoration period was, rather than a stylistic turning point, sufficiently strong and obvious artistic signs that would clearly mark political change. A wave of independent festivals served as such a sign. Why festivals? Probably because they represented the most flexible and low-cost form of creation at the time, being the least dependent on political censorship, which still existed at least formally, and most accurately reflecting the spirit of the time.

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In the space of discovered creative freedom and euphoria, in addition to original ideas and new ways of artistic expression, musicians’ new relationships with their own ability to create were able to ferment. It became possible to simultaneously organize, create, and participate: the idea as well as its conceptualization and realization appeared in the same hands. The creative environment also underwent transformation: the majority of festivals took place in the provinces, in spaces previously unused for concert activities. Alternative festivals, as opposed to institutional events of a similar nature, offered new kinds of contemporary music composition and new configurations of its presentation to the audience. Out of the numerous festivals of that time, we would highlight those that emerged the earliest and that were the most radically different from institutional events of a similar character. When evaluating them at a critical distance of thirty years, it is clear that it was those festivals that had the greatest (albeit latent) influence on the entire subsequent creative milieu: • Jaunimo kamerinės muzikos dienos [Youth chamber music days], initiated by composer Ričardas Kabelis (in Druskininkai, beginning 1985) • Laisvojo garso sesijos [Free sound sessions], initiated by composers Arūnas Dikčius, Tomas Juzeliūnas, and musicologist Giedrius Gapšys (Vilnius and Panevėžys, 1987–88)4 • Happenings Seminars (AN-88, AN-89, NI-90), initiated by composer Gintaras Sodeika (in Anykščiai and Nida, 1988–90)5 • Naujos muzikos festivalis [New6 music festival], also called Alternatyvios muzikos festivalis [Alternative music festival], initiated by composer Vidmantas Bartulis (in Kaunas, 1988–89)7 • Muzikinio veiksmo festivalis [Musical action festival], initiated by composers Liutauras Stančikas and Snieguolė Dikčiūtė (in Panevėžys, 1991, and Vilnius, 1992–97)8

4 A one-day event, held for two years: in March 1987, at the Great Hall of the Lithuanian Conservatoire (presently, the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre); partly repeated at the House of Culture of the Ekranas Factory in Panevėžys in September of the same year and at Kaunas Trade Union Palace of Culture in November; in 1988, at the Great Hall of the Lithuanian Conservatoire. 5 A three-day event, held in the village of Ažuožeriai in the vicinity of Anykščiai (1988–89) and in Nida (1990). In 1997, it was held once more. 6 In the first year, it was called Naujos muzikos festivalis [New music festival], and in the second, Naujosios muzikos festivalis [The new music festival]. 7 A two-day event, held at the Architects’ Home in Kaunas. 8 A two-day event, held at Panevėžys Drama Theatre (1991) and Vilnius Academic Drama Theatre (1992–97).

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• Avangardinių menų festivalis [Avant-garde arts festival], a year later renamed Šiuolaikinių menų festivalis [Contemporary arts festival], initiated by Liutauras Stančikas and sound editor Edmondas Babenskas (Vilnius, 1991–93)9 Each festival had its own specificity, yet they functioned not as mutually competing structures, but rather as a totality of artistic activities, unique to that period and reflecting a multifaceted palette of creative initiatives. The content of that totality can be referred to in various ways: “experiments in the field of the performance art” (according to Ilmė Vyšniauskaitė),10 a period of “revolutionary performativity” (according to Kęstutis Šapoka),11 “interactive art” (according to Marija Griniuk),12 musical action, or intermedial action. Any of these terms would summarize the two most important features of the young artists’ creative activity at the time: an interdisciplinary character and artistic expression, engaging and questioning participants as well as the audience. The organizers of the festivals were young composers and musicologists, either recent graduates or still students, but paradoxically, the middle and older generations were still included in the festivals. An intergenerational conflict did not take place for the simple reason that the most famous older-generation composers had been actively involved in the de-Sovietization of Lithuanian music for many years. Bronius Kutavičius and Osvaldas Balakauskas (who taught at what was then the Lithuanian State Conservatory) were teachers of composition in the true sense of the word.

9 Having started as a one-day event (1985–86) at M.K. Čiurlionis Memorial House-Museum in Druskininkai, it developed into a three-day event in different urban spaces of Druskininkai (since 2008, some of the concerts have been given in Vilnius). This is the only festival that survives to the present day. 10 Ilmė Vyšniauskaitė, “Eksperimentų trajektorijos: nuo akademijos iki pogrindžio” [Trajectories of experiments: from the academy to the underground], in Lietuvos muzikos kontekstai III. Eksperimentų trajektorijos [Lithuanian music in context III. Trajectories of experiments], 2 CD rinkinio bukletas [2 CD booklet], LMIPC CD 071-072 (Vilnius: Muzikos informacijos ir leidybos centras, 2013), 12. 11 Kęstutis Šapoka, Performanso menas. Performansas Lietuvoje [The art of performance. Performance in Lithuania], accessed August 3, 2021, http://letmefix.lt/Kategorija: Performanso_menas. 12 Marija Griniuk, Hepeningai ir kultūrinės politikos kritika Lietuvoje [Happenings and the criticism of cultural policy in Lithuania], Literatūra ir menas 3655, no. 11 (2018), https://literaturairmenas.lt/daile/marija-griniuk-hepeningai-ir-kulturines-politikos-kritika-lietuvojem.

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At that time, we had only two figures of authority—Kutavičius and Balakauskas. Others did not count at all. One of them wrote strict music, and the other, [music] of a liberal character. Thus, in a sense, we also practiced both fields: art music at the Conservatoire (presently the Academy of Music) and nonart, at the festivals.13—Snieguolė Dikčiūtė The festivals during period of the restoration of independence were also new due to their nonbudgetary functioning, ideally suited for that time. I was phoned by director Regina Stadalnikaitė who told me: we are making a film about [Vidmantas] Bartulis, [Rytis] Mažulis, [Šarūnas] Nakas, and [Mindaugas] Urbaitis; at the time when we are filming Urbaitis, you will be doing some queer things not far away, in the fields. May we film you, too? I said okay, but you could also help us in some way.—And what do you need?—We need all kinds of things, materials, and props. So they brought a truck of things they no longer needed […]. Very spontaneously, we found where to put and how to use all those things.14— Gintaras Sodeika Due to the scarcity of the means used, the creative activities of that period could be as when German Celant’s calls arte povera, which reflects a “fundamentally anticommercial, banal, antiformal” artistic approach, “concerned primarily with the physical qualities of the medium and the mutability of materials.”15 The work of Lithuanian composers of that period could be identified with the arte povera philosophy not only due to the minimalist (and sometimes extremely “poor sound”) aesthetics, typical of all Lithuanian music, but also due to the noncommercial content of festivals characteristic of that period, the hazardous performance components, and the birth of a composition from configurations borrowed from everyday elements. Their music was born from shortages as well as from an aesthetic sense, a refinement in which, upon rejecting everything that 13 This and all subsequent quotes are from a private conversation with composer Snieguolė Dikčiūtė (Vilnius, May 2020). 14 Vita Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga. Su kompozitoriumi Gintaru Sodeika kalbasi Vita Gruodytė” [Continuing happenings festivals would have been meaningful. Composer Gintaras Sodeika interviewed by Vita Gruodytė], Kultūros barai 7, no. 8 (2020): 43–44. 15 Frank Popper, Art, action et participation (Paris: Klincksieck, 1980), 17.

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was artificial (ideological), focus was placed on the essentials in a minimalist way, an approach inherent in Lithuanian culture. The ability to function on a minimal budget ideally corresponded to the transitional period, especially because budget festivals of the period, such as the Gaida festival held by the Composers’ Union, fared much worse. Chairman of the Composers’ Union Mindaugas Urbaitis, knocked out by financial difficulties, managed to “concoct” the Gaida Festival of this year, although, I am sure, there were people who were shrugging: who needed it, that ugly duckling? As I felt the unattractive moments of the festival […], I could not help thinking that the events of the youngest ones fared better. Of course, they found it easier to hold “festivals of their own yard” by inviting their peers—excellent musicians with the help of one or more sponsors. Let, then, the Gaida also stay a festival of “its own yard.”16—Laimutė Ligeikaitė The first festivals were based on the still functioning Soviet institutions, and, primarily, strange as it may seem, on the Komsomol (Young Communist League) structures (that applied to the Druskininkai Chamber Music Festival and the Free Sound Sessions). The Composers’ Union, which announced its secession from Moscow back in 1989, was staffed by leaders who provided moral17 and financial18 support to youth campaigns at the time. Later, more sponsors 16 Laimutė Ligeikaitė, “Trečiasis „Gaidos“ festivalis: įspūdis su vilties ženklu” [The Third Gaida Festival: an impression with a sign of hope], Lietuvos Rytas 230 (Mūzų malūnas), November 26, 15. 17 In 1986, after the concert at the Lithuanian Conservatoire in which Auksaspalvis [Goldencolored] (a popular at that time orange-flavored soft drink) by Rytis Mažulis and Ričardas Kabelis was performed, defined by the composers as a kolisonata [a compound of collie (the dog breed) + sonata] for 4 Mothers, 4 Markins [a Belarusian surname], trombone, and prepared piano, and dedicated to the anniversary of composer Osvaldas Balakauskas, “a smallscale scandal followed; of course, some of our colleagues felt indignant, but we were not punished; we were probably saved by the principle of ‘stylistic freedom,’ instilled at the time by Vytautas Laurušas” (Rytis Mažulis). Quoted after: Rūta Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje [Musical events and events in music] (Vilnius: Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademija, 2008), 243. 18 “Julius Andrejevas was the chairman at the time, and Viktoras Gerulaitis was the secretary. I came to him before the first Festival [of Happenings] and told him we needed support of the Composers’ Union, and he said: of course, it is our common cause. This is how the slogan of both festivals emerged and the title of the soundtracks: Common Cause. Later, even on the January 13th barricades at the Parliament, the inscription Common Cause appeared” (Gintaras Sodeika). Quoted after; Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga”: 44.

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appeared; thus, for example, the Druskininkai Chamber Music Festival, in addition to the Composers’ Union, the Lithuanian State Conservatoire, and Druskininkai Cultural Centre, were supported by the Vytautas Landsbergis Foundation, the Ministry of Culture and Education, and the Open Lithuania Foundation. The Musical Action and Contemporary Arts festivals soon started looking for private sponsors as well.

Rejection of the Hierarchical System The independence restoration period emphasized the importance of novelty and youth. Since its inception, various “youth clubs” and “creative youth” structures have been massively established in various parts of Lithuania. The first Creative Youth Days took place in Vilnius on November 10–15, 1986. It was “not merely an event of the Youth Section of the Composers’ Union,” where “a hearing of new compositions and a concert, a meeting with young composers, musicologists, and performers” took place.19 In the autumn of 1987, the National Festival of Creative Youth was organized in Panevėžys “at the initiative of Donatas Katkus and with the support of Panevėžys City Komsomol and the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Leninist Young Communist League,” where the second concert of the first Free Sound Session (held in Vilnius) was presented; the Festival’s “dominating idea was music.” The organizers even managed to hold a concert of symphonic music by young composers […], moreover, quite a few pieces of chamber music by young composers were performed, young performers appeared, and a lot of discussions followed.20 —Laimutė Ligeikaitė The names of the independent festivals very aptly defined the ideas of the upcoming generation of composers: they reflected the ways of expression of young people who cared about new music and free sound. The novelty of the festivals was manifested primarily in the fact that young participants granted themselves self-worth. They discovered themselves as an autonomously creating generation, but not as one continuing the work of the previous generation.

19 Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje, 292. 20 Ibid., 294, 296.

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In the official festivals of that period, the place given to the youngest creators was almost always anonymous—they existed as an abstract group of students. Although each festival included at least one concert of the conservatoire student compositions, their names were not mentioned in the concert programs. This tradition still existed at the beginning of the transition period. It was illustrated, for example, by the concert program21 of the official Soviet Lithuanian Music Festival in 1987, dedicated to the seventieth anniversary of the October Revolution. The fact that Tomas Juzeliūnas, Vaclovas Augustinas, Snieguolė Dikčiūtė, Loreta Narvilaitė, and Donatas Prusevičius took part in it can now be learnt only because someone wrote their names into the program with their own hand. By analogy, the program of the official Musical Autumn festival of 1990 did not provide space for the action concert held at the Puppet Theatre, where performances by Vidmantas Bartulis and Gintaras Sodeika took place, although the program contained a description-manifesto of Sodeika’s performance of Baza Gaza.22 The hierarchical type system functioned on the principle of stairs. In order to be a composer, it was first necessary to overcome certain barriers: to complete studies, to obtain a composer’s diploma, and to gain value in the eyes of senior colleagues and teachers, the value that manifested itself by the fact of admission to the Composers’ Union. As a student, I was waiting for the time when I would be allowed to create. Because all the time I felt like I still wasn’t entitled to do it. And what could you do if you were gifted? —Snieguolė Dikčiūtė We started organizing the Panevėžys Festivals because we also wanted to create. During the years of studies, I felt like I was still a fake creator. When you are a student, you can do experiments, but this is not considered “genuine” creation. You only became a composer after joining the Composers’ Union.23 —Liutauras Stančikas 21 Lietuvių Tarybinės muzikos festivalis [festivalio bukletas] [Lithuanian Soviet music festival. A festival booklet] (Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1987), 5. 22 Lietuvių muzikos festivalis “Muzikos ruduo 90” [festivalio bukletas] [Lithuanian music festival musical autumn 90. A festival booklet] (Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1990), 46–47. 23 This and all subsequent quotes come from a personal conversation with Liutauras Stančikas (Vilnius, May 2020).

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Professor Raminta Lampsatytė, who came to Lithuania from Germany, must have understood the problem, and therefore, in 1988, she emphasized the need to “involve students in the general activities of composers.”24 It is not by accident that she awarded the first Tyla [Silence] Prize, established by her for composers in the same year, to composer Snieguolė Dikčiūtė, who was a first-year student at that time. Changes in the hierarchical system were observed and commented on by composers of the older generation: Everything now focuses on the youth, as if they were a core value. […] Earlier, deserving people were shown respect to. When we were young—who would pay attention to us? No one would notice us, not even by mistake. Now it’s the other way round, they are like a starting point. Maybe that’s right. They are what we will have in the future.25—Bronius Kutavičius Happenings, performances, action, and spontaneous implementation and improvisation were the means that helped realize the newly born presentiments of the need for renewal. According to Johanne Rivest, “it is obvious that constant renewal is a utopia, an ideal.” However, the “goal of improvisation” was “liberation from political and aesthetic dictate.”26 Festivals were an active part of sociocultural changes, and the rejection of hierarchical structures was one of them.

Music in Revolution Such an overripe Soviet era, and the ideological screws are quite rusty.27 —Arūnas Dikčius

24 “Jaunos muzikos regykla” [The sight of young music], in Jauna muzika, jaunimo kamerinės muzikos dienų leidinys [Young music. Publication of youth chamber music days], ed. Ričardas Kabelis (Druskininkai: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1988), 144. 25 Danutė Kalavinskaitė and Inesa Vaitkūnaitė. “Interviu su Broniumi Kutavičiumi, Osvaldu Balakausku ir Ona Narbutiene” [Interview with Bronius Kutavičius, Osvaldas Balakauskas, and Ona Narbutienė], Muzika 6 [LPS grupės biuletenis] (1988): 3. 26 Johanne Rivest, “Aléa-Happening-Improvisation-Oeuvre ouverte,” in Musiques. Une encyclopédie pour le XXI siècle, vol. 1, Musiques du XXe siècle, ed. Jean-Jacques Nattiez (Arles: Actes Sud/ Paris: Cité de la musique, 2003), 481, 480. 27 Kęstutis Šapoka, “Pokalbis su Arūnu Dikčiumi” [A talk with Arūnas Dikčius], in (Ne)priklausomo šiuolaikinio meno istorijos [Stories of (in)dependent contemporary art], ed. Vytautas Michelkevičius and Kęstutis Šapoka (Vilnius: LTMKS, 2011), 148.

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The young creators of that time did not change their styles; they changed their roles. Through concentrating creative ideas around an event of political liberation and reorganizing the expressive means in that direction, they became, according to Frank Popper, “mediators rather than creators”28—in other words, observers, commentators, and interpreters. The political explosion and liberation in the field of music was manifested in the reconsideration of the academic tradition, art music forms, genres, and syntax. The art of festivals was adapted to the specificity of the transitional political period and acquired the shapes of change, uncertainty, fluctuation, and process. The breakup of the Soviet system encouraged the disintegration of a composition as a single, complete object recorded in a score. Fragmentation, collage, unexpected connections, and spontaneous expression became new compositional tools. Experiments on previously uncombined connections began as early as in the Soviet era, such as Faustas Latėnas’s composition for tape recorder Musa memoria, with its recorded speeches of mental patients (1983). During the transitional period, the processes of combining/fragmenting and association/dissociation acquired the status of a creative feature of that era. Thus, for example, the process of the performance Labirintas (Labyrinth) by composer Snieguolė Dikčiūtė and theater director Valdas Pranulis (for five metal objects, four trombones, voice, and violin solo, 1992) was described by the authors as “consistent connection, stable state, and distinguishing within the boundaries of contact assimilation dissimilation. Cassation/-ation/-ence/cadence in B.”29 A new way of making connections, which might have been called synectic (using William J. J. Gordon’s term),30 provoked new meanings, emerging as “the result of previously unused connections.”31 The participants of the Free Sound Session were interested in sound programming, mathematics, and music. All that mythology about the coming bright times of computers, the connections between mathematics and music, the possibilities of programming, some kind of joint projects with NASA to explore space, etc., was impressive. Thus, all that did not exist before was 28 Popper, Art, action et participation, 13. 29 Šiuolaikinių menų festivalis [festivalio bukletas] [Contemporary arts festival. A festival booklet] (Vilnius, 1992), 2. 30 William J. J. Gordon, Synectics: The Development of Creative Capacity (New York: Collier/ Macmillan, 1961). 31 Claude-Pierre Vincent, Heuristique: Création, Intuition, Créativité et Stratégies d’Innovation (Paris: BoD France, 2012), 263–64.

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Figure 1. Performance-installation Labyrinth (authors: Snieguolė Dikčiūtė, Valdas Pranulis, creative group: Tomas Žiburkus, Giedrius Paulauskis, Dainius Jucius) Venue, date: Contemporary Arts Festival, Vilnius, Artists’ Palace, 1992. Photo by Dainius Labutis. Owner of the photo: Snieguolė Dikčiūtė. A scene from the performance in the Artists’ Palace Courtyard

“brought onto the stage,” came to light. Free Sound Session declared free sound and freedom from composing with a pencil on paper. Its field of realization was the digital space (no big deal from the contemporary viewpoint), and the happenings were an alluring space that allowed us to act completely freely and ignore any rules imposed on us by all Soviet education. In Anykščiai, we could feel completely free, without even thinking about the content. It was just the freedom of expression—at least for me, it was very important.32—Gintaras Sodeika Happenings, actions, and performances were the genres that made it possible to test different degrees of bisocations (using Arthur Koestler’s term33), or 32 From a personal conversation with composer Gintaras Sodeika (Vilnius, May 2020). 33 Arthur Koestler, Le cri d’Archimède: l’art de la découverte et la découverte de l’art (Paris: CalmannLévy, 1980).

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multisociations (using a derived term), combining elements from different contexts, creating new rules of the game, new habits, and new frames of reference. The object of art—an art work—was no longer oriented towards a result and finite forms, lost its objective value (it could neither be bought nor sold), and often its consistency, too. Variability as an aesthetic attitude granted that period the shade of a long procession, analogous to Gintaras Sodeika’s performance 84:00:00, “which lasted day and night, day and night” and “was like a rite […] “because there is no road to happiness. Happiness is the road.”34 The concept itself became an aesthetic value, and the only possible means for its implementation was artistic action. It was important to have the main idea and highlight it during the action itself.35—Gintaras Sodeika The idea, which became the identity of an art work, opened up opportunities not only for previously unused musical associations (such as jazz and art music, determined and spontaneous activities, score and improvisation), but also for interdisciplinary connections (intermedia and the genres of multimedia), which were born in Western music together with John Cage’s first happenings (since 1952), influenced by Antonin Artaud’s texts.36 “Art seemed like a remnant of something that had already happened,” said Robert Rauschenberg37 of his choice to “be in action” in the 1960s. For the young people of the 1980s, the concept of “genuine” art was also associated not with what had already happened, but with new experiences that could only become crystallized in action and through action: At that time, the most important thing seemed to be the fact that we were young, full of energy, promising, doing rather than talking, and that some time of great change was coming, the result of which was to be a better, brighter, and fairer life.38 —Tomas Juzeliūnas

34 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga”: 40. 35 Ibid.: 37. 36 Rivest, “Aléa-Happening-Improvisation-Oeuvre ouverte,” 478–79. 37 Richard Kostelanetz, The Theatre of Mixed Means (New York: The Dial Press, 1968), 78–99. 38 Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje, 252.

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It was important to act […]. We had sufficient information about “different” art somewhere very far away. We were full of our own ideas and thoughts. It was important to act and get results. We longed for “different” artistic experience. There was a clear feeling that we had to do the maximum for the sake of the experience we longed for so much.39—Gintaras Sodeika The priority of action and process rather than creation involved the young people of that time in social activities: participation in rallies, joining emerging groups supporting the liberation movement, participation in discussions, production of political paraphernalia (flags, posters), and active participation in the everchanging present became more important than a personal career. Therefore, naturally, most of the actions were inspired by everyday events. The idea of art as the essence everyday life resonated with the philosophy of John Cage, and the idea of art as action, as an active commentator on social change, resonated with the philosophy of George Mačiūnas. It was no coincidence that those two key personalities of the twentieth-century avant-garde art were presented at the first Druskininkai Chamber Music Festival events, while Fluxus’s ideas directly inspired the emergence of the Anykščiai Happenings Seminars: I can say unequivocally that the idea dawned on us in Druskininkai, where we felt a bit more freedom, and the chamber music festival was held differently from what we were used to seeing during the Composers’ Union plenary meetings or congress’ concerts. I then got my hands on Polish literature about the happenings of various Fluxus authors. Although Mačiūnas was not identified as the leader and was mentioned only as one of the authors, I got interested in the fact that he was a Lithuanian. So I thought that, even if Druskininkai was breathing more boldly, there was an even more radical thing that I knew nothing about before. I thought that this would call for a separate event.40—Gintaras Sodeika There was political paradox, however: The ideological basis of Mačiūnas’s Fluxus was the radical left. Their ideal was the Soviet Union. They dreamed of visiting Red 39 Ibid., 254. 40 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 38.

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Square, seeing the mausoleum, Lenin and the like. And we were carrying tricolors! Perhaps this also testifies to the immortality of Fluxus, which reached Lithuania in such a strange way. Apparently, we could at least rejoice the fact that our politicization during happenings festivals was made maximally relevant for that hour. Our politics were limited to the opposition to the system.41—Gintaras Sodeika In a one time, often even not recorded presentation of an art work, in addition to the beginnings of conceptual art, the social and political aspects of art that before had been left in the margins of creation could be seen. There is no doubt that Lithuanian engaged art sprung from the context of independent festivals:42 We made several trips to Anykščiai and organized several provocative actions to see how the people around would react. The greatest impression and excitement came from the tricolors carried by several of us. At that time, at the end of July 1988, people were very sensitive to tricolors. We did not have an agreement on flags in advance. Just a couple of participants brought them and walked with them everywhere. They even hoisted them up at the tent where they slept. In Anykščiai, the flags provoked a double reaction. Some greeted us very respectfully, smiles lighting up their faces, but also a little scared, while others were saying: well, you are asking for trouble, you should not have done that […].43—Gintaras Sodeika

Destruction and Anarchy Explosion and liberation were reflected in the two most striking gestures of artistic manifestation of the early 1990s: the destruction of materiality and absolute freedom of expression or, to quote Jean-Yves Bosseur on George Mačiūnas’ Solo pour violon 62, “obvious cynicism with respect to cultural values.”44 41 Ibid. 42 It knows its apotheosis with the opera Sun & Sea (Marina), which concerns climate change, and which won the Golden Lion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. 43 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 40. 44 Dominique Bosseur and Jean-Yves Bosseur, Révolutions musicales. La musique contemporaine depuis 1945 (Paris: Minerve, 1993), 133.

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Figure 2. Spontaneous action Painting from Nature (author of the painting: Aidas Bareikis, authors of the performance: participants of the seminar) Venue, date: Anykščiai Happenings Seminar, Ažuožeriai, 1989. Photo by Eglė Maračinskaitė. Owner of the photo: Gintaras Sodeika. A scene from the happening (from left to right: Šarūnas Nakas, Tomas Juzeliūnas, Ričardas Kabelis, kneeling: Ashot-Ashot)

The most radical of the abovementioned festivals was the Musical Action Festival, organized by the youngest generation of composers and musicologists— first-year students from the Lithuanian Conservatoire. The idea of the festival was generated by composers Liutauras Stančikas and Snieguolė Dikčiūtė in the autumn of 1990: When we were sitting in Lenin Square, at the still-standing Lenin Monument […] we decided that music alone was not interesting, that action and other dimensions were needed. Then I also proposed the name. How did the Musical Action Festival come about? I wrote the composition Weathervane in the Shape of a Fish Tail. We received a proposal to perform it at the theatre festival in Panevėžys. We invited bright, improvising people and rehearsed the Weathervane. However, the conductor did not come to the

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festival, and everything fell apart. And what was weird: that— collapsed—version was much better than the rehearsed one. Everyone contributed freedom and, in that disintegration, a completely good product was obtained. We have already written a special program for this [First Musical Action—V. G.] festival. I wrote (as far as it can be described as “I wrote”)—I drew the Fomalhaut project.45—Snieguolė Dikčiūtė What is now in a simplified way called Panevėžys Festival was a set of several festivals and several locations: the festivals Musical Action (Panevėžys–Vilnius), Avant-garde Art, and Contemporary Arts (Vilnius). The participants of the Musical Action Festival were mostly musicians and composers (especially composers who wrote music for the theater, such as Vidmantas Bartulis, Algirdas Martinaitis, and Antanas Jasenka), and participants of the Avant-Garde Festival and Contemporary Arts Festival were typically composers and visual artists. The first Musical Action Festival took place at Juozas Miltinis Theatre in Panevėžys from September 30 to October 1, 1991. After the first attempt in the province, the festival moved to the National Drama Theatre in Vilnius.46 Although that festival was the latest of the alternative festivals, according to its organizers, neither the Druskininkai nor Anykščiai festivals had any influence on its establishment. Perhaps because the festival was established after the proclamation of the Act of Independence, it no longer featured political themes or political caricatures, but it was clearly anti-art: I remember that, after the first Musical Action Festival in Panevėžys, Ričardas Kabelis expressed the idea that it was a kind of liberation of young people from total serialism. He saw that activity of ours as a reaction to the highly predetermined activities at the Academy. It was like a popping champagne cork, a complete alternative to art creation. At the festival, all the works communicated clear messages, only the form of their implementation was a happening, a performance. You wouldn’t have taken such a thing to the exam at that time. Now the line between art and nonart music has disappeared, while at that time, composing

45 Violeta Bendinskaitė, “Tai reikia išgirsti, arba du žvilgsniai į jaunuosius” [This needs to be heard, or two glimpses at the young], Mažoji Lietuva [Lithuania minor] 40 (1991): 8. 46 It was much more simple to organize the festival in Vilnius, as the main organizers— composer Liutauras Stančikas and sound editor Edmondas Babenskas—lived there.

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for festivals seemed much more significant to us because it offered more freedom. It provided us with more opportunities for expression, and we found it possible to express ourselves more authentically.—Snieguolė Dikčiūtė Contrary to other festivals, that one featured a stronger expression of latent aggression and was reminiscent of Jurgis Mačiūnas’s happenings with the breaking of musical instruments. There was a lot of drastic, destructive action. Linas Paulauskis was lying in the piano. Juozas Milašius poured a bucket of water on me and, because I was playing the violin, the water got into the violin, too. Moreover, during that performance, we hammered nails into the stage, and Liutauras Stančikas had trouble with the administration of Juozas Miltinis Theatre. The audience was shocked; and we felt very free, we did not have any commitments. The Avant-garde Art Festival was so extreme. … We had been making sculptures for one of those festivals for maybe a month, left them in the yard of the President’s Office, and while the festival was taking place inside, somebody completely destroyed and shattered them.—Snieguolė Dikčiūtė Some performances stood out not only due to their latent aggression but also due to sexual emancipation. An example was the audiovisual composition Tabalai (1992) by jazz musician Juozas Milašius and sculptor and performance artist Gediminas Urbonas, described by the authors as “indecent art unceremoniously invading the intimate spheres of our lives.”47 Nam June Paik’s opuses of a similar content, in which “sexuality was an inherent feature of instrumental performance,” such as Opéra sextronique (1967), according to Jean-Yves Bosseur, claimed “the sexual emancipation of musical practice” as well as “condemned the pre-Freudian hypocrisy of the musical avant-garde” and “old-fashioned Puritanism.”48 We could consider Snieguolė Dikčiūtė’s works in this direction as a kind of emancipation from ideological Soviet puritanism. 47 Muzikinio veiksmo festivalis [festivalio bukletas]. [Musical Action Festival. A festival booklet] (Vilnius, 1992), 9. 48 Bosseur and Bosseur, Révolutions musicales. La musique contemporaine depuis 1945, 134.

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In Equinox (Erotic Rotations) (for percussion and double bass, 1995) a sexual act was simulated, while in Estampida (for tympani, brass, two flutes, and bagpipe ensemble, 1994), lust was featured: the brass instrumentalists made circles around a female performer, playing the timpani in the middle of the stage and representing the object of sexual desire, which “symbolized passion and lust […], as well as mating (a male flutist with a female flutist), and separation and loneliness (a flutist’s solo using Dikčiūtė’s Solitude).”49 At that time, I was interested in constellations and eroticism, and I tried to convey those themes in my compositions. Festivals for us, post-Soviets, were probably a kind of community therapy, not only through emotion, but also through certain mental structures, as in conceptual art. It was important not only for us, but also for society and audiences, because the first year of Independence was going on, full of chaos and confusion, as everything had collapsed.—Snieguolė Dikčiūtė In complete opposition to Dikčiūtė’s mindset was Liutauras Stančikas’s philosophy of radical freedom, the exclusive trait of which, little understood by performers at the time, was an intuitive compositional principle: performers were to convey certain emotions or ideas through sounds, based on the composer’s verbal or graphic instructions (Naujausias Kūrinys Specialiai Šiai Popietei [The Latest Composition Specifically for this Afternoon]) (1991) or a performance Sidharta (after Herman Hesse, 1992).

The Political Aspect Thus politics forced its way into music, as music did into politics.50 —Tomas Juzeliūnas

The emergence of independent festivals was primarily a testament to political fragmentation. Manifestations of freer, experimental compositional thinking had already appeared in Lithuanian music in the early 1980s. However,

49 Tomas Žiburkus, “Audiovizualioji muzika” [Audiovisual music] (Master’s thesis, Lietuvos muzikos akademija, 1995), 47. 50 Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje, 254.

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Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika (1985) had the effect of pulling the plug out of Aladdin’s lamp: It coincided with Gorbachev’s coming to power—although no one yet believed in thaw, and even more so in freedom. The Chernobyl disaster the next spring marked the beginning of the end, after which the Soviet government did not recover. We planned to hold the first concert with Kęstutis Bieliukas [a composer living in Druskininkai—V. G.] in the autumn of 1984. On meeting after the Musical Autumn concert, we wrote down the authors and compositions for that concert on a napkin in the Druskininkai Hotel cafe.51—Ričardas Kabelis The group/generation/features enabled a very rapid transformation of the musical field, accompanied by a quick grasp of the political situation: the first Druskininkai Festival events obviously served as an exit from the ideological system, paying tribute to the still existing social system (or perhaps just to censorship): the Concert of Young Composers’ Works at the M. K. Čiurlionis Memorial Museum (1985) was dedicated to the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students, the 1987 festival was dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Druskininkai Resort, and the 1988 festival, to the International Year of Peace. The first two dedications might be considered as in keeping with the spirit of the times, while the third had already a sufficient dose of irony to regard the whole festival idea as a happening rather than a real curtsey to the system, constantly and on all fronts “fighting for peace”: Today, the reasons for those dedications are no longer understood by many and are probably reminiscent of the popular formal slogans-dedications or tributes given to the government at the time. The acknowledgments of the first publication were addressed to Algirdas Kumža, supporter of Jauna Muzika [Young Music], the then Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee—a bright personality, later a signatory and ambassador who had a good understanding of the mission of Young Music. Thanks to Algirdas, the Young Music booklets were destined to see the light of day. The acknowledgments to Druskininkai were also 51 This and all subsequent quotes come from a personal conversation with composer Ričardas Kabelis (September 2019 and June 2020).

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sincere, first of all—to the already mentioned Lilija Rakauskienė for understanding the idea of the festival and its needs; a hint was enough, and all the technical issues—whether stopping traffic during the concerts or the funding of the publishing of Young Music—were resolved in an instant. Public thanks were not practiced at that time.—Ričardas Kabelis Most actions and happenings during the period commented on the political situation, yet those references, now difficult to understand, were largely an inevitable imprint of the era. The happenings of the youth were not overtly political. The developers did not publicly announce their intentions to overthrow the occupation regime because: It was not so easy to destroy what had been built over a long time, more than fifty years […]. We said that we we would not take the same path as Sovietism. We would have hardly been able to destroy anything; we could only distance ourselves, reject, protest, and express our point of view.—Gintaras Sodeika The atmosphere of the festival was one of playful burlesque. It was a completely new—against the background of Soviet art ideology—political dimension of an art that did not become political and was more often limited to social sentiment. Thus, for example, the happening Bureaucratic Traffic Stop was A case of radical social action that took place on KavarskasAnykščiai Highway. During it, one participant, covered with red paint and fenced in with protective tape, lay right on the asphalt. The scene looked like a traffic accident in which the culprit had escaped. Other participants in the event hid in the bushes on the roadside. If a car was passing by, it would usually stop, the driver would get out and try to find out what had happened. Then the whole group jumped out of the bushes and solemnly presented a letter of honor [an official document of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union with the signature of the chairman], written on the spot, for the assistance provided and for active participation in the AN Festival. That was very surprising, and ultimately made the people passing by laugh.52—Šarūnas Nakas 52 Šapoka, “Pokalbis su Šarūnu Naku,” 145.

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Figure 3. Happening Bureaucratic Traffic Stop (author of the idea: Gintaras Sodeika) Venue, date: Anykščiai Happenings Seminar, Ažuožeriai, 1988 Photo by Eglė Maračinskaitė. Owner of the photo: Gintaras Sodeika. A scene from the happening (from left to right: Ashot-Ashot, Šarūnas Nakas, Artūras Builavas, on the right, with her back to the camera: Jūratė Landsbergytė.)

The emergence of caricatures on the eve of the regime’s collapse highlighted the artist’s widening critical distance from the surrounding environment and the analysis of themselves in it. Numerous examples can be provided. Gintaras Sodeika’s composition-performance Baza Gaza (1988), the “idea of which was suggested to the artist by a long-standing road sign on Vilnius-Kaunas Highway with the inscription Baza Gaza [Gas Station—V. G.] and a strange “RussianChinese-Japanese” sound in the following combination:53 At a difficult time for the Homeland, when the Great Homeland was forced to block gas and oil supplies to it due to separatist activities, the young Soviet composer organized […] an independent Gas Station, which later became known as Baza Gaza. How was that done? The content of the form was a huge bag full 53 Lietuvos muzikos kontekstai III. Eksperimentų trajektorijos [Lithuanian music in context III. Trajectories of experiments], 2 CD rinkinio bukletas [2 CD booklet] LMIPC CD 071-072 (Vilnius: Muzikos informacijos ir leidybos centras, 2013), 26.

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of smoke (fundamentalistico); thematicism: archaic sounding Tape electronics; ostinato: video images and ornaments (presto); the content form: Soviet-sur/social realist film (moderato). All that at the same time and in one place—as a counterpoint. Therefore, the significance of all that became clear in the contradictions and similarities of those textures of various nature. Or in conjunctions and disjunctions, as A. J. Greimas might have put it in a more intelligent way.54—Gintaras Sodeika Before or after the January events—I don’t remember now—we made a kind of a musical collage from Stalinist songs and a poem by a local collaborator “Communists as the Light of the Earth.” The collage was intended for the radio, I just don’t know if it was ever broadcast.55—Arūnas Dikčius “Frivolity” was an essential feature of those phenomena. […] It would be extremely difficult now to speak about specific performances. One thing is clear—they were surrounded by an aura of humor, which included both that time and a later way of thinking, and the creation of all possible formats. Probably, such a joke or a hint at it has become, at least in part, an element of the style for many of us.56—Šarūnas Nakas A happening at the Druskininkai Festival in 1990, when the Lithuanian Quartet was asked to play in the swimming pool, might be regarded as a double caricature (both political and in an academic tradition): Today, when the “middle generation” of yesterday’s oppositionists are already, with official cultural con(tra)conceptions, gathering for comprehensive congresses, the younger generation—eternal oppositionists—are coming to their musical Mecca, to Druskininkai. They get together and … climb into some swimming pool in the sanatorium. The Lithuanian

54 Lietuvių muzikos festivalis “Muzikos ruduo 90” [festivalio bukletas] [Lithuanian music festival musical autumn 90. A festival booklet] (Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1990), 46–47. 55 Šapoka, “Pokalbis su Arūnu Dikčiumi,” 151. 56 Šapoka, “Pokalbis su Šarūnu Naku,” 140, 145.

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Quartet arrives and refuses to play, because only millionaires can afford music in the pool. They are persuaded with an immortal phrase from the Short Course of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik): “in the Soviet Union, everything is for the people, everything is for victory”—and, after short negotiations, a melody of Tchaikovsky, a beloved composer of the young (whose 150th birth anniversary is celebrated in Russia), sounds over the water. Mannequins—[…] one of the mannequins, of course, is the great Soviet composer D. Shostakovich—are quietly lowered into the pool. […] Russian composers once fought over who would be granted the honor of settling in the deceased genius’s villa […], and here, in the pool, young Lithuanian “internationalists” are floating and drowning the poor genius! However, the great spirit of Shostakovich and the great plastic—the mannequin—did not sink […]. PS Confidential information: one enthusiast of the TV theaters Veidrodis [Mirror] and Šėpa [Wardrobe] provocatively whispered to me that the two mannequins in the pool were Mikhail Gorbachev and Raisa Gorbacheva themselves, and the whole pool was an anti-blockade campaign. Of course, that was a provocation on the occasion of our prime minister’s visit to the Kremlin.57—Giedrius Gapšys Caricature also played a rather important role in the Young Music booklets— the first uncensored publications—four issues (1987–90) of which were published during the Druskininkai Chamber Music Festival. In his review of the 1988 festival, Giedrius Gapšys wrote: It is symbolic that, in the festival’s (whose topic was the time of authoritarian dictate) publication, a part of what had been discontinued was then recovered—“‘announcements’ and ‘jokes’ that caused reasonable damage to the Komsomol funds” were published at the end of it, in line with the remaining conceptual content and reminiscent of the free spirit, immediacy, and culture of our former press and journalism.58 57 Giedrius Gapšys, “Perdurtas blokados burbulas” [A pierced blockade bubble], in Druskininkų pavasariai ir muzika 1985–2014 [Druskininkai springs and music, 1985–2014], ed. Vaida Urbietytė-Urmonienė (Vilnius: Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademija, 2014), 236–37. 58 “Apžvalga” [A review], in Gaida. Muzikos meno, mokslo ir kritikos leidinys [Gaida. A publication about music, science, and critics] 1 (1988): 40–41.

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It should also be emphasized that the environment itself had been gradually becoming increasingly comical. Everyday life often became a source of artistic inspiration, as it was full of contradictions provoked by the friction between, on the one hand, Soviet symbols, compulsive, dysfunctional, yet still mechanically performing gestures of ideological structures which had already lost their meaning but still existed in the public space, and, on the other hand, strong attempts to reclaim symbols of national history and independence: Until recently, there were stands in the central squares of Vilnius, where red-white-green flags [the flag of the Lithuanian SSR] were embossed, followed by an explanation: seventy years since the proclamation of the Soviet government in Lithuania. […] But a malevolent thought was born in the mind of a representative of Vilnius City Hall—he painted those flags in national colors [i.e. in yellow, green, and red] […]. Thus, we are now facing a complete anachronism: What is in common between our tricolor and the proclamation of Soviet power on 16 December 1918? […] Our situation is deplorable: we have to celebrate a holiday that does not exist, with the flag of the state that does not yet exist. […] What to do? Let’s imagine: thousands of children scattered in the streets—for a competition Color in Red. With red crayons, pencils, and paints, chanting Let the Sun Always Shine, they visit all those cardboard easels. It is not a big problem if not only the flags, but also the entire sheets are colored—after all, red is beautiful. And let no one try to say that it is hooliganism, let them rejoice, as they rejoice when the children paint on the pavement of the streets.59—Giedrius Gapšys

The Physiognomy of the Festivals Collective Activity Fluxus is like a collective farm.60 —Jurgis Mačiūnas 59 Giedrius Gapšys, “Stabmeldžių apeigos ir nedidelis hepeningas” [Idolator rites and the small happening], Muzika 5 [LPS grupės biuletenis] (1988): 7. 60 Jean-Yves Bosseur, Musique et arts plastiques. Interactions au XXe siècle (Paris: Minerve, 1998), 250.

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One of the most important features of the music festivals during the transitional period was collective expression. It is from that perspective that the period was interesting and exceptional. The individualistic style of Lithuanian composers acquired the features of community creation only during that brief time. The communality of artists was undoubtedly related to the political unity of the nation. The highest concentration of festivals can be seen in the years 1987 to 1991. At that time, dissident organizations were already active and public, the first intellectual discussion clubs were formed, and the Lithuanian reform movement Sąjūdis was born, which brought Lithuania to its proclamation of the independence in March 11, 1990. Thus, festivals established during that politically tense and unstable period of social upheaval (and undoubtedly born of it) took an active part in the general process of societal change, declaring changes on the creative plane not so much in words (manifestos) as in action (performances). Musical festivals provided an opportunity for artists to feel the emotional uplift in their own environment, collectively practicing such forms of artistic activity that were impossible under Soviet rule due to their nature, disobedient to censorship—happenings, actions, and performances. In this sense, the organizers of independent festivals could be called the leaders of the musical movement. Their personal motivations and initiatives moved the whole milieu: the wave principle, which ignited and brought together like-minded people, provided opportunities to implement projects that would not have been realized individually or would not have had any response. I found it strange that the Musical Action Festival attracted so many spectators. The hall of the National Theatre used to be full, and artists and nonartists from all fields would come. It was a phenomenon that attracted the general public and made it possible for a large group of people to feel better. In this sense, I am in favor of collective creation. Feedback is very important to me. —Snieguolė Dikčiūtė Composer Bronius Kutavičius was again the first one to awaken the sense of communality in the field of music. In a 1988 interview, he said: I have been doing Sąjūdis work for as many as 20 years. I have never been involved in politics. I have been doing my job, and probably the same job that the Sąjūdis is doing now. I used to get it hot from the ministry and from all the ministers of culture, from all the officials, as I was writing the wrong music,

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nationalistic … That was the past, the history, and where was the present, and so on. It came down to banning all my works from being shown on TV … So am I not part of Sajūdis?61 The pagan oratorios by Kutavičius, which revived ideas of Lithuanian identity and aroused the collective feelings of an ethnic group during the Soviet era, relied on the symbolic possibilities of musical expression and a strong, dominant, emotional idea. It was an obvious example of cultural auto-determination in the Soviet-era uniform cultural environment. Kutavičius’s oratorios, which embodied national aspirations, ideas, and values in the limited and restrictive framework of Soviet policy, functioned as a community-uniting element, as a Symbol […] representing the spiritual quintessence of society and functioning in it as the elements of relationship and communication. […] More than once, a small cultural group, an ethnic group […] had to fight in order to preserve its specific spiritual heritage, to seek refuge in art and, ultimately, in music, because it was in music that the living soul and one of the sources of its spiritual principles survived.62—Ivo Supičić The tribal aspect of Bronius Kutavičius’s work was manifested in his looking back to the common national past and to the pagan prehistory of the nation— illusory, mystified, based primarily on feeling and emotional memory, on images coming from folk art, and on ritual gesture. The performance of the Pantheistic Oratorio in 1982, dedicated to Kutavičius’s fiftieth anniversary, in which director Jonas Vaitkus used elements of the Existentialist Theater, became especially important as a turning point to the whole musical milieu, and especially to the youngest generation of creators at the time: At the beginning was … Kutavičius! Since the performance of the Pantheistic Oratorio at the end of 1982, still half a decade to go before Sąjūdis, the premiere prepared by Šarūnas Nakas looked like a flash that illuminated the accumulated and later released energy.63—Ričardas Kabelis 61 “Danutė Kalavinskaitė and Inesa Vaitkūnaitė. “Interviu su Broniumi Kutavičiumi, Osvaldu Balakausku ir Ona Narbutiene,” 2. 62 Ivo Supičić, Musique et société (Zagreb: Institut de Musicologie, Académie de musique, 1971), 134–35. 63 Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje, 243.

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Incidentally, a couple of people had a spiritual crisis after the Pantheistic Oratorio—apparently from the great contrast between that composition and the reality around. […] The level of the Pantheistic Oratorio could not be repeated later— maybe the wonderful youthful idealism disappeared naturally, or maybe it was to remain just an unattainable dream. Whatever it may have been, from that circle of people all kinds of other circles of friends and the feeling of togetherness, a desire to be together appeared. Maybe this was the result of the grain sown by Kutavičius and Vaitkus.64—Tomas Juzeliūnas During the transition period, the songs of the Sąjūdis rallies performed a similar function. They reflected cultural as well as political auto-determination, the birth of political self-awareness, and the outbreak of patriotic feelings. It should be emphasized that in addition to the older generation of composers and musicologists (musicologist Vytautas Landsbergis, composers Julius Juzeliūnas, Osvaldas Balakauskas), their younger colleagues also actively participated in the political life of the time. One of their campaigns during the 1988 Student Song Festival was the idea to open a “nighttime artel for the production of tricolors” at composer Julius Juzeliūnas’s place and “distribute them among students”: “we put them in plastic bags […] and in the morning, like some conspirators, went to student dormitories” (Arūnas Dikčius).65 In 1988, more active students and faculty of the conservatoire as well as members of the Composers’ Union got together into one of the first Sąjūdis support groups, Muzika, which published its own bulletin: There was so much room for activity—electing delegates to the Constituent Assembly of the Sąjūdis, participating in the elections of the Rector of the Conservatoire with our own candidates and election campaign, fighting stagnant Conservatoire officials, declarations, resolutions on current issues, publishing a wall newspaper, explanatory work, discussions, etc.66—Tomas Juzeliūnas The collective creation of happenings meant that an idea introduced by someone was supplemented with elements of coauthorship. 64 Ibid. 65 Šapoka, “Pokalbis su Arūnu Dikčiumi,” 151. 66 Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje, 255.

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A lot of things matured as a result of collective creation. All the participants of the camp, several dozen people, took part in almost everything and always (I am talking about the Anykščiai Seminars).67—Šarūnas Nakas One of the examples may be the genesis of Tomas Juzeliūnas’s happening A Veterans’ Morning: Tomas introduced the idea, and we divided the roles. […] Everyone was wondering what a veteran should look like. We decided that he was to wear striped pajamas. […] Well, it could be either a prison or a loony bin. […] We decided that we needed Soviet newspapers brought from the Soviet Army, and that officers (veterans) also had to have pornographic magazines. Tomas said we would definitely get a Playboy from Donatas Katkus. The musicians traveled a lot and brought such things from abroad. We asked Donatas for a copy and explained that we would like to borrow it for the festival. He said, well, okay. Afterwards we returned the magazine to him.68—Gintaras Sodeika Another way to create collectively was through open oral or graphic scores, with performers acting as coauthors or, frequently, as equivalent authors. Thus, the new platform for communal expression suggested by youth festivals was not merely a tool and medium of the then new generation coming to professional music: it influenced all the strata of the musical field through creating an open space that blurred the boundaries of a various nature. No festival was limited to the works of the younger generation—all without exception, even the most “avant-garde” Musical Action Festival, included works by composers of different generations.

Tandems The emergence of composer “tandems” should be considered as an introduction to collective creation: in 1986, the first duo, that of Rytis Mažulis and Ričardas Kabelis, was formed; they publicly introduced themselves by a composition of 67 Šapoka, “Pokalbis su Šarūnu Naku,” 143. 68 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 43.

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Figure 4. Happening A Veterans' Morning (author of the idea: Tomas Juzeliūnas) Venue, date: Anykščiai Happenings Seminar, Ažuožeriai, 1989 Photo/video by Šiaurys Narbutas. Owner of the photo: Gintaras Sodeika. A scene from the happening (from left to right: Viktoras Paukštelis, Ashot-Ashot, Ričardas Kabelis, Gintaras Sodeika, Tomas Juzeliūnas)

joint authorship Auksaspalvis (Golden-Colored) (an orange-flavored soft drink that was popular at that time). Several years later, Tomas Juzeliūnas and Gintaras Sodeika formed a second tandem, called by the hybrid of their two surnames, SOJUZ, which meant an alliance in Russian: “the name was born from what was going on around us at that time—from Sąjūdis”69 (Tomas Juzeliūnas). Together, they composed soundtracks for three Anykščiai Happenings Seminars (1988, 1989, 1997) entitled Common Cause, Common Cause II, and Common Cause in B op. 3.70 SOJUZ was not limited to the musical background of the happenings festivals. In 1990, TV director Raminta Stadalnikaitė commissioned them to write a “popular song for a promotional video of the Sąjūdis candidates for the Supreme Council of Lithuania”71; before the first public commemoration of 69 Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje, 247. 70 Ibid., 250. 71 Ibid., 248.

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the anniversary of Romas Kalanta’s self-immolation The Living Victim of Youth, SOJUZ received a commission to create a musical design for the rally: We borrowed the necessary equipment and did two things in two days: an introductory composition of several minutes and signals before the speeches of the representatives of all the youth organizations that took part in the rally—from the Ateitininkai to the Komsomol. Such free improvisation at the equipment later became the basis of many of Sodeika’s compositions and music for the theater, a creative method.72—Tomas Juzeliūnas Until then, tandem activities in Lithuania were characteristic only of jazz musicians. Alternative festivals, having introduced a considerable dose of improvisational creation, acquired the features of the jazz field functioning in that sense: tandem work shifted to the milieu of composers, which was something new. Many of the tandems were formed at the Musical Action Festival, and not only, traditionally, among jazz musicians who willingly participated in it, but also among, for example, composers, video artists, and other artists. At the Contemporary Arts Festival, which ran in parallel to the Musical Action Festival, tandem creation became almost the norm. Artists from various fields presenting group projects provided an opportunity to create unexpected and still untested synectical connections. The most academic festival, the Druskininkai Chamber Music Festival, did not escape this trend, either: in 1994, the duo of Henning Christiansen and Ričardas Kabelis presented the performance Sheep instead of Violins.

Anonymous Creation Professionalism came later. —Liutauras Stančikas

The Happenings Seminars and Musical Action Festivals very naturally offered a milieu for experimental creation that did not reflect any specific artistic or ideological goals. They did not have a definable number of participants or a hierarchical or administrative structure, and there were no manifestos. In them, as in the Fluxus movement, which also had no manifesto, it was more important 72 Ibid., 254–55.

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for individuals simply to come together and to do work that had “something unspeakable common” [avec quelque chose d’innommable] (George Brecht).73 The two manifestos published at the time—those of Ričardas Kabelis and Gintaras Sodeika—were too individual to be considered an encapsulation of the ideas of a single festival or entire generation. “Common activity” provided an opportunity to try out the genre of anonymous creation, which was like a symbolic return to the stage of primitive art. Authorship is not important to me. I feel good without that. It did not mean carelessness; the activity was dear to me, but in an anonymous way. Neither the name nor recording mattered to me. It was enough for me that the work was a kind of collective expression.—Liutauras Stančikas We did not record anything. It was not relevant. It was important to me that something was happening, and even now recording is not important to me.—Snieguolė Dikčiūtė It seems to me that we avoided authorship from the very beginning. […] Everything was determined by those who set the tone for the festival. If the first poster inviting to the festival had announced—Viktoras Paukštelis, the title so and so, Šarūnas Nakas, the title so and so, maybe that would have become important.74—Gintaras Sodeika Anonymous creation was only a characteristic of that period of Lithuanian music. It was a conscious choice that had nothing to do with the anonymity that had been an inevitable part of underground activities in a repressive society. I was in favor of anonymity. Later I found out that Jurgis Mačiūnas was also in favor of anonymity, of the essence, of the idea, instead of squabbling over the copyright, or who would be getting the fees, or whose surname would be at the top, and the like. We implemented it intuitively at the Anykščiai festivals. I do not know what it would be like today; different people would probably treat anonymity differently. Perhaps some one of them 73 Bosseur, Musique et arts plastiques, 247. 74 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 41.

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Figure 5. Performance Body Art (author of the idea: Arvydas Baltrūnas) Venue, date: Anykščiai Happenings Seminar, Ažuožeriai, 1989 Photo by Eglė Maračinskaitė. Owner of the photo: Gintaras Sodeika. From left to right: Arvydas Baltrūnas, Arūnas Dikčius, Gintaras Sodeika, Šarūnas Nakas

would very much like to be more important and would imagine being the author of one or another happening, would like to be associated with as many happenings as possible; thus opinions would probably not coincide. It might be like that, but it does not matter to me.75—Gintaras Sodeika The withdrawal of the issue of authorship to the background was influenced by the fact that, during this period, tolerance for everyone’s ideals without competition between individuals prevailed in Lithuanian music. It was the only time in which a critical approach to one’s colleagues’ work became irrelevant, at least temporarily. [W]e all behaved very openly and positively. […] The desire to be together, in a group, was great. The opportunity to feel among like-minded people professing the same aesthetics, which until then had been not really permitted, not quite legal, seemed important to us.76—Gintaras Sodeika 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid., 36–37.

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What remained from that time was a great sense of communion, altruism, closeness to, and understanding of, each other. … No confrontation, either ideological or physical … then festivals could be organized for several hundred Litas, and nobody worried about any facilities, let alone royalties.77 —Vidmantas Bartulis We did not worry about critique, as it was only we who were important to ourselves. I don’t think we acted “primitively.” At that time, everyone was interested in whatever you did, because there was nothing else in that field.—Snieguolė Dikčiūtė It was as though art had not reached the stage when it is stratified—before there is a difference between low and high, professional and nonprofessional art, or between the works of students and teachers.

Multisociative Expression Our art is what we are, and we are all kinds, full of extremes.78 —Snieguolė Dikčiūtė

Starting with the Golden-Colored of Ričardas Kabelis and Rytis Mažulis, the “novelty,” “originality,” and “suitability for the festival” of a composition began to be associated with its degree of hybridity. The stranger and more incompatible its components and the weaker the degree of associations between them, the more perfectly it corresponded to this period of political and artistic freedom: The creative process took a long time—the next year, we made a new version, for which we used a lot of musical quotes (I do not remember which ones), a film projection (historical footage of the introduction of Soviet rule in Estonia, found in the film archives—although probably not a single composer knew why that specific material was needed), and a windup toy chicken; in addition, the vocalists rinsed their throats on stage, and at

77 Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje, 242. 78 Bendinskaitė, “Tai reikia išgirsti, arba du žvilgsniai į jaunuosius,” 8.

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the culmination, the authors, by the arm, took away Remigijus Merkelys, the performer of the main part, who had “gone insane.”79—Rytis Mažulis Gintaras Sodeika’s performance Baza Gaza (1988) should be called the first polysensory composition. It was important, since it was the first happening which was a “composition” (repeated several times and transferred onto the stage) during which an art music composer “spoke not through a string quartet, or a clarinet, or an orchestra, but through a film, a video recording, and improvisational noises and smells produced by an analog synthesizer”:80 That multimedia composition consisted of several layers: an audio recording made with analog synthesizers; two video projections—video tapes with geometric abstractions and a cine film with images of the Lithuanian countryside; odors (air fresheners, burnt rubber, etc.) that the performers spread on the stage at the required moments marked in the score; balloons, which covered the entire floor of the hall and which at the end were crushed by the audience, encouraged by the performers (which even raised a debate at the time as to whether it was permissible to provoke aggressive reactions from spectators in such a way).81 The use of items formerly considered incompatible (“incompatibility”) was reflected not only in the compositions but also in the festival programs. Before then, musical works of mutually incompatible stylistics or genres had hardly had an opportunity to be performed in the same concert space; meanwhile, for example, in the Free Sound Sessions, Osvaldas Balakauskas’s Spengla-Ūla (for sixteen string instruments) and Nomeda Valančiūtė’s Narcissus for two pianos was heard next to computer music and compositions for tape, telephones, or phonograms. At the first Musical Action Festival, next to the performance of Juozas Milašius, Tomas Kutavičius, and Dalius Naujokaitis Only Here and Now (… whatever flashes across your mind), Antanas Jasenka’s work … Paramatma …, featuring the message “of the idea of Hare Krishna’s existence everywhere

79 Rūta Gaidamavičiūtė, Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje: 243. 80 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 43. 81 From a talk with Gintaras Sodeika (May 2020).

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and in all phenomena and elements,”82 Fomalhaut by Snieguolė Dikčiūtė “that most scandalized the audience”; and The Latest Composition Specifically for this Afternoon by Liutauras Stančikas,83 Vilnius New Music Ensemble (conductor Šarūnas Nakas) performed Osvaldas Balakauskas’s Chopin-Hauer and Bronius Kutavičius’s oratorio From the Yatvingian Stone, while the chamber choir Jauna muzika (conductor Remigijus Merkelys), in addition to works by Lithuanian authors, performed such Western music classics as those from Luciano Berio and György Ligeti. At the second Musical Action Festival (1992), next to the multimedia work Parafonija by composer Snieguolė Dikčiūtė and video artist Gintaras Šeputis, Liutauras Stančikas’s performance based on Sidharta by Herman Hesse, the video-audio installation Tabalai by guitarist Juozas Milašius and Gediminas Urbonas, and a video-audio-allegorical show by a jazz group of Vladimir Chekasin, the premiere composition of Osvaldas Balakauskas Veda-seka-budi for five percussionists was also performed. In the 1994 Musical Action Festival, a new work by the then middle-generation composer Algirdas Martinaitis Danse Macabre (after Revelation to John), was performed; however, the festival later refined its content. Everybody felt that the era had changed, and the festivals that managed to survive for two years started looking for their individual character; thus, the Musical Action Festival focused on multimedia genres and limited itself to the works of the younger generation composers. Genre multisociation was characteristic not only of festivals (e.g., a concert of musicologists’ compositions and a conference of composers took place at the 1995 Druskininkai Festival), but also of individual concerts. In 1992, in addition to the works of composers Vidmantas Bartulis and Snieguolė Dikčiūtė and the poetry read by mathematician Liudas Giraitis, the Vartai Gallery also hosted “music making that did not require evaluation, unless only friendly, because the performers […] were nonprofessional.”84 Like in the musical theater of Western Europe of the 1960s, where “categories were merged”85 and a singer could become an actor or an actor could try their strength at singing, for example, the exchange of roles of different configurations between composers and musicologists, performers and creators, and professionals and nonprofessionals both blurred the boundaries between categories

82 Muzikinio veiksmo festivalis [festivalio bukletas]. [Musical action festival. A festival booklet] (Panevėžys, 1991), 4–5. 83 Bendinskaitė, “Tai reikia išgirsti, arba du žvilgsniai į jaunuosius”: 8. 84 Vita Gruodytė, “Muzika Vartuose” [Music at Gallery Vartai], Šiaurės Atėnai, April 24, 1992), 3. 85 Bosseur and Bosseur. Révolutions musicales. La musique contemporaine depuis 1945, 126.

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and allowed everyone to try out new forms of self-realization and communication in the transition period. The issue of the “incompatibility” of works in festival concerts began to be reflected in the texts of musicologists and critics: It is not so easy today to understand what is beautiful and what is not beautiful. It seems there is no longer a difference between a banal hit and Bach when they merge in the air. The fragmented view of the world frightens and breeds an instinctive need to grasp its integrity.86—Vilija Aleknaitė Everything looks very smooth in the description, but in fact … there was a complete lack of mutual understanding. The most striking examples: a discussion is going on, yet everyone sings the song in their own tone, without hearing anybody else—a genuine cacophony. Or people are playing on stage—and the audience is quietly dozing. Water is floating in the pool—the “swimmers” are hiding in some “Rest,” etc. If you want to hear evaluation, maybe a freshman’s conclusion will help: “I didn’t like a lot of things, but, in general, I liked it.”87—Živilė Ramoškaitė Joseph Kosuth, one of the pioneers of conceptual art who theorized art as tautology, had expressed parallel doubts about art criticism. According to Frank Popper, Kosuth’s “main goal was to free the artist from the interpretations of criticism.” Thus, he suggested that the artist “should include in his work all possible interpretations so that […] evaluation by critics would no longer be necessary.”88 In the Lithuanian environment, the confusion of criticism became apparent in the presence of multisociative works, the authors of which, as mentioned above, were absolutely tolerant of each other’s works. Thus, those texts can now be seen as factual documentary material, which, commenting on the few surviving images and videos of actions or happenings, correspond to its time specifically by its subjectivity. 86 Vilija Aleknaitė, “Ar pajėgsime šviesti” [Shall we be able to shine], in Ričardas Kabelis, ed., Jauna muzika, jaunimo kamerinės muzikos dienų leidinys [Young music. Publication of youth chamber music days] (Druskininkai: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1987), 13. 87 Živilė Ramoškaitė, “Akcijos ir opusai” [Actions and opuses], in Urbietytė-Urmonienė, Druskininkų pavasariai ir muzika 1985–2014, 177. 88 Popper, Art, action et participation, 22–23.

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Festival reviews themselves would often become similar to textual happenings. In them, we discover both a hybridity of attitudes and an incompleteness of thought, both improvisation and contradiction when searching for meaning making evaluations. A detailed and eloquent review by musicologist Gediminas Židonis on the first Festival of New Music held at Kaunas Architects’ House (March 18–19, 1988), with references to the Druskininkai and Panevėžys festivals of the same year, is a good example of this kind of writing. It was included in the only issue of the Gaida journal of that year, edited by musicologist Rimantas Gučas and published by the Composers’ Union. It was one of the rare reviews that was able to accurately reflect the object described and also to discuss the general atmosphere: The festival was dedicated to Lithuanian instrumental (and vocal!) theater (it almost reached the standard of a genuine happening in Lithuania); theater where sound and image (scenery), movement (acting), and the improvised word of musicologist V. Gerulaitis and […] the response of the audience to what was happening were equivalent. Theatre that was balanced between musical absurdist theatre and theatrical (in a literal sense) music, between tragedy and comedy, serenity and irony (who will define the line that separates them!), between truth and lie, fiction and reality, topicalities and realities. […] This was a new concert form, new in its sincerity and vitality, purposefulness, and naturalness. And all this was not “out of necessity” but out of desire, the need to “speak and say something meaningful.” […] Times are changing, we are changing, and festivals are changing as well […] Out of the blue, some festival, like this one—in Kaunas, stuns by its festival nonfestivality. Or, e.g., the “festive pain” of the last year’s Youth Creation Festival in Panevėžys that burnt the ears and eyes of the participants with the present image of the world as seen by the artists. Again, the traditional Youth Music Days in Druskininkai, and so on. Whoever attended or participated in them (and in several other similar events) understood that it was a new type of communication (it was immediate), a new type of expression, and that their form, content, and meaning were also different. These are not mass or district cultural festivals where everything is settled, rehearsed, and pressed into stable forms […] (and is still being pressed). It’s not a mass song or a rock, “metal,” etc., type of festival. They

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feature a lot, often too much, spontaneity and a lack of coordination. […] Perhaps such festivals are also an outcome of our time—complex, contradictory and still rather mysterious, revolutionary and aggressive.89 The author succeeded in grasping the fundamental changes: new forms of expression, interdisciplinarity, spontaneous artistic intervention in political change, a newly perceived environment, and spectator participation.

The Multisociative Expansionism of Synectic Connections The greater the variety, contrast, opposition, and dissonance of the components of a festival, concert, or individual work, the more “freedom” was believed to be legitimized: not the freedom to create, but the freedom to connect anything. The synectic character of the works of the Lithuanian musical action period made it possible to reconsider sound constructions and to borrow concepts and plastic ideas from other arts. In 1988, musicologist Giedrius Gapšys wrote about the creative manipulation of materials outside the artist’s own field in creatively noncommitted freedom—“Let’s not look for any special ‘syntheses of arts’”: Something else can be discerned here: the position of art as play (not a new thing under the sun) was related with us to the increasing hope of getting out of the framework of stagnant culture. Three years have passed, and they testify to Homo ludens gaining ground with us, becoming a rational position of youth, and serving as a part of an alternative to the infamous and bitterly named Homo sovieticus.90 “The important things were the courage to make mistakes and the freedom to be misunderstood,” said Gintaras Sodeika. The attributes of the festivals served the same purpose, to “mark the uniqueness of the festival,”91 despite the fact that, for example, in the first years of the Druskininkai Chamber Music Festival, “the field of badges and medals was still strictly controlled by Glavlit” (Ričardas

89 “Apžvalga,” 37–38. 90 Ibid., 40. 91 From a conversation with composer Ričardas Kabelis ( June 2020).

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Kabelis).92 For the Anykščiai festival, T-shirts were made; the festival also had its own flag: Tomas Juzeliūnas made a flag that he named an “AN-national” one. […] Tomas had a piece of cloth of a mattress aesthetics, from which he cut out the shape of a flag and put it on a green pole.93—Gintaras Sodeika Such a universally adapted and approved intention to create hitherto unpracticed combinations could be called the first intense integration of the freedom feeling into creation. Thus, the value of creation at that time did not depend on the originality of forms or content, but on the extent to which previous creative boundaries were expanded, “liberated.” The specificity of the Anykščiai Happenings Seminars tended towards the minimalist and reduced Fluxus model of Jurgis Mačiūnas, in which the action was concentrated around one idea, while the Musical Action and Contemporary Arts Festivals tended towards John Cage’s model, which Jean-Yves Bosseur called “anarchy in practice.”94 Works based on the expansionism of synectic connections are difficult to categorize or catalogue because of their specific nature, which is constantly looking for new associations and avoiding finitude and closure. Thus, the end of the period of independent festivals was probably related not only to their organizers’ loss of motivation and the changed economic situation (“because at that time we started to create families, raise children, and domestic chores emerged”)95 (Gintaras Sodeika), but also to the inevitable limit to expansion: at some point, creation could no longer evolve in that direction. Just as in fantasy literature, at some point the ideas ran out. Having undoubtedly enriched the whole musical milieu of the time, the activity of composers eventually had to return to stylistic issues, to the state of a musical artefact for sale and purchase, to again reintegrate into the forms required of work performed in public.

92 The Druskininkai Festival had the first unofficial attributes: black ceramic medals (author: Gintaras Žilys), posters with the score in modern graphics (painter Artūras Barysas), and four miniature souvenir badges Jauna Muzika with the shape of the waxing crescent Moon (painter Artūras Barysas), the colors of which—white, red, black, and yellow—corresponded to the colors of the Young Music booklet covers. 93 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 37. 94 Bosseur and Bosseur, Révolutions musicales. La musique contemporaine depuis 1945, 133. 95 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 45.

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The Charm of the Province: The Geography of  New Spaces The departure of artists from academic to less formal spaces meant not only the chosen opposition to formal, institutional art, but also the importance of the changes they perceived in their own epoch. The period of the political Sąjūdis allowed young musicians to see the public space afresh and reconsider the surrounding environment in aesthetic terms: to remove its neutrality and its ideological restrictions by turning the static into the dynamic. Everyone then felt attracted to “grazing” outside academic art, therefore the audience really enjoyed it.96—Arūnas Dikčius

Figure 6. Preparation for the happening The Train … (author of the idea: Gintaras Sodeika). Venue, date: Anykščiai Happenings Seminar, Ažuožeriai, 1988 Photo by Eglė Maračinskaitė. Owner of the photo: Gintaras Sodeika. A scene from the happening, from left to right: kneeling at the railway tracks: Arvydas Baltrūnas, bending over them: Šarūnas Nakas, standing: Laima Kabelienė and Rytis Mažulis, in the background: Ričardas Kabelis

96 Šapoka, “Pokalbis su Arūnu Dikčiumi,” 148.

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The environment was regarded as a plastic element rather than an architectural one, and the role of the public was intellectual as well as physical. Leaving the institutional space of Vilnius (where changes—limited by state censorship— were taking place slowly) for the informal territory of Druskininkai, Panevėžys, Anykščiai, and Kaunas, where artistic and nonartistic spaces were not a priori determined and separated, it became possible to create other—that is, symbolic—spaces that encouraged the implementation of new ideas and a free approach to the functioning of art. Social and utilitarian spaces acquired new purposes and began to take an active part in artistic events. According to Frank Popper, who analyzed the decline of the art object97 in the 1960s and 1970s, the inclusion of the environmental parameter “established a new aesthetic relationship between the art object, the artist, and the public.”98 Independent festivals chose the provinces because happenings, performances, actions, and musical theater demanded larger and unconventional spaces. In a way, these creative tools served to conquer new spaces in a physical sense. The provinces were more favorable spaces for experiments; censorship no longer reached there and, moreover, the size of audiences and the focus of their attention were of a secondary importance. The festivals, then could have been called “experimental musical bases” that composers created primarily for themselves. The search for concert spaces in Druskininkai was one of the most fun activities of the festival. It seemed to me that, in Druskininkai, music could be played anywhere—in parks, squares and buildings, or in premises where it had never been performed before. Thus, the idea was born of concerts in the garden near Čiurlionis’s house, in the vault of the Central Spa, in the Voveraitė cinema, in the house of poet Kornelijus Platelis in Ratnyčia, and in the open-air Girios aidas [Forest echo] Museum.—Ričardas Kabelis We chose the village of Ažuožeriai, which is 12 kilometers away from Anykščiai. It was a secluded place where you could act more freely. However, we did not have any contact with the residents of Ažuožeris—we did not see them, and they did not see us. There was only one case of a relationship—we once filled balloons with water for an installation, painted and left them, and 97 Frank Popper, Le déclin de l’objet (Paris: Chêne, 1975). 98 Popper, Art, action et participation, 11.

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went to create art elsewhere, in another place. At that moment, Vytautas Landsbergis arrived. He did not find us, but saw that installation, torn and destroyed by the children of Ažuožeriai.99 —Gintaras Sodeika The choice of locations was subjective; thus, they suited the relationships between the creators and their activities perfectly: Initially, we did everything for ourselves, and then something more came out.—Liutauras Stančikas On the one hand, the whole festival became the creation of a certain group (the groups that formed around festivals were often called “sects”). On the other hand, the subjectivity was one of the ways to remove the mask of the official (and neutral) from a cultural event. Anykščiai was the homeland of Gintaras Sodeika, Panevėžys was the hometown of Liutauras Stančikas, and Kaunas of Vidmantas Bartulis. The Free Sound Sessions held at the Lithuanian Conservatoire were a spontaneous and short (only two sessions) invasion of young people into the academic fortress of Lithuanian music; meanwhile, Druskininkai, the mecca of Lithuanian music, the birthplace of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, where the first Concert of Young Composers’ Works was held back in 1985, carried the mark of symbolic choice: Druskininkai is a special, Čiurlionian place. The spirit of the Composers’ Guesthouse at that time and the attraction of gatherings were also important and meaningful. The official Musical Autumns and Poetry Springs were held in Druskininkai and, consequently, there was a sense that it encouraged one to compete. On the other hand, we wanted Young Music100 concerts to open up new spaces and to unfold our music in all corners of this incredibly cozy city. In Vilnius, we would have had to act differently, not through chamber music and not only in the field of music, which, as I see it, seems to naturally float in the subtle atmosphere of Druskininkai.—Ričardas Kabelis

99 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 40. 100 Since Druskininkai Chamber Music Festivals published booklets, called “Young Music,” the Festival itself would sometimes be called the Young Music Festival, although somewhat later the name was borrowed by another contemporary music festival.

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Just as the location of the festivals were subjectively chosen were, their dates in many cases were connected to individuals. The Musical Action Festival took place on the birthday of its founder Liutauras Stančikas; the Contemporary Arts Festival on the birthday of Edmondas Babenskas, one of its organizers; the New Music Festival, organized by Vidmantas Bartulis, took place in early April, around his birthday, and for Gintaras Sodeika, the date was related to his double “rebirth”: Twice, specifically on July 31, I have avoided death. Thus, I have a kind of a second birthday that has repeated twice. In the summer of 1981, as I was hitchhiking from Palanga to Vilnius, I got into a car accident as a passenger and was laid on the ground with the people who were considered dead. But I recovered in some miraculous way, and I’m very happy about that. Two years later, in the mountains of Pamir, I was bitten by a Pamirian cobra. Its poison is considered deadly, but somehow I managed to quickly run to a sage whole lived nearby. Before I reached his hut, I bade farewell to the whole world, but managed to survive again. So, for me, those dates will always remain as a gap between the two worlds and as a rebirth.101—Gintaras Sodeika Only the date of Druskininkai Festival—in May—was chosen “without any major calculations,” simply in “opposition to the official contemporary music festival Musical Autumn held in the autumn”: Its opposition—spring—became the only youth-friendly choice of the festival time. By anticipating the date of each year’s festival, I have always tried to predict the time at which the apple trees bloom. The Festival concert, held in the blooming orchard at M. K. Čiurlionis’s house, became the impressive high point of the festival.—Ričardas Kabelis

The Rejection of Musical Forms In a text dedicated to the sixtieth anniversary of Bronius Kutavičius, Andrzej Chłopecki wrote that 101 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 35.

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Kutavičius’s new archaics, born of a new, special syncretism, […] is also a kind of rejection of musical forms, so often encountered recently: e.g., Cage’s escape into impersonal art, Stockhausen’s into cosmic mysticism […], La Monte Young’s into the denial of time, or Glass’s into the industrial indifference of sound formulas.102 “Opposing tradition” is mentioned in the very first official invitation to the Anykščiai Happenings Seminar in 1988, published in the booklet of Druskininkai Festival Young Music: Everyone who longs for an active spiritual experience […] is invited to the first Happenings Seminar in Lithuania. During it, we shall try to theoretically and practically oppose the traditional concert, and, after overcoming a petty language barrier hidden in the structure of musical works, we shall enter a new field of information, openings, and meditations. It can make sense to all of us, even rockers and metalheads. They will be able to remain sincere to themselves, and simultaneously experience a qualitatively appropriate emotional and mental load.103 The uniqueness of the happenings in Anykščiai was that they were created by students of the conservatoire or its fresh graduates. Therefore, “liberation from tradition” primarily meant liberation from academic thinking and an institutional framework: As we grew up in a musical environment, we tried to liberate it through visualization and action—from limitation, as it then seemed to us. […] The happenings reflected a hunger for new aesthetics caused by the protest against the existing

102 The original text by Andrzej Chłopecki was published in German (Andrzej Chłopecki, “Acht Blicke auf das Lachen John Cages,” MusikTexte 46/47 [1992]) and later translated into Lithuanian by Vita Gruodytė: see Andrzej Chłopecki, “Į vakarus eis mėnesiena, šešėliai žiedų į rytus … Sveikiname kompozitorių Bronių Kutavičių su jubiliejum (60-mečiu)” [The moonlight will travel west, and the shadows of blossoms will go east. Congratulations to composer Bronius Kutavičius on his 60th birthday anniversary], Šiaurės Atėnai, November 9, 1992, 3. 103 “Jaunos muzikos regykla,” 138.

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regime because aesthetics and the state system were related.104 —Gintaras Sodeika The ideas were as follows: the Musical Action Festival was based on sound, the projects of the Contemporary Music Festival with visual expansions, and the Contemporary Arts Festival was just a patchwork of strange things. What seemed interesting and original at the time was included in the programs. Some of the projects turned out not to be very successful, but you could not know in advance.105—Tomas Žiburkus Contemporary Arts was a very good festival. There had not yet been such a thing in Lithuania, and it seemed to me that it was necessary. I needed the participation of people from different fields, both artists and musicians. I very carefully selected the participants of the festival. Not by some criteria, just I felt what was good. We just imagined what it should be like. —Liutauras Stančikas The rejection of traditional forms of music accompanied the entire transitional period of independent festivals. However, the experimental medium maintained the features and specificity of musical creation: happenings and actions not only relied on the previous experience of their creators, but also reflected their artistic style: The happening was devised as a virtual score. Its idea, structure, duration, rhythm, and the sequence of events were considered as what was characteristic of a piece of music arranged in time.106 —Gintaras Sodeika The structure of each happening was determined by the author’s own mindset and expression, characteristic also of their other activities. Mažulis produced his happenings in exactly the same

104 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 44, 36. 105 From a personal conversation with musicologist Tomas Žiburkus (May 2020). 106 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 33–34.

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way that he wrote his canons. Sitting high in a tree, he gave a profound lecture, full of elevated thoughts.107—Gintaras Sodeika Jurgis Mačiūnas’s activity, in which music too an important place, was more radical in this sense. The priority of acoustic processes over musical forms was particularly clear: Everything is plastic, i.e., visual, musical, because overtones are related to different processes of time. […] Since 1958, I have been applying the term “De-coll/age music” to acoustic processes that resulted from accidental decomposition: a broken light bulb, a torn poster—and this shock is broadcast amplified.108 When compared to Jurgis Mačiūnas, Lithuanian composers had too little time to transition from experiments with form, content, and space to experiments with acoustics. Should, if festivals of happenings and musical action had continued, they would undoubtedly have developed kinds of conceptual art and musical/instrumental theater that stressed acoustic innovation. Currently, this interrupted and unrealized work is partially compensated for by Lithuanian composers’ electronic/computer/digital work.

(Im)perfect Transition The period during which independent festivals emerged marked a transitional stage, a kind of a “gray zone” (albeit very colorful), in which the state gradually ceased to be the sole customer and purchaser of art, while creators had to gradually adapt to free economic relations. This is why the period was more of an experience of time and space for Lithuanian artists: all the manipulated material was treated as a phenomenon of experience rather than of form or content. Independent festivals were like a parallel reality in which creativity took place “live”—but not in the sense of “live” music. Rather, the very creative process was “live.” It was spontaneous, communal, and anonymous, a combination of incompatible elements, imperfect creation, imperfect performance, and uncritical evaluation.

107 Ibid., 38. 108 Bosseur, Musique et arts plastiques, 250.

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A happening does not need a result. If we compare it with an artwork, it is obvious that the most perfect happening will never be as perfect as a Bach fugue […]. If a person is imperfect, he cannot be said to be bad. Imperfection provokes tolerance. Tolerance allows you to enjoy whatever takes place, which is especially important for a happening, instead of clinging to the result. […] Fluxus objects exhibited in a museum are no longer the same […]. I feel uneasy about holding dead things in my hands. Now they represent a research object, a legacy that we present to the audience—look, this and that was created at such and such a time and were very important. Now that we have all this, we can show it and tell it, but we can no longer transmit emotion.109—Gintaras Sodeika Algirdas Julius Greimas describes the aísthētic experience of a falling water drop that suddenly stops falling in his last book De l’imperfection (On imperfection).110 In terms of time, these independent festivals did not last long; but in terms of aísthēsis, they were a very powerful and enduring experience. The routine of the five-decade occupation came to a sudden halt. “Something happens all of a sudden, but we don’t know what: neither beautiful, nor good, nor real, but all at once.”111 The system had ceased to function and a static (albeit intense) period of expectation had begun; but no one knew what would happen next. It should be borne in mind that after Lithuania declared its independence on 11 March 1990 the occupation regime could still have returned to power by force, as it had a few decades before in Budapest and Prague. Indeed, on 13 January 1991 the Communists made a failed attempt to do just that. The transition period, then, was a peculiar moment of indeterminacy, one of anticipation and euphoric weightlessness. People felt as though they had almost left one political and social system behind and had almost moved into another society. It seemed that art was irrelevant during the chaos and uncertainty of the period, that only politics mattered. As Osvaldas Balakauskas admitted, “Music was put aside this year [1988]. What new have I written? Nothing.”112

109 Gruodytė, “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga,” 40,44. 110 Algirdas-Julien Greimas, De l’imperfection (Périgueux: Pierre Fanlac, 1987), 13. 111 Ibid., 72. 112 Kalavinskaitė and Vaitkūnaitė. “Interviu su Broniumi Kutavičiumi, Osvaldu Balakausku ir Ona Narbutiene,” 3.

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Thus, we could define that short moment when everyone felt a complete sense of freedom as also a moment when art became insignificant. Once the euphoria passed, however, “serious creation” restarted: We kept telling each other that the essence of our activity is not happenings, but something more […]. What we meant by that, and what that “more” was, I cannot say now, unfortunately—I don’t remember. […] The AN festivals were like a Fluxus sanatorium for repairing creative health.113—Arūnas Dikčius Still, “with time,” as Greimas put it, and “after it … [is] over … this cognitively elusive break in life [becomes] susceptible to any interpretation: […] it gives birth to the hope of real life, the complete fusion of subject and object.”114 Now, thirty years later, we can see the totality of this moment and the importance of living it. It is all the more crucial that, despite the lack of permanent material, that is, the lack of art objects (very few festival artifacts have survived), the affects experienced during the period are still alive. Greimas gives “enlightenment” to the moment of aesthetic capture. It is an experience of transforming or awakening consciousness. For Greimas, meaning is perceived through the senses. The art of festivals, both in form and content, corresponded to the transition period. The festivals brought together and attracted, like a centripetal force, creators, performers, participants, spectators, and mere passers-by, who experimented with the present, relegating all the other formerly important priorities to a secondary role, such as the search for national identity or self-affirmation. The festivals provided an opportunity for creators to discover an authentic relationship with the creative act itself and to get closer to the nature of creation by rejecting not only ideological (thematic) but also structural (formal) traditions. That was arguably why the vast majority of the festivals ended organically after just a few years: changes in the political system and the beginnings of democracy seem to have abolished their raison.

The Never-Ending 1990s Rather quickly, the festival period was not so much forgotten as pushed to the margins of history and intellectual interest. There were undoubtedly 113 Šapoka, “Pokalbis su Arūnu Dikčiumi,” 151. 114 Greimas, De l’imperfection, 72–73.

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several reasons for this. The social conditions of artists’ changed; their desire to work collectively declined, and festival organizers lost their motivation. Nevertheless, that period of rapid change and strong emotional experiences left a deep impression on the collective unconscious—perhaps because “it is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when the eighties ended in Lithuania.” The festivals have not yet been studied comprehensively and their nonartworks have not been catalogued. Of course, similar problems have been encountered by Western European music researchers, as “performance has long been excluded from analyses of the evolution of art, especially in the modern period, because of the difficulty in defining its place in art history.”115 With regard to the Lithuanian festivals, the difficulties are only increased due to the scarcity of surviving artifacts and the inevitable unreliability of the participants’ recollections. Any discussion of the period will always remain fragmentary, subjective, and imperfect. The turn of the 1980s and 1990s was more seriously remembered in 2010 at The 1990s: Parallel Realities/Subjective Narratives interdisciplinary seminar held at the Vilnius National Gallery of Art. In 2011, the fundamental collection of texts and interviews (In)dependent Contemporary Art Histories was published. Self-Governance and Initiatives in Lithuania from 1987 to 2011 finally brought the period back into academic discourse. In 2020, the exhibition The Origin of Species: 1990s DNA was held at the MO (Contemporary Art) Museum in Vilnius. The exhibition received a lot of interest; consequently, we must agree with Yuri Dobriakov’s statement that “today’s nostalgia for the ’80s has already turned mainstream.”116 The decade will be discussed for a very long time. This publication has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-LL-18-10.

References Aleknaitė, Vilija. “Ar pajėgsime šviesti” [Shall we be able to shine]. In Jauna muzika, jaunimo kamerinės muzikos dienų leidinys [Young music. Publication of youth chamber music days], edited by Ričardas Kabelis, 13–16. Druskininkai: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1987.

115 Roselee Goldberg, La Performance du futurisme à nos jours (Paris: Thames and Hudson, 2001), 7. 116 Dobriakov, “Jokiasdešimtieji: puslapis neegzistuoja,” 207.

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“Apžvalga” Review. Gaida. Muzikos meno, mokslo ir kritikos leidinys [Gaida. publication about music, science and critics], vol. 1, 36–47. Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1988. Bendinskaitė, Violeta. “Tai reikia išgirsti, arba du žvilgsniai į jaunuosius” [This needs to be heard, or two glimpses at the young]. Mažoji Lietuva [Lithuania minor] 40 (1991): 8. Bosseur, Dominique, and Jean-Yves Bosseur. Révolutions musicales. La musique contemporaine depuis 1945. Paris: Minerve, 1993. Bosseur, Jean-Yves. Musique et arts plastiques. Interactions au XXe siècle. Paris: Minerve, 1998. Chłopecki, Andrzej. “Į vakarus eis mėnesiena, šešėliai žiedų į rytus … Sveikiname kompozitorių Bronių Kutavičių su jubiliejum (60-mečiu)“ [The moonlight will travel west, and the shadows of blossoms will go east. Congratulations to composer Bronius Kutavičius on his 60th birthday anniversary], Šiaurės Atėnai, November 9, 1992. Dobriakov, Jurij. “Jokiasdešimtieji: puslapis neegzistuoja” [Noneties: page not found]. In Rūšių atsiradimas. 90-ųjų DNR [The origin of species: 1990s DNA], edited by Danguolė Butkienė, Vaidas Jauniškis, and Miglė Survilaitė, 207–15. Vilnius: MO muziejus, 2020. Gaidamavičiūtė, Rūta. Muzikos įvykiai ir įvykiai muzikoje [Musical events and events in music]. Vilnius: Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademija, 2008. Gapšys, Giedrius. “Perdurtas blokados burbulas” [A pierced blockade bubble]. In Druskininkų pavasariai ir muzika 1985–2014 [Druskininkai springs and music, 1985–2014], edited by Vaida Urbietytė-Urmonienė, 236–37. Vilnius: Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademija, 2014. ———. “Stabmeldžių apeigos ir nedidelis hepeningas” [Idolator rites and a small happening]. In Muzika 5 [LPS grupės biuletenis], 7. Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1988. Goldberg, Roselee. La Performance du futurisme à nos jours. Paris: Thames and Hudson, 2001. Gordon, William J. J. Synectics. The Development of Creative Capacity. New York: Harper, 1961. Greimas, Algirdas-Julien. De l’imperfection. Périgueux: Pierre Fanlac, 1987. Griniuk, Marija. “Hepeningai ir kultūrinės politikos kritika Lietuvoje” [Happenings and the criticism of cultural policy in Lithuania]. Literatūra ir menas 3655, no. 11, June 4, 2018. Accessed August 3, 2021. https://literaturairmenas.lt/daile/marija-griniuk-hepeningai-irkulturines-politikos-kritika-lietuvoje. Gruodytė, Vita. “Muzika Vartuose” [Music at Vartai Gallery]. Šiaurės Atėnai, 24 April, 1992. ———. “Hepeningų festivalių tąsa būtų buvusi prasminga. Su kompozitoriumi Gintaru Sodeika kalbasi Vita Gruodytė” [Continuing happening festivals would have been meaningful. Composer Gintaras Sodeika is interviewed by Vita Gruodytė]. Kultūros barai 7/8 (2020): 33–45. Jauniškis, Vaidas. “Žvilgsnio galimybės” [The possibilities of perspective]. In Rūšių atsiradimas. 90-ųjų DNR [The origin of species: 1990s DNA], edited by Danguolė Butkienė, Vaidas Jauniškis, and Miglė Survilaitė, 9–19. Vilnius: MO muziejus, 2020. “Jaunos muzikos regykla” [The sight of young music]. In Jauna muzika, jaunimo kamerinės muzikos dienų leidinys [Young music. Publication of youth chamber music days], edited by Ričardas Kabelis, 138–44. Druskininkai: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1988. Kalavinskaitė, Danutė, and Inesa Vaitkūnaitė. Interviu su Broniumi Kutavičiumi, Osvaldu Balakausku ir Ona Narbutiene” [Interview with Bronius Kutavičius, Osvaldas Balakauskas, and Ona Narbutienė]. In Muzika 6 [LPS grupės biuletenis], 2–4. Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1988.

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Kinčinaitis, Virginijus. “Exformos laikmetis” [An exforma period]. In Rūšių atsiradimas. 90-ųjų DNR [The origin of species: 1990s DNA], edited by Danguolė Butkienė, Vaidas Jauniškis, and Miglė Survilaitė, 75–85. Vilnius: MO muziejus, 2020. Koestler, Arthur. Le cri d’Archimède: l’art de la découverte et la découverte de l’art. Paris: CalmannLévy, 1980. Kostelanetz, Richard. The Theatre of Mixed Means. New York: The Dial Press, 1968. Lietuvių muzikos festivalis “Muzikos ruduo 90” [festivalio bukletas] [Lithuanian music festival “Musical autumn 90”. A festival booklet]. Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1990. Lietuvių Tarybinės muzikos festivalis [festivalio bukletas] [Lithuanian Soviet Music Festival. A festival booklet]. Vilnius: Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, 1987. Lietuvos muzikos kontekstai III. Eksperimentų trajektorijos [Lithuanian music in context III. Trajectories of experiments], 2 CD rinkinio bukletas [2 CD booklet] LMIPC CD 071-072. Vilnius: Muzikos informacijos ir leidybos centras, 2013. Ligeikaitė, Laimutė. “Trečiasis “Gaidos” festivalis: įspūdis su vilties ženklu” [The 3rd Gaida Festival: an impression with a sign of hope]. Lietuvos Rytas 230 (Mūzų malūnas), November 26, 1993. Molino, Jean. “Pour une autre histoire de la musique.” In Musiques. Une encyclopédie pour le XXI siècle. Vol. 4, Histoires des musiques européennes, edited by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, 1386–440. Arles: Actes Sud/Paris: Cité de la Musique, 2006. Muzikinio veiksmo festivalis [festivalio bukletas]. [Musical action festival. A festival booklet]. Panevėžys, 1991. Muzikinio veiksmo festivalis [festivalio bukletas]. [Musical action festival. A festival booklet]. Vilnius, 1992. Muzikinio veiksmo festivalis [festivalio bukletas]. [Musical action festival. A festival booklet]. Vilnius, 1994. Popper, Frank. Art, action et participation. Paris: Klincksieck, 1980. ———. Le déclin de l’objet. Paris: Chêne, 1975. Ramoškaitė, Živilė. “Akcijos ir opusai” [Actions and opuses]. In Druskininkų pavasariai ir muzika 1985–2014 [Druskininkai springs and music 1985–2014], edited by Vaida UrbietytėUrmonienė, 176–77. Vilnius: Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademija, 2014. Rivest, Johanne. “Aléa-Happening-Improvisation-Oeuvre ouverte.” In Musiques. Une encyclopédie pour le XXI siècle. Vol. 1, Musiques du XXe siècle, edited by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, 474–83. Arles: Actes Sud/Paris: Cité de la Musique, 2003. Supičić, Ivo. Musique et société. Zagreb: Institut de Musicologie, Académie de musique, 1971. Šapoka, Kęstutis. “Pokalbis su Arūnu Dikčiumi” [A talk with Arūnas Dikčius]. In (Ne)priklausomo šiuolaikinio meno istorijos [Stories of (in)dependent contemporary art], edited by Vytautas Michelkevičius and Kęstutis Šapoka, 148–53. Vilnius: LTMKS, 2011. ———. “Pokalbis su Šarūnu Naku” [A talk with Šarūnas Nakas]. In (Ne)priklausomo šiuolaikinio meno istorijos [stories of (in)dependent contemporary art], edited by Vytautas Michelkevičius and Kęstutis Šapoka, 140–47. Vilnius: LTMKS, 2011. ———. Performanso menas. Performansas Lietuvoje [The art of performance. Performance in Lithuania], 2018. Accessed August 3, 2021. http://letmefix.lt/Kategorija:Performanso_menas. Šiuolaikinių menų festivalis [festivalio bukletas] [Contemporary arts festival. A festival booklet]. Vilnius, 1992.

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Vincent, Claude-Pierre. Heuristique: Création, Intuition, Créativité et Stratégies d’Innovation. Paris: BoD France, 2012. Vyšniauskaitė, Ilmė. “Eksperimentų trajektorijos: nuo akademijos iki pogrindžio” [Trajectories of experiments: from the academy to the underground]. In Lietuvos muzikos kontekstai III. Eksperimentų trajektorijos [Lithuanian music in context III. Trajectories of experiments], 2 CD rinkinio bukletas [2 CD booklet] LMIPC CD 071-072, 8–15. Vilnius: Muzikos informacijos ir leidybos centras, 2013. Žiburkus, Tomas. “Audiovizualioji muzika” [Audiovisual music]. Master’s thesis, Lietuvos muzikos akademija, 1995.

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CHAPTER 9

Disco Culture and the Ritual Journey in the Soviet 1980s Kevin C. Karnes Emory University

Keywords: disco, John Cage, experimentalism, Hardijs Lediņš, New Wave, performance art, socialism, USSR

DISKO. DISKO? DISKO! The three words above were penned by a Latvian DJ in 1978, as the title of an essay published in the paper of Riga’s Komsomol (Soviet Youth League), the organization charged with directing and promoting activities for young people throughout the city. They present a dialogue in miniature, which goes something like this: There are discos. There are what? There are DISCOS! All around us, in our city, in our suburbs, throughout our republic. “Like mushrooms after the rain, like the rain after a hot day. That’s how discos are springing up today.”1 The author of the essay, Hardijs Lediņš, pointed to New York City as a model, which boasted (he claimed) upwards of two hundred discos at the time. And the twenty-three-year-old brimmed with excitement about the future of his art in the Latvian SSR. “In our republic, nearly every large factory and educational institution has its own discotheque,” he wrote. He lamented the still-nascent level of professionalism among local DJs. He called upon musicians and collectives to start producing disco music at home (made in the USSR). He offered

1 Hardijs Lediņš, “Disko. Disko? Disko!” Padomju Jaunatne, June 18, 1978.

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aspiring disco organizers suggestions about visual effects and interior designs. And he concluded with questions: So, which discotheque should we head to this evening? Should we go to the nearest, or to one of the many operating out of basements in Riga’s Old Town? Or, should we head to a disco in [the suburbs of] Imanta or Purvciems? Then, walking home in the resplendent summer morning, taking in the beauty of the rising sun, we’ll ask ourselves: is there any better way to end a fabulous disco evening?2 Lediņš’s portrait of the disco life is hardly what we might expect of the preperestroika USSR. Brezhnev’s USSR, a time of “stagnation,” zastoi in Russian: “desolate” or “deaf years” for music, as the Russian poet Gennady Aygi quipped.3 And yet, the disco culture Lediņš described, which he himself played a key role in shaping, would sweep the whole of the Soviet Union by the start of the 1980s, its possibly dangerous music—and also its potential for cultivating a population of politically upstanding youth—vigorously debated in homes, the press, and even halls of government.4 In November 1976, a disco festival hosted by the Riga Polytechnic Institute drew DJs from as far away as Tashkent. Lediņš was among the featured speakers (figure 1). The motto of the festival: “The youth of the world sings about peace, friendship, and solidarity!” Its takeaway message: “Discotheques stand to become ever more popular, because they are an effective form of mass popular education for youth.”5 Lediņš’s comparisons to New York aside, the Soviet disco scene was clearly not like that which coalesced at Studio 54 and other American locales. The music he played was dramatically different, as were many of the events his discotheques hosted. Just what his discos were, and just what they might mean for our understanding of music and youth culture in the Brezhnev era, is my subjects here. 2 Ibid. 3 Peter J. Schmelz, Such Freedom, if Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music during the Thaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 322. 4 Cf. Sergei I. Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960–1985 (Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 215–38; Gregory Kveberg, “Shostakovich versus Boney M.: Culture, Status, and History in the Debate over Soviet Diskoteki,” in Youth and Rock in the Soviet Bloc: Youth Cultures, Music, and the State in Russia and Eastern Europe, ed. William Jay Risch (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), 211–27. 5 A. Iakovlev, “Diskoteki: vchera, segodnia, zavtra” [Discotheques: yesterday, today, tomorrow], Jaunais Inženieris, November 17, 1976.

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Figure 1. Hardijs Lediņš behind the turntable at the Student Club discotheque at the Riga Polytechnic Institute, mid-1970s. Photographer unknown. Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

It would be hard to overstate the popularity of discotheques in the USSR of the 1970s and 1980s. They were popular. In autumn 1975, the student paper of the Riga Polytechnic, where Lediņš hosted his first discos while studying at the institution, reported: The other night, the hall of the [Riga Polytechnic] Student Club was completely packed, with a healthy crowd of “unfortunates” gathered outside the doors because it was impossible to fit anyone else inside. Was this some kind of meeting, or a concert? No, it was a discotheque! […] The evening was opened by the current organizer of the discotheques, Edmunds Štreihfelds, but then the microphone was passed to the person in charge: the “disc jockey,” the architecture student Hardijs Lediņš.6

6 A. Šauriņš, “Šoruden – pirmā diskotēka” [This evening: the first discotheque], Jaunais inženieris, September 25, 1975.

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Yet the Soviet disco craze did not start with Lediņš, and it was not unique to the Latvian capital. The historian Sergei Zhuk, who both studied and lived the Soviet disco phenomenon, reports that an astonishing 187 discotheques had been registered with the Moscow Komsomol by the end of 1978 in that city alone, and there were known to be over 300 discos active in Latvia—with a total population less than a third of Moscow’s—at that time.7 In New York, London, and other Western locales, the disco experience consisted most famously of dancing and largely unstructured socializing. But Lediņš’s discos were different, featuring dancing only in their second half, after an opening portion in which seated attendees would listen together to live or recorded music, accompanied by lectures by the DJ or guests about what they were playing and hearing. The Russian journalist Artemy Troitsky claims to have pioneered this kind of “stationary” disco, as Lediņš called it, in Moscow in 1972, where it did not immediately catch on.8 But Lediņš was master of the form, which quickly took root in Latvia and Estonia and spread from there across the USSR in the second half of the decade.9 As had been the case with the rise of homegrown Soviet rock in the 1960s, the Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia were widely regarded (and are still often recalled) as crucial centers for the emergence of Soviet disco culture in the mid-1970s.10 As Zhuk reports, when the Komsomol in Dniepropetrovsk, Ukraine, decided to open a discotheque in their city in 1977, they brought in a delegation of DJs from Riga to coach local activists on how to do it.11 Among the things that made the Baltic republics vital hubs of such activity was a complex of political, social, and economic factors that uniquely shaped the landscape of possibility for collective creativity and socializing. Importantly, local institutions were often staffed and sometimes led by figures who asserted a remarkable degree of autonomy with respect to higher-level bureaucracies in Moscow. Both 7 Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, 219. On the Komsomol, see also Gleb Tsipursky, Socialist Fun: Youth, Consumption, and State-Sponsored Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1945–1970 (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 2016). 8 Artemy Troitsky, Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1988), 32–33; Lediņš is quoted in Gunta Prape, “Diskotēka: agrāk – tagad” [Discotheque: then – now], Liesma, August 4, 1981. 9 My sense of Estonian “listening discos” at the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute and the University of Tartu in the mid- and late 1970s is owed, in large part, to interviews with Toomas Siitan (in English, Tallinn, October 30, 2017) and Immo Mihkelson (in English, Tallinn, November 26, 2019). 10 Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, 215–238; cf. Troitsky, Back in the USSR, 44–45, 82–87, and Timothy W. Ryback, Rock around the Bloc: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 111–14. 11 Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, 223–25.

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Latvia and Estonia had been independent republics prior to World War II, and a culture of self-conscious difference vis-à-vis Soviet Russia could still be felt in many aspects of daily life. The busy ports of Riga and Tallinn provided access to LPs, technologies, and foreign tourists, and Tallinn’s residents could tune into radio and even television broadcast from Helsinki. (Many Estonian speakers can understand Finnish.) The University of Tartu in Estonia was home to a thriving hippie culture.12 Riga hosted a black market for pirated copies of Western recordings known to regularly draw buyers from as far away as Smolensk, over four hundred miles away.13 And the Riga Polytechnic hosted a discotheque— Lediņš’s discotheque—that drew such union-wide stars as Arvo Pärt, Alexei Lubimov, and (it is reported) Alfred Schnittke. (Pärt’s very first sacred tintinnabuli-style works were premiered at Lediņš’s discotheques;14 Schnittke reportedly visited Lediņš’s disco on his way home from Tallinn, where he had traveled to supervise the only pre-perestroika performance of his Requiem.15) Together, these distinctive facets of culture and history made the Baltic republics magnets for creative individuals from across the USSR. As the celebrated violinist (and occasional disco-attendee) Tatiana Grindenko recalls of her own impressions of Tallinn in the 1970s, it “was known as a city where the impossible was always just a little bit more possible.”16 And yet, even within this borderland space and against the backdrop of hundreds of Soviet discos, Lediņš’s stood out, especially as it evolved in the 12 Teerje Toomistu, “The Imaginary Elsewhere of the Hippies in Soviet Estonia,” in Dropping Out of Socialism: The Creation of Alternative Spheres in the Soviet Bloc, ed. Juliane Fürst and Josie McLellan (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017), 41–62; Juliane Fürst, “Love, Peace and Rock ’n’ Roll on Gorky Street: The ‘Emotional Style’ of the Soviet Hippie Community,” Contemporary European History 23 (2014): 565–87. 13 Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 187–88; Uldis Rudaks, Rokupācija: Latviešu rokmūzikas vēsture [Rockupation: a history of Latvian rock music] (Riga: Dienas Grāmata, 2008), 47–49. 14 Kevin C. Karnes, “Arvo Pärt’s Tintinnabuli and the 1970s Soviet Underground,” in Arvo Pärt: Sounding the Sacred, ed. Peter C. Bouteneff, Jeffers Engelhardt, and Robert Saler (New York: Fordham University Press, 2021), 68–85; idem, Sounds Beyond: Arvo Pärt and the 1970s Soviet Underground (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021); also idem, “Arvo Pärt, Hardijs Lediņš and the Ritual Moment in Riga, October 1977,” Res Musica 11 (2019): 115–27, https://resmusica.ee/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/rm11_2019_115-127_Karnes.pdf. 15 Aleksandr Ivashkin, ed., Besedy s Al’fredom Schnittke [Alfred Schnittke in conversation] (Moscow: RIK “Kul’tura,” 1994); Boriss Avramecs and Viestarts Gailītis, “Between Communist Party Bosses and Individual Courage,” Unearthing the Music: Sound and Creative Experimentation in Non-Democratic Europe, July 15 2020, http://database.unearthingthemusic.eu/Between_Communist_Party_Bosses_and_Individual_Courage. 16 Quoted in Elena Dvoskina, “Tat’iana Grindenko: novyi put’” [Tat’iana Grindenko: a new path] Muzykal’naia akademiia 2 (2003): 54.

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following decade. For in November 1980, he committed himself to a project of performance art that would profoundly transform his conception of the disco experience and what it could bring to the lives of attendees. That, in turn, changed how he DJ’d. In particular, he and his lifelong collaborator, the poet and musician Juris Boiko (1954–2002), embarked that month on a cycle of ritual walks from Lediņš’s Riga home to the forsaken coastal suburb of Bolderāja, in a local, possibly unknowing variant of the “actions” (deistviia) inaugurated in Moscow in 1976 by the Russian poet Andrei Monastyrsky and his so-called Collective Actions group. Inspired in part by the writings of John Cage, which were simultaneously animating experiments in performance art from New York to Yugoslavia,17 Monastyrsky’s “journeys beyond the city” (poezdki za gorod) consisted principally in traveling to some unfamiliar, uninhabited locale, and recording one’s impressions of the trip in writing, photography, and other media.18 As we will see, Monastyrsky regarded his journeys as forms of ritual, as means of taking oneself out of the everyday to experience a taste of expressive freedom and perceptual, even spiritual transformation in communion with others. In this way, his work aligned with a distinctly Soviet reading of Cage advanced by one of the composer’s most important Soviet interlocutors, the literary scholar Evgeniia Zavadskaia.19 For Zavadskaia, the significance of Cage’s work resided not in its play with sounds but in the collective and potentially enlightening process of bringing it to performance. Elaborating Cage’s well-known aspiration to dissolve the boundaries between art and life, she described the American composer as a figure striving to awaken individuals to their connectedness to the “deep unity of the human spirit” (dukh), a spirit “disclosed everywhere and in every moment, bringing into balance self and other, the present moment and

17 Amy Bryzgel, Performance Art in Eastern Europe since 1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017); Benjamin Piekut, Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York AvantGarde and Its Limits (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2011). 18 Andrei Monastyrsky et al., Poezdki za gorod: Kollektivnye deistviia [ Journeys beyond the city: Collective Actions] (Moscow: Ad Marginem, 1998); Matthew Jesse Jackson, The Experimental Group: Ilya Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet Avant-Gardes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 184–91; Octavian Eșanu, Transition in Post-Soviet Art: The Collective Actions Group before and after 1989 (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2013). 19 On the resonance of Zavadskaia’s work among alternative artists, see Eșanu Transition in PostSoviet Art, 80–83, and Andrew Solomon, The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 85–86. It was also recalled by the Lithuanian musicologist Rūta Stanevičiūtė in an interview with the author (in English), Vilnius, May 31, 2018.

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eternity.”20 We don’t know what Lediņš knew of Zavadskaia or Monastyrsky in 1980. But he did know some Cage, and he described his walks to Bolderāja in ways that resonate with their statements. “In order to understand these things we’re doing, it’s necessary to put yourself in a different kind of place,” he wrote of his treks. “And that requires effort, working with oneself. Clarifying what’s essential to you is not something possible in everyday life.”21 Back in Riga, Lediņš strove to capture something of this sense of experimentalism, this feeling of freedom experienced on his walks, right in the heart of the city itself, in a disco-space of community-making that was readily accessible to all. Underpinning my study of Lediņš’s discos are a number of theoretical claims. First, while it would be easy to dismiss his activities as attempts to appropriate and assimilate forms of Western culture into a Soviet space, he was not, in fact, attempting to do such things at all. To be sure, he was impressed with what he read of disco culture in New York, and programs from his early discos are filled with Western music.22 Yet, I will suggest, Lediņš’s work exemplifies instead what the art historian Amy Bryzgel writes of performance art broadly across the Soviet bloc: about experimental artforms “develop[ing] in Eastern Europe in parallel and in dialogue with practices in Western Europe and North America” (emphasis in original); the dialogue, of course, was often imagined. “Artists in the East were inspired by artists they encountered from elsewhere (both East and West), yet also created their own distinct forms of creative expression, which emerged from their unique cultural surroundings.”23 Bryzgel was not writing about Lediņš’s discos, but she might as well have been. The Latvian historian Ivars Ījabs helps us push this argument further. Focusing on the work of Lediņš and Boiko in particular, he suggests that their gift consisted first in spotting and then in mining the cracks that seemed everywhere to appear across the bureaucratic façade of Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. They exploited the opportunities for creative engagement afforded by those fissures to explore the newness of things trickling in from the West. But significantly, they always navigated within the distinctly Soviet social and artistic spaces they traveled. “It’s true postmodernism,” Ījabs observes of Lediņš’s art, “playing within the chasm between the provincial culture of the USSR and the global ‘normality’ of the 20 Evgeniia Zavadskaia (Zavadskaya), Kul’tura vostoka v sovremennom zapadnom mire [Eastern culture in the contemporary Western world] (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), 149. 21 Hardijs Lediņš and Normunds Lācis, “HL: NL,” Avots 4 (1988): 50. 22 Programs for some of Lediņš’s early disco events are preserved at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art in Riga (Latvijas Laikmetīgas mākslas centrs), in binders labeled “Rokraksti” and “Manuskripti.” 23 Bryzgel, Performance Art in Eastern Europe since 1960, 1–2.

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West, creeping in from abroad.”24 In short, Western discos (or what he read of them) and Western music (or what he heard of it) inspired Lediņš to imagine what new sounds and experiences might be conjured within the frame of the Soviet world itself, to envisage how he might contribute to that world in new, exciting, and enlightening ways. To press this point still further, we may turn to the anthropologist Alexei Yurchak, who writes of artists and others who, even in the 1970s and 1980s, were still inspired by and remained deeply committed to a complex of ideals widely associated with the Soviet socialist project in its earliest, revolutionary days—despite the failings of the Soviet state, which were everywhere apparent by the Brezhnev years. “For a great number of Soviet citizens,” Yurchak observes, many of the fundamental values, ideals, and realities of socialist life (such as equality, community, selflessness, altruism, friendship, ethical relations, safety, education, work, creativity and concern for the future) were of genuine importance. […] For many, “socialism” as a system of human values and as an everyday reality of “normal life” was not necessarily equivalent to “the state” or “ideology”; indeed, living socialism to them often meant something quite different from the official interpretations provided by state rhetoric.25 He elaborates this point in another study: “The positive, creative, ethical side of life” in the 1980s USSR “was just as organic a part of socialist reality as feelings of alienation and meaninglessness.”26 For Yurchak, this sense of dissonance, even this yawning chasm between the enlightening promise of Soviet socialism and the reality of what the system had actually produced—poverty, corruption, general dysfunction—was perhaps the defining feature of late-Soviet life for many individuals who lived it. And yet, he notes, despite it all, the “ethos” of Soviet revolutionary socialism “survived in various forms in mundane Soviet life even during late socialism in spite of the stagnant bureaucratic party system. One place where it survived was informal [i.e., alternative] Soviet art”27 (emphasis in original). The Russian poet and 24 Ivars Ījabs, “Lediņš savos rietumos” [Lediņš in his West], Satori, March 30, 2015, https:// satori.lv/article/ledins-savos-rietumos. 25 Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, 8. 26 Ibid., 45. 27 Andres Kurg, “Interview with Alexei Yurchak,” ARTMargins Online, June 5, 2014, https:// artmargins.com/interview-with-alexei-yurchak/.

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philosopher Keti Chukhrov makes a similar point with respect to artists’ works and words of the period. She writes: “we [should] regard communism” in their statements “not as a state project that succeeded or failed […] but rather as […] the ability to think in a certain ethical direction. Namely, when one cannot consider one’s human purpose realized if one’s consciousness does not care for others.”28 Among those artforms where such “fundamental values” (Yurchak) as Chukhrov’s “care for others” survived, amid and despite all surrounding dysfunction, were Lediņš’s discos and walks to Bolderāja. His collaborator Boiko put this plainly in an interview with a West German art historian in 1988. “What, then, is socialism?” Boiko asked rhetorically. “It is social life. It is active contacts between individuals.”29 Before turning to Lediņš’s contributions directly, I should add a few words about the geography of my study. In recent years, a significant project has been underway among a loosely connected group of scholars, almost all of whom residing in former-Soviet or Eastern European spaces, to move beyond cultural histories that draw clear lines between centers and what we have sometimes called peripheries. Such conventional histories, penned invariably by writers in the USSR and still by many in the post-Soviet West,30 take as axiomatic what the Polish art historian Piotr Piotrowski calls a “vertical” conception of cultural exchange: the conviction that “models of artistic practice spread throughout the world” from geographical “centers” such as Moscow, “eventually reaching the peripheries.” Of course, he writes, “it can happen […] that significant artists appear within the margins of the artistic geography, but their recognition and art historic consecration must happen within the centre.”31 The problem with such “vertical” histories, as diagnosed by the Armenian art theorist Hrach Bayadyan, is that “the relationship between the center and the periphery” in the Soviet bloc was characterized in practice by significant “uncertainties and ambiguities […] and in particular the possibility of cultural resistance”: the very sorts of conditions that distinguished life in Riga and

28 Keti Chukhrov, “The De-ideologization of the ‘Soviet,’” in Critical Mass: Moscow Art Magazine 1993–2017, ed. Viktor Misiano and Ruth Addison (Moscow: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2017), 198. 29 Eckhart Gillen, “Ungefähre Kunst in Riga,” Niemandsland: Zeitschrift zwischen den Kulturen 2, no. 5 (1988): 47. 30 Susan Buck-Morss, “Theorizing Today: The Post-Soviet Condition,” in Former West: Art and the Contemporary after 1989, ed. Maria Hlavajova and Simon Sheikh (Utrecht and Cambridge, MA: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst; MIT Press, 2016), 163. 31 Piotr Piotrowski, Art and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe, trans. Anna Brzyski (London: Reaktion Books, 2012), 26.

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Tallinn from life in Moscow.32 In order to fathom those ambiguities and the significant opportunities for cultural activity they afforded, Piotrowski urges, we need a “horizontal” approach to studying history in the Soviet world, surfacing the “relational geography” of its spaces (“polyphonic, multi-dimensional, devoid [in practice, often] of geographic hierarchies”), capturing events and exchanges across networks of mostly noncentral locales.33 It is only through piecing together such “horizontal” histories that we might come to understand the forces, events, and dynamics that shaped daily life for many citizens of the USSR, forces that are typically unseen from the “vertical,” center-centric perspective. Uncovering and mapping such “relational geographies” has been the project of some recent large-scale initiatives, including Recuperating the Invisible Past, a conference and exhibition organized by the Riga-based art historian Ieva Astahovska, and the massive, ongoing “East Art Map” project of the Ljubljanabased collective IRWIN.34 In the present article we have already brushed against some deeply significant nonhierarchical exchanges: Pärt traveling from Tallinn to Riga to stage the premieres of his first openly sacred tintinnabuli works; Schnittke traveling to Tallinn to oversee the premiere of his Requiem; a group of Riga DJs heading to Dniepropetrovsk to help establish a discotheque in that city; and artists coming from across the USSR for the opportunity to attend, perform, and lecture at Lediņš’s discotheque. In the remainder of this essay, I will sketch the origins of Lediņš’s disco project, drawing on oral history and the store of documents preserved in the Lediņš Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art in Riga. Then, bringing these materials into dialogue with the archive of recordings maintained by the Lediņš family and curated online by the Riga-based musician Lauris Vorslavs, I will point to some ways in which his ritual walks intersected with his musical activities beginning in 1980.35 Finally, I will consider his disco project as it 32 Hrach Bayadyan, “Imagining the Past,” in Critical Mass: Moscow Art Magazine 1993–2017, ed. Viktor Misiano and Ruth Addison (Moscow: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2017), 183. 33 Piotrowski, Art and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe, 31, 39, also Piotr Piotrowski, In the Shadow of Yalta: Art and the Avant-garde in Eastern Europe, 1945–1989, trans. Anna Brzyski (London: Reaktion Books, 2009). 34 Ieva Astahovska, ed., Atsedzot neredzamo pagātni / Recuperating the Invisible Past (Riga: Latvijas Laikmetīgas mākslas centrs, 2012); IRWIN [collective], ed., East Art Map: Contemporary Art and Eastern Europe (London: Afterall Books and MIT Press, 2006); Borut Vogelnik, “Total Recall,” in Who if Not We Should at Least Try to Imagine the Future of All This? ed. Maria Hlavajova and Jill Winder (Amsterdam: Artimo, 2004). 35 Latvijas Laikmetīgas mākslas centrs, Hardijs Lediņš Collection; hereafter LLMC. The LLMC collection houses papers, books, photographs, official records, and a handful of audio recordings. The bulk of the audio portion of Lediņš’s estate, mostly preserved on reel-to-reel tape,

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evolved between that point and mid-decade, unfolding something of the way in which his performance art inflected his disco operation. Throughout the 1980s, Lediņš’s discotheque remained a space for dancing. But more importantly, as he believed, it became a space for awakening attendees to the spiritually transformative potential of being open to the experience of their surroundings, and also for achieving and maintaining the “active contacts between individuals” that Boiko identified as the essence of Soviet socialism itself. Put simply, Lediņš’s disco was a space in which socialism could be practiced as many felt it was meant to be, in contrast to the dispiriting reality encountered just outside its doors. It was an idealistic project, to be sure. But to give the last word to Boiko again, from that same West German interview of 1988: “You could say that it is the artist’s mission to prepare for the future. And that means bringing a utopian element [utopisches Element] into the here and now.”36

Enter the DJ Lediņš’s path to the polytechnic was both natural and miraculous, for his creative gifts were as apparent in high school as was his disregard for social norms. Together with Boiko, he made his artistic debut by creating and distributing to classmates a series of homemade journals under the title Zirkahbols—Latvian for Horse Shit, rendered in their personalized, esoteric orthography.37 To judge from the single extant issue—labeled number eleven in the run, the rest (reportedly) having been confiscated and destroyed by the KGB—Zirkahbols consisted of collages of clippings from historical publications interspersed with hand-drawn illustrations and absurdist statements.38 Once discovered, the journal’s content struck school officials as highly suspect: “satire for or against something,” they explained in disciplinary actions taken against the duo in February 1973.39 For

36 37 38 39

remains in the possession of the Lediņš family. A large store of the materials, digitized and curated by Lauris Vorslavs, is available in the online archive Pietura nebijušām sajūtām: http://www.pietura.lv/. Gillen, “Ungefähre Kunst in Riga,” 33. Correctly spelled in Latvian, “horse shit” would be zirgābols. The extant issue is, at the time of this publication, available at http://www.pietura.lv/seque/ txt/samizdats/1972_zirkahbols_Nm_11.pdf. Handwritten protocols from the disciplinary hearing are preserved at LLMC, in a box labeled “Lediņa arhīva papildinājums”; they are transcribed and published in Lindenbauma 2015 (no pagination given). On Zirkahbols and its successor, WCZLS, see Ieva Astahovska and Māra Žeikare, eds,. Nebijušu sajūtu restaurēšanas darbnīca / Workshop for the Restoration of Unfelt Feelings (Riga: Latvijas Laikmetīgas mākslas centrs, 2016), 22–23.

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what was deemed the subversive political work of compiling their journal, Boiko was sentenced to military service upon graduation. Lediņš, whose mother had ministerial ties that would profoundly shape the range of opportunities afforded to her son, was spared the fate of his friend. At the end of their senior year, Boiko shipped out to the Kazakh border. Lediņš moved across town to the prestigious Riga Polytechnic Institute to study architectural theory. Despite the physical distance between them, Lediņš and Boiko kept up their production of homemade journals in the 1973–74 academic year, sending issues of various successors to Zirkahbols back and forth through the mail between Riga and Rubtsovsk.40 In a new journal they called WCZLS—an acronym, again using an eccentric orthography, for My, What a Green Umbrella!—their passion for music became clear. An early issue of WCZLS included a column headed “Pop Music News” (popmuhsikas jaunumi), which referenced the British magazine Melody Maker and reported on cancellations of imaginary Riga concerts by Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, and the band Chicago.41 The journal’s fifth volume, from 1974, advertised a fictitious upcoming concert by one “A. Lichtenberg & seine Gruppe,” supposedly to be held in the fish pavilion of Riga’s central market.42 Later that year, in yet another homemade journal, The Riesling Brothers on Tour in Latgalia! (its title was penned in English), Lediņš and Boiko compiled a “Top-74” list of fictitious bands and songs in the “Mestnij” category (local, in Russian: mestnyi), along with a list of their actual favorites under the English heading “International.”43 The latter included Peter Gabriel, Greg Lake, and Jon Anderson of Yes. Two of their top five albums were by King Crimson: Starless and Bible Black (#1) and Red (#3). Best of all, they loved Robert Fripp, King Crimson’s founder and lead guitar player, who took the top spot on both their “guitar” and their “composer” lists. As Zhuk would describe it, Lediņš’s taste planted him firmly on the “intellectual” side of Soviet listening culture of the period, with a clear majority of young people preferring more accessible, danceable Western pop by such mainstream bands as Slade and Queen.44

40 Some of their correspondence from this period is preserved at LLMC, in a box labeled “Lediņa arhīva papildinājums.” 41 This issue is available, as of this article’s publication, at http://www.pietura.lv/seque/txt/ samizdats/1973_74_wczls_03.pdf. 42 The fifth volume of WCZLS is available, as of this article’s publication, at http://www.pietura. lv/seque/txt/samizdats/1973_74_wczls_05.pdf. 43 This journal is available, as of this article’s publication, at http://www.pietura.lv/seque/txt/ samizdats/1974_ontourinlatgalia.pdf. 44 Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, 178–79.

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For the historian Ījabs, these ads and lists produced by the duo made ironic “play” of the “chasm between the provincial culture of the USSR and the global ‘normality’ of the West,” noted above.45 They also made clear the remarkable breadth of their knowledge of and even fluency with Western rock. They seemed, at this time, to have had no genuine interest in popular musics produced locally, either in Latvia or in the greater Soviet Union. The pathways through which they acquired their knowledge of Western music are complex and partly obscure. Years before a broadly resonant rock journalism took root in the USSR (in the form of the widely distributed samizdat journal Roksi, produced in Leningrad by Boris Grebenshchikov of the band Akvarium starting in 1977),46 Lediņš began mining the record and magazine collections of the Latvian Conservatory and National Library.47 His reading is documented in a handwritten alphabetical index he compiled of Melody Maker going back to 1970. (The high school he and Boiko attended offered instruction in German, and, as Boiko’s brother Martin explains, many in their circle taught themselves to read English.)48 He might also have frequented Riga’s famous black market for LPs and pirated cassettes, mentioned above. Some suggest that Lediņš’s mother, Rute Lediņa, was a source of recordings and information. A journalist and translator, she worked as host of a radio program called Amber Coast, which broadcast Soviet propaganda to Latvian emigres in Scandinavia. The show was a project of an office called the Committee for Cultural Relations with Compatriots Abroad. Ostensibly a nongovernmental organization, her office, as the Latvian historian Ieva Zake documents, was “in reality … part of the KGB.”49 Officially, the organization employed only about 45 Ījabs, “Lediņš savos rietumos.” 46 Polly McMichael,“‘After all, you’re a rock and roll star (at least, that’s what they say)’: Roksi and the Creation of the Soviet Rock Musician,” Slavonic and East European Review 83 (2005): 664–84; Aleksandr Kushnir, “Vkus magnitnogo khleba. Vvedenie v standarty sovetskoi magnitofonnoi kul’tury” [The taste of magnetic bread: an introduction to the standards of Soviet magnetic tape culture], in 100 magnitoal’bomov sovetskogo roka. 1977–1991: 15 let podpol’noi zvukozapisi [100 magnetic tape albums of Soviet rock, 1977–1991: 15 years of underground recordings], ed. Aleksandr Kushnir (Moscow: Kraft+, 2003), 55–61. 47 J. Līdums, “Velvēs skan disko” [Disco sounds in the vaults], Dzimtenes balss, May 05, 1977. 48 Red and green notebook labeled “Melody Maker from 1970,” preserved at LLMC in a box labeled “Klades.” Martin Boiko, interview with the author (in Latvian and English), Riga, November 29, 2019. 49 Cf. Ieva Zake, “Soviet Campaigns against ‘Capitalist Ideological Subversives’ during the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies 12 (2010): 100. Further information referenced in this paragraph is drawn from interviews with Boriss Avramecs (in Latvian), Riga, November 2, 2017; Māra Žeikare (in English), Riga, June 1, 2018; and Martin Boiko (in Latvian and English), Riga, November 29, 2019; as well as from Māra Žeikare and Diāna Popova, “Hardija Lediņa diskotēkas” [Hardijs Lediņš’s discotheques], Satori, February 25, 2015, https://www.satori. lv/article/hardija-ledina-diskotekas.

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a dozen individuals, but its staff was augmented significantly by artists and academics who volunteered their time and efforts in exchange for the opportunities for foreign travel that work for the office provided. Rute’s ties to state security likely accounted for the starkly different fates experienced by Hardijs and Juris in the wake of the high school fiasco surrounding their production of the Horse Shit journals. (Protocols from their hearing indicate that they were tried as a pair.) Her foreign travels and the elite, cosmopolitan circles she traveled in would also have provided ready-made avenues for acquiring records, publications, and technologies from the West. In turn, the protections afforded by her employment might later have offered a degree of protection not only to her son but to the community of musicians drawn to his disco, and to the sometimes provocative creative projects they undertook in that space. At the start of the 1974–75 school year, Aina Bērziņa, president of the Riga Polytechnic Student Club, used her column in the student paper to announce a new initiative, the polytechnic discotheque: This year, the Student Club is organizing something new: the discotheque. It will be a new kind of recreational evening for students, distinguished from typical events by virtue of the fact that a significant portion of our attention will be on the educational part of evening. We’ll strive to acquaint ourselves with the newest jazz, estrada, and pop music. We’ll organize meetings with experts and discuss subjects of vital interest today. In this way, the events will constitute something new at our institution.50 The idea behind an “educational” disco did not come from Lediņš. Another student, Edmunds Štreihfelds, had experienced such gatherings while visiting East Germany and approached the leadership of the Student Club about the possibility of starting something similar at home. Although Bērziņa announced a launch in the fall, the project she described took months to get off the ground, with the first event being scheduled only in February 1975. Štreihfelds was the official convener, but Lediņš was DJ from the start. Held once or twice a month thereafter, the polytechnic disco was quickly identified with the architecture student himself (Liepiņš 1975, Oliņa 1975).51

50 Aina Bērziņa, “Jaunie studenti!” [New students!], Jaunais Inženieris, October 17, 1974. 51 Also recalled by Asja Visocka in an interview with the author (in Latvian), Riga, September 5, 2018.

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Only two programs from Lediņš’s polytechnic discos are known to survive. One of them, undated, is massive, listing eleven topics to be covered and focusing almost exclusively on avant-garde classical music from the West and the so-called near abroad (Schoenberg, Ives, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen, Penderecki; the only topic that departed from this theme was simply called “Music of the East”).52 The second surviving program, from November 1978, shows his celebrated division of the evening into “stationary” and dance-focused halves, while giving us a sense of just how seriously he took the “educational” or “stationary” part of the program: Part I: Educational Electronic musical instruments and their use in rock music 1. Survey of the history of electronic music 2. K. Stockhausen: one of the founders of electronic music 3. The group Tangerine Dream, and their electronic rock music 4. Electronic musical instruments: a new resource in rock music Part II: Dance music The best examples of Soviet and foreign disco music Information about recent disco music The crisis of punk rock, its reflections in music and society53 Other documents provide glimpses of the instructional half of the events, with Lediņš interrogating histories of Western music through the prism of MarxistLeninist social critique. He lectured on topics such as “Revolution in Music” and “Culture: Synthetic Ferment of Our Environment.”54 His papers include a fourpage manuscript on Gentle Giant, seven pages on Miles Davis, and a seven-part lecture series—nearly a hundred pages in total—on King Crimson.55 Observing in the latter that rock and classical music have a great deal in common, including the emergence of “spontaneous improvisation” as an important element of both (he was fascinated by Stockhausen’s improvisatory “intuitive music,” especially Aus den sieben Tagen), he explained that the two are often distinct with respect to their social or aesthetic “function.” Whereas the principal function of rock consists in “creat[ing] impressions of strength and elation” in the mind of the listener, classical music serves “to educate and challenge a thoughtful individual.” 52 Preserved at LLMC, in a binder labeled “Rokraksti.” 53 Preserved at LLMC, in a binder labeled “Manuskripti;” also accessible in the LLMC Digital Archive: https://dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/89893.html. 54 Sketches for these lectures are preserved at LLMC, in a binder labeled “Rokraksti.” 55 The Gentle Giant and King Crimson lectures are preserved at LLMC, in a binder labeled “Rokraksti.” The Davis lecture is in an unboxed notebook at LLMC labeled “M. Davis.”

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And yet, he continued, “there are some [artists] whose function touches both of these spheres.” The prime example, he held, was King Crimson, whose work “could be called the classical-rock music of our age.” He concluded: “If Wagner still lived, he would be playing together with King Crimson.”56 From the start, Lediņš’s discos, held in a disused Anglican Church, were highly popular with polytechnic students, as attested in the newspaper column quoted earlier in this article (see figures 2 and 3). They were also a hit with administrators and Party activists, who recognized his project as a serious educational endeavor and supported it enthusiastically. In December 1974, when he first put forward his proposal for his disco, the polytechnic branch of the Komsomol, charged with promoting and controlling student life at the institution, recommended approval of his plans without any formal deliberation whatsoever. The Komsomol reaffirmed its support for Lediņš’s discos repeatedly over the next two academic years.57

Figure 2. Lediņš’s discotheque at the Riga Polytechnic Student Club (formerly an Anglican church), mid-1970s. Photographer unknown. Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

56 From the first installment of his lecture on King Crimson, preserved at LLMC, in a binder labeled “Rokraksti.” 57 National Archive of Latvia, Riga (Latvijas Valsts arhīvs), fonds PA-4263, apraksts 8, lieta 2 (Riga Polytechnic Komsomol protocols of December 16, 1974); fonds PA-4263, apraksts 10, lieta 1 (protocols of January 26, 1976); and fonds PA-4263, apraksts 10, lieta 2 (protocols of September 20, 1976).

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Figure 3. Lediņš’s disco at the Polytechnic Student Club. Lediņš is seated on the left behind the desk with audio-playback equipment. Photographer unknown. Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

Apparently through his mother, Lediņš was well connected with local elites, and he took maximum advantage of these relationships to advance his creative goals. For his very first disco, he engaged Ģederts Ramans, chair of the Latvian SSR Composers’ Union, as the evening’s guest speaker.58 In April 1976 and October 1977, under the auspices of his discotheque, he organized festivals of contemporary music that drew such stars of the Soviet classical music world as Lubimov, Pärt, and Grindenko.59 (See figure 4 and figure 5).

58 Viesturs Liepiņš, “Skanējumu sāk diskotēkas” [Discotheques are starting to sound], Jaunais inženieris, February 27, 1975, 4. 59 See Karnes, “Arvo Pärt’s Tintinnabuli and the 1970s Soviet Underground”; idem, Sounds Beyond: Arvo Pärt and the 1970s Soviet Underground (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021); also idem, “Arvo Pärt, Hardijs Lediņš and the Ritual Moment in Riga, October 1977.”

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Figure 4. Arvo Pärt (left) and Alexei Lubimov (second from right) during setup for a festival of new music held at the Latvian Academy of Art under the auspices of Lediņš’s Riga Polytechnic discotheque, April 1976. Photo by Kirils Šmeļkovs. Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

As I was told in an interview with the university administrator Asja Visocka, who presided over the polytechnic Student Club beginning in January 1978, Lediņš and his friends at the discotheque were “very, very active” in shaping cultural life at the institution. “All of them,” she remembered, “were upstanding.”60

60 Visocka, interview, September 5, 2018.

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Figure 5. Alexei Lubimov and Tatiana Grindenko during setup for the disco festival of new music in April 1976. Note the drum kit in the background. Photo by Kirils Šmeļkovs. Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

The Journey Mistakes were made at Lediņš’s second disco festival of new music, held in October 1977. In addition to hosting first-ever public performances of Arvo Pärt’s Missa syllabica, Summa, and Cantate Domino, all of which setting sacred Latin texts, the festival included the premiere of a new work by the Moscowbased composer Vladimir Martynov: Passionslieder (1977) for Baroque orchestra and soprano (the famous Lydia Davydova sang), which sets a German text by an eighteenth-century Lutheran theologian. “He on the cross is the one whom I love, the one I love is Jesus Christ …” (Der am Kreuz ist meine Liebe, meine Liebe ist Jesus Christ …) A friend of the organizers, it is said, thought it dramatic to drop typescript copies of that text from the balcony of the Student Club (the former Anglican church) just as Martynov’s piece was being played, to land in the laps of concert attendees seated below. A copy reportedly made its way to the KGB. Lediņš was accused of spreading religious propaganda, and his

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polytechnic disco was shut down.61 After that, the festival project that coalesced in his disco shifted northwards to Tallinn, where it continued without him for another year under the direction of Lubimov and the Estonian conductor Andres Mustonen.62 Meanwhile, Lediņš graduated, reunited with the recently discharged Boiko, and turned in another direction. At three in the morning on the last day of November 1980, Lediņš, Boiko, and an architect friend departed Lediņš’s Riga home and followed ten kilometers of railroad tracks to the coastal suburb of Bolderāja. They walked into the sunrise. Along the way, they drank tea, took photographs, and paused frequently to take in what they encountered. When they arrived, they bought bus tickets back home. The following June, Lediņš and Boiko repeated the journey. In January 1982, they did it again. Their treks evolving into an annual pilgrimage, they took on ritual trappings. The walkers ate hardboiled eggs at predetermined intervals. They left mementos for themselves along the tracks (see figure 6).63

61 Igors Vasiļjevs (“Tiesa” [Truth], Liesma 4 (1988): 14–15; Boriss Avramecs, “Neoficiālie laikmetīgās mūzikas festivāli 1976. un 1977. gados Rīgā” [The unofficial festivals of contemporary music in Riga in 1976 and 1977], in Robežu pārkāpšana. Mākslu sintēze un paralēles. 80 gadi [Transgressing boundaries: artistic synthesis and parallels. The 1980s], ed. Ieva Astahovska (Riga: Laikmetīgas mākslas centrs, 2006), 30. My sense of these events is also owed to my interviews with Avramecs (November 2, 2017) and Martin Boiko (November 29, 2019). Latvia’s KGB archives remain closed to most researchers, and I have been unable to verify these accounts. 62 Ivalo Randalu, “Muutumised. Andres Mustonen Arvo Pärdist ja iseendast” [Changes: Andres Mustonen on Arvo Pärt and himself], Teater. Muusika. Kino 11 (1995): 36–37. 63 The architect friend who accompanied them on their first Bolderāja walk was Imants Žodžiks. Lediņš described the walks in Lediņš and Lācis, “HL: NL”: 50–55. A number of photographs, documents, and descriptions of the walks are provided in Žeikare and Žeikare, Nebijušu sajūtu restaurēšanas darbnīca, 153–60. For discussion, see also Māra Žeikare, “Bolderājas stils mākslā” [Bolderāja style in art], Satori, June 29, 2015, https://www.satori.lv/article/ bolderajas-stils-maksla. Lediņš’s archive materials related to the walks are preserved at LLMC, in a binder labeled “Bolderājas gājieni,” and in file boxes labeled “Bolderājas gājieni NSRD” and “Lediņa arhīva papildinājums.” Some of these materials accessible in the LLMC Digital Archive: search (“Meklēt”) for the terms “Bolderāja” and (in a separate search) “NSRD” at https://lcca.lv/lv/petnieciba/#petnieciba-kolekcija.

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Figure 6. Lediņš walking to Bolderāja, June 14, 1981. Photo by Juris Boiko. Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

Reflecting later on what they were after, Lediņš described their walks as exercises in spiritual renewal, as a kind of “new religion.” Bolderāja, he explained, was in fact a “terrible place,” the train tracks littered with industrial detritus, passing by metallurgy shops, skirting a shipyard where they broke down old warships. But in its very awfulness, he reflected, it was “like the Christian catacombs, which inspire a new kind of sensitivity to life.”64 Boiko, in turn, described the Bolderāja walks as an extension of their shared investment in experimental music. “Stockhausen’s ideas, Cage’s ideas, we grasped those ideas viscerally,” he recounted. “We were simply seeking substantiation of those ideas in the surrounding reality.” He continued: “The walks to Bolderāja can be compared to Cage’s silent piece 4’33”, [Martynov’s] Albumblatt, or [Stockhausen’s] Aus den sieben Tagen.”65 Other comparisons are revealing as well, perhaps none more so than Monastyrsky’s “journeys beyond the city,” described at the top of this article. Together with a rotating cast of collaborating artists—the so-called Collective Actions group—and a small number of invited guests, Monastyrsky would travel to some uninhabited locale beyond the Moscow suburbs. There, visitors would 64 Undated interview broadcast on the Radio NABA program Absolūtais Minors on June 18, 2014; archived at http://sturm.lv/absolutais-minors/103/Absolutais_Minors_-_2014.06.18_-_ NSRD_izlase.mp3 (at 0:10:45). 65 Māra Traumane, “NSRD pieturas punkti starptautiskajā mākslas un teorijas ainā” [NSRD: points of reference in international art and theory], in Astahovska and Žeikare, Nebijušu sajūtu restaurēšanas, 296.

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witness a deliberately ambiguous activity performed by one or more members of the group. Sometimes, following written instructions, guests would participate in the action themselves, as in Ten Appearances (1981), where they were instructed to cross a snowy field unspooling threads as they went, and then to reel in their threads to find certificates attached, documenting their participation in the event (see figure 7). Whenever one of the group’s actions was completed, the participants were asked to record their impressions of what had taken place.66

Figure 7. Collection Actions Group, Action 16: Ten Appearances, February 1, 1981. Photo by Igor Makarevich. Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, 2013.016.023

Deeply moved by Cage’s Zen-inflected writings, Monastyrsky described his group’s actions as spiritual events or rituals. Their goal, he explained, was to effect a change in perception and self-reflection on the part of participant-observers, “to make extraordinary the perception of ordinary appearances, disappearances,

66 Monastyrsky et al., Poezdki za gorod, 123–24, 131–32; Eșanu, Transition in Post-Soviet Art, 92–107.

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absences, colors, sounds, and so on,” he wrote in 1980.67 In a letter to the art historian Margarita Tupitsyn of 1981, he elaborated: “Our activities are spiritual practice … If it is indeed possible to consider our work as art, then only as a ‘tuning fork’ for directing the consciousness outside the boundaries of intellect.”68 For Monastyrsky’s friend Boris Groys, the principal philosophical interlocutor for Collective Actions, their journeys beyond the city evoked a “world opened up by religion … a world that opens itself to us through the medium of art.”69 Like those of Collective Actions, the journeys undertaken by Boiko and Lediņš were highly ritualized affairs, which they likewise described as effecting a transformation in one’s awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings. And like the members of Monastyrsky’s circle, who memorialized their journeys in photographs and writing, Boiko and Lediņš documented their walks in a variety of ways. They took photos, often framed or modified artistically (figure 8).70 Once, they brought along a boom box, not to accompany their walking with music but to record the soundscapes through which they traveled (figure 9).

Figure 8. Juris Boiko and Hardijs Lediņš, Empty/Alone (walking to Bolderāja, June 14, 1981). Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

67 Monastyrsky et al., Poezdki za gorod, 24. 68 Margarita Tupitsyn, “Some Russian Performances,” High Performance 4, no. 4 (1981–1982): 11. 69 Boris Groys, “Moskovskii romanticheskii kontseptualizm” [Moscow romantic conceptualism], Tridtsat’ sem’ 15 (August 1978): 64–65, https://samizdatcollections.library.utoronto. ca/islandora/object/samizdat%3A5423/pages; Boris Groys, History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2010), 54. 70 Many of these photos are preserved at LLMC, in a file box labeled “Bolderājas gājieni NSRD.”

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Figure 9. Juris Boiko walking to Bolderāja, January 16, 1982. Photo by Hardijs Lediņš. Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

During their walks, they also wrote poetry.71 One of their poems, “A House in Bolderāja,” pictures an impossible home in an imaginary locale, without doors or walls, from which they would sell passersby bus tickets to “another Bolderāja.” Another poem, called “The Ballad of Deep Bolderāja,” implores anyone and everyone—an imagined mini-community of misfits—to take the journey with them: If you have galoshes on your feet but someone else has wooden legs, no matter, take them with you to far-off Bolderāja.

71 Drafts of the poems are preserved at LLMC, in a binder labeled “Dziesmu teksti,” with additional related materials in a binder labeled “Dzeja ārpus albumiem.”

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If someone’s deaf and cannot hear those wooden legs clacking along, then let them walk without hearing, to soundless Bolderāja. [… … … … … … … .] And if someone cannot walk because they don’t have legs, then put them on a stretcher and head to Bolderāja. To get from the Bolderāja walks back to Lediņš’s disco project, we must pause to consider the unexpected intersection of his performance art with his musical engagements. All the way back in 1974, Lediņš had started playing with tape, when his mother brought him a reel-to-reel deck. The following year, inspired by hearing the piano-violin duo of Lubimov and Grindenko performing Cage and Stockhausen in Riga, Lediņš, who had no formal musical training, resolved compose new music himself. “I went home” from the concert by Grindenko and Lubimov “and decided that I, too, needed to try my hand at preparing a piano. I stuck in pieces of paper, erasers, pins, and scissors, and it sounded just like Lubimov.”72 After Boiko’s discharge from the army in 1975 or 1976, he and Lediņš recorded dozens of tapes of their own experimental compositions. They called their tapes “albums” (skaņuplates in Latvian), even grouping their track listings into A and B “sides” and decorating the cardboard boxes in which they were housed. They christened their outfit “Seque,” a nonsensical yet distinctly foreign-sounding word.73 The earliest of their albums to survive, from 1976, consist of improvisations on acoustic instruments inspired by their avant-garde listening. On one of those reels, entitled Best of Seque 76, one track (“On the Right Way”) features Lediņš playing a prepared piano while Boiko improvises a percussion part with empty bottles and other objects.74 Other tracks on the album are more adventurous. One is “Composition for Dog & Piano—Electronic Version,” an 72 Hardij Lediņš, “Vai esmu iegājis vēsturē kā mūziķis …” [Have I gone down in history as a Mmusician …], Padomju jaunatne, October 21, 1989. 73 In conceiving and packaging their work in this way, Boiko and Lediņš were early contributors to a vital “magnetic tape culture” in the Soviet Union of the 1980s, as defined and documented by the Russian critic Aleksandr Kushnir (2003). 74 The album can be heard at http://www.pietura.lv/seque/?grupa=seque&disk=best_seque.

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experiment with magnetic tape. In one passage (1:36–2:25), a slow, ametric ascent of a single diatonic line (roughly from B-flat through G-flat on Lediņš’s detuned piano, with the pitch significantly distorted), is answered by a disjunct pentatonic descent—all recorded with a dog barking in the background, and with the whole thing played backwards to yield the finished product. Their musical projects continued along similarly experimental lines for the next three years. But then, immediately after returning from the first of their Bolderāja walks in November 1980, Lediņš, Boiko, and a group of friends recorded a magnitizdat album unlike any they had produced before. Whereas their previous work was almost entirely instrumental and had taken its cue from Stockhausen, Cage, and other classical composers, their next album Bolderāja Style (Bolderājas stils, 1980–82), consisted of fourteen songs in simple, pop-like arrangements, sung by Lediņš with backing instrumentals supplied by Boiko and others. Recorded over the course of thirteen months, the songs on Bolderāja Style set the poetry composed on their Bolderāja walks, reflecting on what they saw and experienced on their journeys. The first side opens with “A House in Bolderāja” (Māja Bolderājā), setting the poem of that name referenced above, where they imagined selling bus tickets in a house without walls or windows. It closes with the ballad “Deep Bolderāja” (Dziļā Bolderāja), setting the verse where they invited anyone and everyone to join them on their trip. Other tracks on Bolderāja Style recall sights seen along their journey: trains, buses, snow on cars. Still others meditate on the experience of walking itself (“It’s still not light”—Gaismas vēl nav): It’s still not light, it’s not dark anymore, I walked to Bolderāja. I walked to who knows where, probably nowhere— so one goes to Bolderāja. As it happened, the very years in which Lediņš and Boiko began setting their Bolderāja poetry to song saw the first attempts at creating New Wave music in the USSR, barely trailing the coalescence of a New Wave aesthetic in the West.75 Local acts drew sonic vocabularies from Western bands like Ultravox 75 The Soviet phenomenon remains largely unstudied, beyond Troitsky’s recollections (Back in the USSR, 48–67). But radio shows and internet archives such as Radio NABA’s

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and Soft Cell, whose music first circulated, via pirated tapes and smuggled LPs, in marginal venues like Lediņš’s discotheque. In Riga, one of the first New Wave bands to hit the scene was the Yellow Postmen (Dzeltenie Pastnieki), whose leader, Ingus Baušķenieks (b. 1956), attended the Riga Polytechnic alongside Lediņš and was captivated by Bolderāja Style from the moment he heard its firstrecorded tracks. On their own debut album, the Yellow Postmen covered four of Lediņš and Boiko’s Bolderāja songs in their polished, reggae-inflected style evocative of the British band the Police. They acknowledged their debt to the pair of walkers by titling their album Bolderāja Railway (1981).76 Returning the tribute, Lediņš and Boiko enlisted Baušķenieks to produce their second album of songs set to Bolderāja poetry, with the resulting recording, There’s No One in My Forest (Manā mežā nav neviens, 1982), moving clearly in the direction of the rhythmic, synthesizer-driven arrangements for which the Yellow Postmen were already becoming famous.77 (Listen, for instance, to the track “Alone in the woods” [Viens pats mežā], the opening seconds of which set the relentless, synth-driven tone for the whole.) Later that year, Boiko and Lediņš consolidated their production efforts by forming a band of their own. Called NSRD, a Latvian acronym for Workshop for the Restoration of Unfelt Feelings, its danceable, synth-centered tracks would play on Riga’s disco scene until the end of the Soviet Union itself. With his new work fronting NSRD as singer and principal songwriter, Lediņš addressed a problem of which he complained in his essay quoted at the start of this article: a lack of high-quality, disco-appropriate music made in the USSR.78 With its roots in the Bolderāja walks, however, his band accomplished something else as well. It extended a distinctly Soviet strain of experimentalist performance art—one that regarded the ritual journey as a means of experiencing social and expressive freedom—into the socially cohering, broadly accessible realm of the disco hall.

Absolūtais Minors are invaluable sources of information and materials: http://sturm.lv/ absolutais-minors/.   On origins in Western spaces, see: Theo Cateforis, Are We Not New Wave? Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011); Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984 (London: Penguin, 2005). 76 A magnitizdat production, Bolderājas dzelzceļš (later spelled Bolderājas dzelzsceļš) was rereleased in 2003 by Baušķenieks on vinyl and cassette on his independent label, Ingus Baušķenieka Ieraksti, IBCD 201. 77 The album can be heard at http://www.pietura.lv/seque/?grupa=seque&disk=mana_meza. 78 Lediņš, “Disko. Disko? Disko!”; Astahovska and Žeikare, eds., Nebijušu sajūtu restaurēšanas darbnīca, 42; Žeikare and Popova, “Hardija Lediņa diskotēkas.” A number of NSRD’s albums are available online at http://www.pietura.lv/nsrd/; the album Medicīna un māksla (Medicine and Art, 1985) is exemplary of the work they created for the Riga disco scene.

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Into the Cosmos Recording music with NSRD was not the only way Lediņš sought to tackle the challenges facing local DJs as he diagnosed them. Updating his remarks of 1978 on discos sprouting up like mushrooms after the rain, he complained in 1980 that the kind of institutional instability he faced after the loss of his venue at the Riga Polytechnic was threatening to stunt the growth of disco culture as a whole, throughout the city and possibly beyond.79 Soon enough, however, he found a solution. In 1981, with the help of friends, he secured a new home for his disco in the heart of central Riga. For the foreseeable future, his new discotheque, which he christened Cosmos (Kosmoss), would host weekly multimedia events in a cultural center called October (otherwise dedicated to programming for construction workers), each presenting a new musical program as well as artwork by a painter friend, a constantly evolving light show, and other special effects.80 Pictures taken at the Cosmos evenings show dozens of young people gathered in the hall, some sitting and some standing, many clearly engaged in discussion, some appearing to dance, some openly embracing. A tower of speakers stood on stage, and a disco ball hung overhead. Lediņš sat behind a desk piled with reels of tape and a pair of reel-to-reel decks.81 Surviving programs from his Cosmos discos show that he no longer hewed to his earlier division of the evening into “stationary” and dancing halves. Rather, the “educational” part of the program was thoroughly interspersed with its more explicitly entertaining content. Taking a look at one of these programs gives us a sense of how this worked, and also of the way in which Lediņš framed for attendees just what he was trying to do. The title he gave to the events that evening was “A Few Words about Architecture.” Although undated, the musical recordings planned for the gathering make clear that it took place in 1983, the final year of Cosmos’s operations.82 In contrast to 79 Hardij Lediņš, “Vai sasniegts viss?” [Has everything been achieved?], Padomju jaunatne, March 28, 1980, 4. 80 Astahovska and Žeikare, Nebijušu sajūtu restaurēšanas darbnīca, 36–37; Žeikare and Popova, “Hardija Lediņa diskotēkas.” His artist friend was the Latvian painter Leonards Laganovskis. 81 Photographs are preserved at LLMC and accessible in the LLMC Digital Archive: https:// dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/86746.html, https://dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/86736.html and https:// dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/86737.html, https://dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/86735.html. 82 Preserved, along with other programs and materials related to Cosmos, at LLMC, in a binder labeled “Pirmās diskotēkas Anglikāņos (RPI).” The quotations that follow are from this document, which is also accessible in the LLMC Digital Archive: https://dom.lndb.lv/ data/obj/89903.html (page 3 of the document). Further materials related to the Cosmos discotheque are preserved in a binder labeled “Manuskripti.” Some are available in the

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his disco programs at the Riga Polytechnic, approximately three-quarters of the tracks on the Cosmos program were recorded in Latvia rather than in the West, including songs by the popular local bands Opus, Tip Top, Sīpoli, and Lediņš and Boiko’s own NSRD. (The Western music on the program included “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics, A Flock of Seagulls’ “Wishing,” and Trio’s “Da Da Da.”) In addition to recordings, Lediņš indicated timings, visual effects, and topics to be discussed. The program on this night opened with “cosmic effects” played over speakers in the darkened hall. The lights were raised gradually, revealing a smoke-filled stage. “When the smoke disperses,” read Lediņš’s notes, “two chairs and a small table become visible. In the chairs: the DJ and the director of renovations to the October hall.” Once the room was fully lit, Lediņš and the unnamed architect, seated across a table, engaged in “dialogue […] about the ideas behind the club’s planned reconstruction.” At the ten-minute mark, a screen was lowered, bearing the name “Cosmos,” and fifteen minutes of dancing ensued. Then, over a backing of instrumental music, another presentation began: “The DJ invites everyone to take an imaginary walk around the environs of the October hall, so that we may acquaint ourselves with those things in our surroundings that merit our attention.” For the next several minutes, Lediņš led the disco attendees on a virtual “walk” throughout the neighborhood, narrating a slide show of images of the hall itself, of a nearby first-aid station, of the national theater, of nearby Lenin Street. There was more dancing, and then the virtual tour continued: a house on Veidenbaums Street, the ticket office of the philharmonic concert hall, plans for a new high school in the vicinity, anticipated renovations on neighboring Stučka Street. For two full hours, Lediņš alternated presentations on architecture and the environment with recordings of popular music and dancing. At the end of the evening, wielding “light sticks” (gaismas stabi), Lediņš directed the audience in dancing and singing along to one of NSRD’s most famous tracks. Finally, his parting words to the disco attendees: “The DJ thanks everyone and calls upon them, in their free time, not only to think about dancing, but also to observe more closely their surroundings, their homes, other people, the things going on around them.” In a passage quoted early in this article, Lediņš reflected on the psychological, maybe even spiritual significance of the Bolderāja walks. “In order to understand these things we’re doing, it’s necessary to put yourself in a different kind of place,” he wrote. “Clarifying what’s essential to you is not something possible in LLMC Digital Archive: search (“Meklēt”) for the term “Kosmoss” at https://lcca.lv/lv/ petnieciba/#petnieciba-kolekcija.

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everyday life.”83 Now, in his parting remarks to the crowd at the Cosmos discotheque, he seemed to suggest that the transformation, the shift in perception he found along the tracks to Bolderāja was something attainable, at least in theory, by every individual in whatever place they might be. All that was needed was a change in one’s way of seeing, one’s way of sensing the spaces one traveled. For although he imagined in poetry and song anyone and everyone joining him on his treks, he knew that most would never experience the transfiguring terribleness of Bolderāja’s catacomb-like landscapes. But hundreds came weekly to his discos, gathering together to forge and revel in the “active contacts between individuals” that constituted, for Boiko, the very definition of socialism itself.84 Indeed, I would suggest, Lediņš’s Cosmos discotheque embodied and exemplifies the commitment of the DJ and his friends to many of the “fundamental values” of Soviet socialism that Alexei Yurchak distilled from conversations with dozens of alternative artists of the period, while also reminding us that such values were expressed not only in underground gatherings or in works of art, but in the creation and maintenance of social venues—at least one social venue—that were open and accessible to everyone who wished to join. Among those values, perhaps most importantly, as expressed in Lediņš’s parting words to his audience, was what the philosopher and poet Keti Chukhrov described simply and directly as “care for others.” At his Cosmos discotheque, Lediņš did not strive to give to attendees a taste of the West. Rather, he drew in part upon Western sounds and artforms to inspire his contemporaries to look at their own world, the Soviet world, in new ways. If he could give his audience something of the Bolderāja experience in his discos— if he could inspire them to look past surrounding dysfunction and to regard their surroundings as if anew, as spaces where encounters with others and the environment might likewise prove enlightening, liberating, even transformational— he would have accomplished no small feat. He would have succeeded, as Boiko imagined,85 in “bringing a utopian element into the here and now.”86 83 84 85 86

Lediņš and Lācis, “HL: NL”: 50. Gillen, “Ungefähre Kunst in Riga,” 47. Ibid., 33. In the mid-1980s, Lediņš and Boiko expanded NSRD into a prolific multi-arts collective. Their work, ranging widely between music, performance art, and video art, figured prominently in the 1988 Lettische Avantgarde exhibition in West Berlin and Bremen, one of the first efforts to decenter Western discourse about the European avant-garde by acknowledging histories and projects in Eastern Europe that were unseen by most in the West (Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, ed., Riga: Lettische Avantgarde/Latviešu Avangards (Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1988); Barbara Straka, “Im Osten was Neues,” in 21 – was nun? Zwei Jahrzehnte Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, ed. Rainer Höynck (Berlin: NGBK, 1991), 73–76; for broader

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context, see Kate Fowle and Ruth Addison, eds., Exhibit Russia: The New International Decade 1986–1996 (Moscow: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2016)). Shortly afterwards, NSRD disbanded. After a period of residence in Berlin, Lediņš returned to Latvia and focused largely on music-related projects, veering increasingly toward techno and ambient work. Largely neglected in the decade following his death in 2004, a considerable resurgence of interest in Lediņš began in 2015 around the sixty-year anniversary of his birth, largely sparked by a yearlong festival of programming organized by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art. His work has since featured significantly in exhibitions, archive projects, and studies of alternative art in late- and post-Soviet spaces: e.g., David Crowley and Daniel Muzyczuk, eds., Notatki z podziemia. Sztuka i muzyka alternatywna w Europie wschodniej 1968–1994/ Notes from the Underground: Art and Alternative Music in Eastern Europe 1968–1994 (London: Muzeum Sztuki and Koenig Books, 2016); Karnes, Sounds Beyond, and the online archive Parallel Chronologies: An Archive of East European Exhibitions (http://tranzit.org/exhibitionarchive/). The most comprehensive guides to his work are the bilingual (English and Latvian) volume Astahovska and Žeikare, Nebijušu sajūtu restaurēšanas darbnīca, and the online archive Pietura nebijušām sajūtām (http://www.pietura.lv).

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Toomistu, Teerje. “The Imaginary Elsewhere of the Hippies in Soviet Estonia.” In Dropping Out of Socialism: The Creation of Alternative Spheres in the Soviet Bloc, edited by Juliane Fürst and Josie McLellan, 41–62. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017. Traumane, Māra. “NSRD pieturas punkti starptautiskajā mākslas un teorijas ainā” [NSRD: points of reference in international art and theory]. In Nebijušu sajūtu restaurēšanas darbnīca / Workshop for the Restoration of Unfelt Feelings, ed. Ieva Astahovska, and Māra Žeikare, 294– 309. Riga: Latvijas Laikmetīgas mākslas centrs, 2012. Troitsky, Artemy. Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1988. Tsipursky, Gleb. Socialist Fun: Youth, Consumption, and State-Sponsored Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1945–1970. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 2016. Tupitsyn, Margarita. “Some Russian Performances.” High Performance 4, no. 4 (1981–1982): 11–18. Vasiļjevs, Igors. “Tiesa” [Truth]. Liesma 4 (1988): 14–15. Vogelnik, Borut. “Total Recall.” In Who If Not We Should at Least Try to Imagine the Future of All This? edited by Maria Hlavajova and Jill Winder, 171–86. Amsterdam: Artimo, 2004. Yurchak, Alexei. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. ———. (Aleksei Iurchak). Eto bylo navsegda, poka ne konchilos’. Poslednee sovetskoe pokolenie [Everything was forever, until it was no more. The Last Soviet Generation]. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2014. Zake, Ieva. “Soviet Campaigns against ‘Capitalist Ideological Subversives’ during the Cold War.” Journal of Cold War Studies 12 (2010): 91–114. Zavadskaia (Zavadskaya), Evgeniia. Kul’tura vostoka v sovremennom zapadnom mire [Eastern culture in the contemporary Western orld]. Moscow: Nauka, 1977. Žeikare, Māra. “Bolderājas stils mākslā” [Bolderāja style in art]. Satori, June 29, 2015. https:// www.satori.lv/article/bolderajas-stils-maksla. Žeikare, Māra, and Diāna Popova. “Hardija Lediņa diskotēkas” [Hardijs Lediņš’s discotheques]. Satori, February 25, 2015. https://www.satori.lv/article/hardija-ledina-diskotekas. Zhuk, Sergei I. Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960–1985. Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

CHAPTER 10

The Ganelin Trio, Rova Saxophone Quartet, and US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s1 Peter J. Schmelz

Arizona State University Keywords: Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin Trio, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Cold War, freedom, Saxophone Diplomacy, San Francisco Holidays

In percussionist Vladimir Tarasov’s second book of memoirs Tam-Tam, a title that conveys a double meaning about music and travel—it indicates both a type of gong and, in Russian, suggests a movement from location to location (“there-there”), he reflected on the lingering political and emotional effects of the cultural Cold War. Tarasov recalled attending a 2008 conference at the Dave Brubeck Institute at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, an event held in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s momentous 1958 tour of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and India, among other places. His co-panelists on the session titled “Cultural Diplomacy: Its Past and Its Future” included Brubeck historian Keith Hatschek, former US Foreign

1 I am grateful to the many people who generously assisted with the research for this project, including: Efim Barban, Steve Boulay, Alexander Kan, Stephen Crist, George Mattingly, Larry Ochs, Jacki Ochs, and Vladimir Tarasov, as well as Rūta Stanevičiūtė for inviting me and for the helpful questions of the participants at the Baltic Music Conference. I would also like to thank Lisa Jakelski for feedback on an earlier draft and Kelsey Klotz for research assistance.

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Service member John H. Brown, and conductor Russell Gloyd.2 Hatschek fondly recalls Tarasov’s participation on the panel: [He] captivated the audience with his recollections of growing up as a jazz fan and musician and spoke about how much the VOA [Voice of America] nightly broadcasts of American jazz shaped his direction in music.3 Yet in his memoirs Tarasov said he listened to the other presentations with growing discomfort and even displeasure. He said he was “the only one from ‘the other side,’” the only participant from the Soviet Union. One of the presentations included documents reflecting the United States’ goals for its Cold War musical tours, which reminded Tarasov, uncomfortably, of the way the USSR had treated music, both bureaucratically and propagandistically. In response, Tarasov wrote, “During my presentation I tried to say that culture, if it is not politicized from the start, is fully independent from state politics.” He continued, “the movement of the 1960s was directed not only against the system in the USSR or against the entry of troops into Czechoslovakia, but against the war in Vietnam. Those [political] artists [who took such stands] weren’t sent anywhere by any state department—neither by the Soviets, nor the Americans. Except to prison, or they were thrown out of the country.” Tarasov reported that his attempt to refine the discussion at the Brubeck Institute, to show both the commonalities and differences between the two superpowers, as well as to refine the criteria for who and what counted as political, came up short; it was misunderstood. The moderator, Gene Bigler, another former US Foreign Service member, immediately steered the discussion in a different direction. “It became clear to me,” Tarasov summarized, “that in this situation the only officially recognized point of view was that of the great power of the United States. And any kind of true discussion about the meaning of culture during the Cold War was impossible.” Tarasov thought he had been invited to a discussion, not a onesided celebration. This was a shame, because his own experience complicates and enriches our understanding of “the meaning of culture during the cold war,” to borrow Tarasov’s own language.4

2 Program for 2008 Brubeck Festival, University of the Pacific, March 31–April 5, Stockton, CA, April 8–13, Washington, DC. 3 Keith Hatschek, email to author, September 10, 2020. 4 All quotations in this paragraph are from Vladimir Tarasov, Tam-Tam (Moscow: Novoe lite­ raturnoe obozrenie, 2009), 95–96.

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This essay aims for a more dispassionate appraisal of the “meaning of culture during the Cold War,” particularly its final stages. By focusing on two interlinked tours—the Rova Saxophone Quartet’s 1983 tour of the USSR, and the Ganelin Trio’s 1986 tour of the United States—it raises central questions about freedom and liberation, both musically and sociopolitically. It also broadens the scope of Cold War musicological inquiry beyond the 1950s and 1960s by addressing both official and unofficial cultural diplomacy and music across the 1980s. There has been almost no research on cultural, and more to the point musical, exchanges in this final decade of the Cold War.5 These exchanges demand a different kind of approach than those taking place in the 1950s and ’60s, not least because of the increased importance of nonstate actors in arranging and hosting the trips. The changing, increasingly liberal politics of the decade in the Soviet Union and the gradual thawing of relations between the US and the USSR also play important roles. The visits of the Rova Saxophone Quartet to the USSR and of the Ganelin Trio to the United States span a period of accelerating musical visits on both sides, by performers in many genres and many styles (see table 1). The Rova and Ganelin Trio tours therefore trace the changing value and purpose of cultural exchanges from the early to mid-1980s, including their many impacts large and small, their mediation, and their intimacy. For Rova’s 1983 tour to the USSR established personal and musical connections that the Ganelin Trio’s 1986 US tour developed further. Table 1. Notable official and unofficial visits of musicians to the USA and USSR, 1979 to 1991 (items in bold relate to the present essay) Year

Event

Source of information

1979

B. B. King in USSR

https://www.rferl.org/a/bb-kingwowed-soviet-audiences/27018576. html.

1979 May

Elton John in USSR

“Leningrad’s Young People Mob Elton John,” New York Times, May 23, 1979.

1982 July

Chick Corea, informal, “private visit” to USSR (with Gary Burton)

Serge Schmemann, “Sounds of a Moscow Jam Session Are Music to Russian Ears,” New York Times, July 15, 1982, C22; and Alexander Kan, Poka ne nachalsia Jazz, 234. (Continued)

5 An exception is Stephen A. Crist, “Jazz as Democracy? Dave Brubeck and Cold War Politics,” Journal of Musicology 26, no. 2 (2009): 33–74. See also Kate Fowle, and Ruth Addison, eds., Exhibit Russia: The New International Decade, 1986–1996 (Prague: Artguide; Moscow: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2016).

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Table 1. (Continued) Year

Event

1983 June

Rova Saxophone Quartet in USSR

1984 August

Iron Maiden in USSR

1985

John Denver, “the first U.S. entertainer “John Denver: Soviets Like Me,” Postto perform for the public in the Soviet Star [Glens Falls, NY], June 29, 1985, Union since Chick Corea in July 1982” 2 (some versions of this wire report reversed the affection: “John Denver likes Soviet audiences,” Longview NewsJournal [Longview, Texas], June 29, 1985, 2A).

1985 July

Bob Dylan in Moscow

Celestine Bohlen, “Dylan Sings his ‘Poems’ In Moscow,” Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1985; and Celestine Bohlen, “Blowin’ Into Russia,” Washington Post, July 26, 1985.

1986 April

Vladimir Horowitz in USSR

Harold C. Schonberg, Horowitz: His Life and Music (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), ch. 1.

1986 June–July

Ganelin Trio in USA

Stas Namin Group in USA (Boston, 1986 September– Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Monica) October

Source of information Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s 20th Century: A Journey in 100 Histories (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 193–94.

Barbara Pepe, “Russian Rockers Here ‘To Play Jam,’” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 1986; and John Voland, “Songs of East and West: Russian Rockers in Santa Monica,” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1986.

1987

Pat Metheny in Moscow

1987 March– April

Dave Brubeck in Moscow

William J. Eaton, “A Rave for Dave in Red Square,” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 1987; also Stephen A. Crist, “Jazz as Democracy? Dave Brubeck and Cold War Politics,” Journal of Musicology 26, no. 2 (2009): 133–74.

1987 July 4

Soviet Peace Committee concert, Moscow (Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Rusichi ensemble, Avtograf): “First major concert […] in which Soviet and western groups appeared side by side”

Gary Lee, “U.S., Soviet Rock Stars Stage Moscow Concert,” Washington Post, July 5, 1987.

1987

Jazz pianist Billy Taylor and a “group of Leonard Feather, “Dr. Billy Taylor American composers and educators” in Never Rests,” Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1987. USSR; Oliver Lake traveled “alone”

1987

Leningrad Dixieland Band in USA

US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s

Year

Event

Source of information

1987 Billy Joel in USSR July–August

Vadim Yurchenkov, “Joel’s Soviet Tour a Hit,” Billboard 99, no. 37, September 12, 1987, 76; and Billy Joel, A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia, Columbia 88883759762, 2014, compact disc and Blu-ray.

1988 March

Boston, “Making Music Together: An American-Soviet Cultural Exchange” (organized by Sarah Caldwell and Rodion Shchedrin)

Laurel Fay, “The Russians Came,” Musical America 108, no. 5 (1988): 23–25.

1988 May

John Cage and Billy Taylor in Leningrad, for Third International Music Festival

William Quillen, “After the End: New Music in Russia from Perestroika to the Present” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2010), ch. 1, https://escholarship.org/uc/ item/6b94r8hv.

1988 June

Andrew Cyrille and Vladimir Tarasov in USSR

1988 October– November

Igor Brill and the All-Star Soviet Jazz Band in USA

1988

Leningrad Dixieland Band in USA

Sergey Kuryokhin in USA 1988 October– through late December

Peter J. Schmelz, “‘Improvisations with a Soviet Flavor’: Sergey Kuryokhin tours the United States, 1988” (forthcoming).

1989 April

Sonic Youth in USSR

1989 May–June

Release of Boris Grebenshikov [Grebenshchikov], Radio Silence (Columbia); tour of US from July to September

1989 August 12–13

Moscow International Musical Festival Krugozor 12 (1989): 2–3. of Peace (featuring Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, and the Scorpions)

1989 October

Sun Ra at Tbilisi jazz festival

Jon Pareles, “A Soviet Rock Singer Far From His Roots,” New York Times, April 17, 1989, C14. Grebenshchikov appeared on the David Letterman Show on July 14, 1989: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePRTVDhDPc.

John F. Szwed, Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra (New York: Da Capo, 1998), 367. (Continued)

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Table 1. (Continued) Year

Event

Source of information

1989 November

Rova Saxophone Quartet, second trip to USSR (Leningrad Jazz Festival, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, and Moscow)

1989 October– November

Leonard Feather, “Jazznost Hits a High Igor Bril to USA (with Alexander Oseichuk, Viktor Dvoskin, and Evgeny Note with Soviet and U.S. Musicians,” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1989, F8. Ryabol)

1991 September 28

Krugozor 12 (1991): 14–15. Moscow, Monsters of Rock, Tushino Airfield, “first free outdoor Western rock concert in Soviet history” (featuring Metallica, AC/DC, Pantera, Black Crowes, and EST)

Both tours raise multiple questions about interpretation, ownership, authenticity, and responsibility. The US State Department tours of the 1950s and 1960s highlighted jazz as freedom and jazz as democracy, associations that lasted well into the 1980s.6 After US jazz guitarist Pat Metheny toured the Soviet Union in 1987, he expressed something like the conventional wisdom: “The whole idea of improvisation over there [in the USSR] has a very political meaning. It’s something we take for granted here [in the US]. When a jazz guy says ‘OK, I’ll play my solo now,’ that’s a pretty strong anti-state message there.”7 Yet the political meanings of jazz were never so unambiguous in either the US or the USSR. Such utopian linkages of improvisation and freedom (or democracy) were usually divorced from specific social practices yet overshadowed everything as free-floating, often unexamined axioms.8 Most obviously, freedom broadcast different meanings in the 1980s than in the 1960s—and particularly in the Soviet Union, where freedoms began to be felt more broadly as the decade progressed, a different state of affairs from the complicated “stagnation” that settled over the country in the 1970s.9 As we will see, such distinctions were often 6 Representative scholarship on these tours includes: Penny Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call out to Jazz and Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Danielle Fosler-Lussier, Music in America’s Cold War Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015). 7 John Eldridge, “Guitar Ace Broadens Base,” Palm Beach Post, September 8, 1989. 8 See, e.g., Benjamin Givan, “How Democratic is Jazz?,” in Finding Democracy in Music, ed. Robert Adlington and Esteban Buch (New York: Routledge, 2021), 58–79. 9 The idea of the 1970s as “stagnant” has recently begun to receive informed critique, see, e.g., Dina Fainberg and Artemy M. Kalinovsky, eds., Reconsidering Stagnation in the Brezhnev Era: Ideology and Exchange (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016).

US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s

missed by American listeners and critics, still wowed, if not discomfited, by the very existence of jazz in the Soviet Union. One more preliminary point about the naming conventions surrounding the “Ganelin Trio”: recently there have been disputes about whether to call the group the Ganelin-Chekasin-Tarasov trio, the Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin trio, or the Ganelin Trio.10 This essay refers to the group the way they were referred to (without exception) on their recordings and in newspaper reporting across the United States in the 1980s: the Ganelin Trio.

Rova in the USSR, 1983 A material artifact will guide us through the Rova Saxophone Quartet’s 1983 trip to the USSR: the double-LP set featuring performances from the trip released in 1985 by the Swiss Hat Hut record label.11 The title of the LP was Saxophone Diplomacy, a reflection of the quartet member’s own assessment of their actions: although officially classified by the Soviet authorities as “tourists” and “‘amateur’ musicians,” they saw themselves as performing diplomacy on behalf of the United States.12 In a 1984 documentary of the tour, also called Saxophone Diplomacy, poet Lyn Hejinian (the wife of one of Rova’s members, Larry Ochs, and a participant in the trip) narrated, “Despite our country’s cancellation of official cultural exchange with the USSR, our own faith in its importance has persisted.”13 Bruce Ackley, another Rova musician, elaborated on their motivations, “My feeling is that we wanted to go to Russia to represent another voice of America, another part of America that is sane, that doesn’t want to start war with Russia.”14

10 Vladimir Tarasov, and Grigorii Durnovo, “My ponimali, chto na amerikanskikh standartakh ne prozhivem,” Colta.ru, January 3, 2017, http://www.colta.ru/articles/music_modern/13497; Viacheslav Ganelin, “Pochemu Trio bol’she nikogda ne budet,” jazz.ru, April 14, 2017, http://journal.jazz.ru/2017/04/14/ganelin-postludium; and Vladimir Tarasov, “Otvet Vladimira Tarasova,” jazz.ru, August 3, 2017, http://journal.jazz.ru/2017/08/03/ vladimir-tarasov-reply-to-ganelin/. 11 Rova, Saxophone Diplomacy, hat ART LP 2013, 1985, 33 1/3; released as hat ART 6068, 1991, and remastered and reissued as hatOLOGY CD 721, 2018, compact disc. 12 Besecker, “Interview with Larry Ochs,” Coda 196 (1984): 8. 13 00’33” of Saxophone Diplomacy [documentary], directed by Dimitri Devyatkin, Jim Mayer, and John Rogers (San Francisco: Ideas in Motion, 1984), https://vimeo.com/229763465, streaming. 14 24’21” of Saxophone Diplomacy.

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Founded in 1977 in San Francisco, the group’s name is taken from the first initials of its member’s last names: Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voight, and Bruce Ackley. In 1986 a critic described Rova as “a group whose music isn’t always easy to absorb. Rova is capable of its own honking and wailing incoherence, and then returning to earth with something that tastes sweet and familiar, although even then you’re not sure what you’d call it.”15 Larry Ochs elaborated: We don’t have a name for our music. Jazz has become too inexact a term for all the types of music it includes. From an aesthetic viewpoint, I don’t mind that people say Rova plays jazz, but it categorizes us, which also limits our audience because people might think that they don’t like “jazz” and so don’t go. We play Rova music. We appeal to segments of all music scenes.16 Similar descriptions and qualifications were commonly applied to the Ganelin Trio, compounded by their ineluctable identification as Soviet musicians, and hence their perception outside the USSR as outsiders to the core (American) jazz tradition. Both groups have comparable aesthetic profiles, and critics often related both groups to the Art Ensemble of Chicago, raising complicated racial issues.17 Ackley said that the Art Ensemble was “definitely an influence […] but they’re more celebrating a black tradition. They’re avant-garde, yes, but they draw from various periods of black music, including pre-jazz, and African and world music.” Ochs added, “We’re white. It’s not as clear to us what our identity is; we’re trying to find it. Black music is American music; I’ve been hearing it since I was a kid.” The members of Rova listened to a wide variety of music, including Elliott Carter, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Charles Ives, and Edgard Varèse, as well as Evan Parker and Derek Bailey.18

15 James Evans, “No Cold War When It Comes to This Hot Jazz,” San Francisco Examiner, June 22, 1986. 16 Ibid. See also the discussion of their music in: Charles Shere, “Finding a Place for a Special Kind of Music,” Tribune [Oakland, CA], August 22, 1982. Shere was part of the group accompanying Rova on the 1983 tour.   Ochs called Rova a “real jazz group” in: Besecker, “Interview with Larry Ochs,” 7; and Leo Feigin, ed., Russian Jazz, New Identity (London: Quartet Books, 1985), 125. 17 See, e.g., John Habich, “The Russians Are Coming,” Star Tribune [Minneapolis, Minnesota], June 30, 1986, 21; Ken Franckling, “Ganelin Trio Winds up Historic U.S. Tour,” UPI (USA), July 18, 1986; and Francis Davis, “Avant-Garde Comrades,” Atlantic Monthly, November 1986, 127. 18 All the quotations in this paragraph are from Charles Shere, “Finding a Place for a Special Kind of Music.”

US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s

They also had political ambitions for Rova’s music, ambitions that help probe the politics of jazz worldwide during the 1980s. In 1981 Ochs, who has a political science degree,19 told a reporter for Downbeat magazine: ROVA’s music is intentionally dense. We’re throwing layers of information, of music, at the listener. And if they are able to enjoy this music, to hear it and make sense out of it, then maybe we are helping the listener to deal with all the layers of information that are being thrown at him or her in daily life. If people are sensitized rather than desensitized—t.v., drugs, alcohol, daily newspapers are all desensitizing instruments—then they won’t be willing to put up with all the bullshit, and change will occur. It’s time for people to dig more, not less. And this is how I see our music as political.20 Ochs does not directly link jazz and freedom but posits Rova’s “intentionally dense” music as a prerequisite for being able to take advantage of freedom. He offers a more subtle account of improvised music’s possibilities. Given their interest in the political implications of jazz and improvised musics, and the general fascination with the Soviet Union at the time in the United States, Rova’s desire to tour the USSR was understandable. In 1980 Alexander Kan, a jazz connoisseur in the USSR and one of the leaders of the Leningrad Contemporary Music Club (Klub sovremennoi muzyki), wrote to Ochs asking for recordings of the group, a request Ochs gladly fulfilled. (Kan, who was fluent in English, had also translated into Russian the 1981 Downbeat article about Rova quoted above.)21 In the correspondence that developed, Kan invited Rova to Leningrad, cautioning them that, as Ochs recalled, “there’s absolutely no way for us to get any funds to pay you […] so you’d have to come on your own.”22 At Rova’s request, Kan also provided a formal letter from the club for the American musicians to use in fund-raising for the proposed visit. It read, in part:

19 Besecker, “Interview with Larry Ochs,” 7; Feigin, Russian Jazz, New Identity, 124. 20 Michael Goldberg, “ROVA Saxophone Quartet Wants You to Wake Up,” Downbeat 48, no. 1 ( January 1981): 25. 21 See Michael Goldberg, “Saksofonnyi kvartet ROVA,” Kvadrat 16 (1981); and Efim S. Barban, ed., Kvadrat: Iz istorii rossiiskogo dzhaza (Saint Petersburg: Kompozitor, 2015), 161–62. I am grateful to Efim Barban for providing me with a scan of this article. 22 Besecker, “Interview with Larry Ochs,” 7; Feigin, Russian Jazz, New Identity, 124.

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I am privileged to inform you that you were chosen top group in our Soviet music critics’ poll. Many musicians here study your music, which is very influential in the development of the new wave of Soviet jazz. We are sure your concerts will serve the cause of bringing our peoples closer together.23 Rova jumped at the opportunity, but arranging the tour proved challenging. Ochs told me he contacted the US State Department for help and at the end of a heated telephone conversation was told by an official in a raised voice: “Don’t even think about going there.”24 Ochs was shaken but not deterred. He ended up reaching an agreement with an organization called International Exchange of Scholars (Friendship Ambassadors FDN), a nonprofit “citizen diplomacy” organization that arranged tours to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.25 Rova raised and borrowed funds themselves to finance the trip, including at a benefit concert on Saturday, August 28, 1982, alongside the Kronos Quartet.26 On the tour, which went from Romania to Moscow, Leningrad, and Riga (for the Summer Rhythms festival), Rova accompanied the West Virginia Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble, a group of college students, most of whom had never traveled abroad.27 They first spent a week in Romania, which Ochs called “really a heavy place.” He said it was a difficult seven days.28 They then spent 11 days in the USSR, playing two concerts in Moscow (before a total of 1,300 people), two in Riga (the first for “over 800,” the second a smaller, more “exclusive” performance at the local jazz club for “about 100 people”), and one in Leningrad (for 200 people).29 The LP release of Saxophone Diplomacy called it an “unusual and sometimes grueling tour,” although Ochs in conversation almost forty years later said, “it was great, it was awesome, I mean really one of the all-time great tours we ever did.”30 Throughout the trip they had minders, people always accompanying them as “so-called tour guides,” who, Ochs said, were “obviously

23 This letter is read in the Saxophone Diplomacy documentary at 2’47”. Kan also writes about the tour in: Aleksandr Kan, Sergei Kuriokhin: Shkiper o kapitane (Moscow: AST, 2020), 139–47; and in: Aleksandr Kan, Poka ne nachalsia Jazz (St. Petersburg: Amfora, 2008), 247. 24 Ochs, telephone interview by author, digital recording, July 25, 2020. 25 From the description accompanying an abbreviated version of the Saxophone Diplomacy documentary, https://vimeo.com/229763465. 26 Shere, “Finding a Place for a Special Kind of Music”; and Besecker, “Interview with Larry Ochs,” 7; Feigin, Russian Jazz, New Identity, 124–25. 27 Ochs, telephone interview by author; and Alexander Kan, email to author, March 31, 2021. 28 Ochs, telephone interview. 29 Besecker, “Interview with Larry Ochs,” 7; Feigin, Russian Jazz, New Identity, 124–25. 30 Ochs, telephone interview.

US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s

reporting in about where we were going,” and there were a number of conflicts about which listeners could enter certain performing venues (especially at the Riga jazz club) and where and whether Rova could perform at all.31 Things reached a head in Leningrad where their official concert was canceled at the very last minute, a typical occurrence for concerts that pushed the limits of the acceptable in the late USSR. Raskin elaborated on this in a preview article for the 1986 Ganelin Trio visit: The building was closed to us because we suddenly were accused of being professionals posing as amateurs. Then the KGB provided us a hall and the concert went on. It might have been a power play between the KGB and the mayor of Leningrad, but in any case it was a mysterious scene.32 Ochs said that similar situations happened frequently on the tour, and that he and his bandmates were convinced their hotel rooms were bugged.33 In the Saxophone Diplomacy documentary, Ochs says: By the end of the week, I […] felt like I was in a John le Carré novel, I was about as paranoid as I’ve ever been in my life, and [imagining that] everybody was conspiring to make sure that we wouldn’t get the videotapes out of this country and everybody was conspiring to make sure that we wouldn’t be able to perform.34 The double LP Saxophone Diplomacy that resulted from the tour, including recordings made by Robert Shumaker of performances from Moscow, Riga, and Craiova (Romania), bears closer examination. It is an elaborate production with a foldout sleeve and postcards featuring photos from the trip that falls in a long line of “souvenir LPs” from Cold War cultural exchanges (more will be said about this below). The back cover plays up the Cold War backdrop with a prominent—and in the overall context, rather strange—photograph of US Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev from their

31 Ochs, telephone interview. 32 Evans, “No Cold War When It Comes to This Hot Jazz,” 2. See also the Saxophone Diplomacy documentary starting at 17’21.” 33 Ochs, telephone interview. 34 17’02” of Saxophone Diplomacy documentary.

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well-known 1959 “Kitchen Debate” at the American Exhibition in Moscow’s Sokolniki Park, a notorious moment of conflict rather than cooperation between the two superpowers. The goals for Rova’s tour were voiced clearly by Ochs in comments he made before a performance of “Paint Another Take of the Shootpop” in Moscow, which was included on both the LP and subsequent CD releases of the tour. (It was the only track with a spoken introduction.) Ochs told his listeners: “I’d just like to say that this is our first time in the Soviet Union, in the USSR, and we’re very proud to be here and to bring perhaps a better image of the American people to you and we hope that we can extend the warmth of music and friendship to you. Thank you.”35 Composed by Ochs in 1981, the composition first appeared on Rova’s LP As Was (Metalanguage ML 118, 1981), with a dedication to the unlikely pairing of “composer Olivier Messiaen and the late r&b singer Otis Redding” because of their “common […] concern for the emotional power of beauty.”36 As its dedication suggests, “Paint Another Take of the Shootpop” shows the wide range of Rova’s influences and performative tactics at this point in its existence. Starting with an extended opening solo by Ochs on tenor sax, “the overture of the piece,” it moves to a vamp at 4’41”, an approach Ochs outlined as important for the quartet’s approach to “structured improvisation.”37 The lengthy (nearly twenty-minute) composition in five sections that follows (the longest on Saxophone Diplomacy) progresses through several intense blowouts (e.g., at 6’07” and at 13’47”) before arriving at the bluesy opening to section five at 16’59”, which leads, in turn, to the return of the main musical idea of the composition at 18’59”. Ochs called the trio of the composition, from 6’13”, in the second section, “the best early example” of the group’s use of “simultaneous solo,” an approach according to which “each player uses written material from the piece to start with and then expands on this material in soloistic fashion, finding ways to make his or her solo fit with the other players’ simultaneous solo statements.”38 Ochs also called this part “New Orleans updated and

35 This resembles comments made by Ackley before a Leningrad performance that were translated by Kan for the audience. See 19’45” of Saxophone Diplomacy documentary: “This is why we came to play in Leningrad, to show that we, as people, as musicians, as artists, can live together and grow and learn more about each other” (translation slightly amended). 36 Larry Ochs, liner notes to Rova, As Was, Metalanguage ML 118, 1981, 33 1/3. 37 Larry Ochs, “Devices and Strategies for Structured Improvisation,” in Arcana: Musicians on Music, ed. John Zorn (New York: Granary Books/Hips Road, 2000), 325–26; and Ochs, liner notes to Rova, As Was. 38 Ochs, “Devices and Strategies for Structured Improvisation,” 326.

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without the rhythm section.”39 Over the course of the composition, the form both expands and contracts, as solos return to earlier material, sometimes amplified, sometimes obscured, sometimes clarified (see, e.g., section three, the long baritone sax solo at 8’30”), with several sections of layered counterpoint built on rhythmically intricate lines (the intense blowouts). The lyrical climax at approximately 12’30” (in section four) matches an emotional approach to formal narrative heard during Rova’s performance of “The Knock-Off ” with the Ganelin Trio in San Francisco, showing a point of intersection in the aesthetics of the two ensembles. As “Paint Another Take of the Shootpop” also demonstrates, both Rova and the Ganelin Trio draw on suite-like thinking, the growth and expansion of larger, sectional forms built on contrasting yet complementary polystylistic material. One of the most poignant aspects of the Saxophone Diplomacy documentary was the interviews with everyday Soviet citizens interspersed throughout, as well as the interviews with those directly involved in the tour, all speaking of peace and worrying aloud about atomic warfare. At the time, particularly in the wake of Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech on March 8, 1983, the idea of music as a “cold war weapon” was a metaphor with frighteningly literal implications.40 In the documentary, Kan remarked, “Getting people knowing each other is always better than sitting just on different sides of that ocean and wondering who is going to push that dumb button first. I think since we get to know each other and see that all of us are just friendly people willing peace not war, it perhaps will cause our governments one day to stop that quarreling and settle in a peaceful position.”41 As Ochs recalled in an August 1983 interview, “Most every conversation we had was about art in the West, or music. We did not talk about politics. We didn’t have time and they weren’t interested.” Instead, he said, “It made the trip very intense because every time we had a conversation with people, time was so short and it was so precious to them, it was like, instantly, you know, let’s connect! Let’s get to the central question right away about what you do.”42 The intense conversations and musical performances Ochs recalled took place with many leading artistic figures in the Soviet Union. There are photographs 39 Ochs, liner notes to Rova, As Was. 40 Rüdiger Ritter, “Broadcasting Jazz into the Eastern Bloc—Cold War Weapon or Cultural Exchange? The Example of Willis Conover,” Jazz Perspectives 7, no. 2 (2013): 111–31. See also Crist, “Jazz as Democracy? Dave Brubeck and Cold War Politics,” 137. 41 25’36” of Saxophone Diplomacy documentary. 42 Besecker, “Interview with Larry Ochs,” 7; Feigin, Russian Jazz, New Identity, 126. See also Ackley at 24’21” of the Saxophone Diplomacy documentary.

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taken by one of Rova’s friends on the trip, George Mattingly, of a banquet in Leningrad attended by musicians Sergey Kuryokhin and Boris Grebenshchikov among others. The Saxophone Diplomacy LP includes a photo on its sleeve of a jam session with Ackley, Kuryokhin, Grebenshchikov, and the well-known Roma singer Valentina Ponomaryova. Rova also met Tarasov in Riga and played with him and bass player Ivers Galenieks, recording a tune there called “Detroit or Détente” that appeared on the original Saxophone Diplomacy LP but was deemed an “uneven collaboration” by the group and omitted from the later CD releases of the album.43 Rova, therefore, had some familiarity with at least one member of the Ganelin Trio when the group came to the USA in 1986, and they also had incentive to craft a more satisfying creative partnership. Every release of Saxophone Diplomacy has included its dedication to Alexander Kan, “whose 1981 invitation to perform for the Leningrad Contemporary Music Club was the first step of many that eventually led ROVA to the Soviet Union.” But only the LP release underscored the intimate side of the trip: “Our tour had many dimensions of which the personal contacts made were probably the most meaningful.” The LP release alone also carried these words: “We’d like to encourage other American artists to make an effort to perform in the USSR in the spirit of peace and goodwill.” Rova need not have worried, for as table 1 shows, after their “unofficial” visit the number of trips by US musicians to the Soviet Union, “unofficial,” and eventually “official,” only increased.

The Ganelin Trio in North America, 1986 The 1986 US and Canadian tour of the Ganelin Trio (Vyacheslav Ganelin, piano; Vladimir Chekasin, reeds; and, as we have seen, Vladimir Tarasov, percussion) exemplifies the drastically changed circumstances in US/Soviet relations only a few years later. With Gorbachev now in power and US President Ronald Reagan re-elected in a landslide to his second term in office, the two countries reached an agreement in November 1985 at a summit in Geneva, Switzerland, to renew cultural and other exchanges.44 In April 1986 Vladimir Horowitz became the 43 Peter Kostakis, “Liner notes to Saxophone Diplomacy,” August 1990, in both original hat Art CD 6068, 1991, compact disc, and the reissue: hatOLOGY CD 721, 2018, compact disc. 44 “Ottepel’ s opozdaniem na shest’ let,” Literaturnaia gazeta, January 29, 1986; and Barbara Gamarekian, “Swapping Culture with Moscow,” New York Times, May 1, 1986, B10. See also: Yale Richmond, U.S.-Soviet Cultural Exchanges, 1958–1986: Who Wins? (Boulder: Westview, 1987), esp. ch. 11 and appendix B; as well as representative materials available online via the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Digital Library Collections, e.g., https://

US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s

first US representative to visit the USSR, receiving an effusive welcome on his homecoming.45 Both Horowitz and the Ganelin Trio embodied Gorbachev’s still-nascent policy of glasnost.46 By all accounts the key figures in initiating and facilitating the Ganelin Trio’s 1986 tour were two Americans: a young record producer and concert promoter, Steve Boulay, and his colleague, John Ballard.47 On the Soviet side credit is usually given to Yelena Tikhomirova, an advisor responsible for the United States and Canada within Goskontsert, with whom Ballard corresponded as arrangements were being made.48 Boulay explained the process to me: For the Ganelin Trio we negotiated with Goskontsert while concurrently speaking directly with the band (Vladimir Tarasov mostly) to have them help on the ground in Moscow. You have to remember the Ganelin Trio Tour came very early in the new environment established when Reagan and Gorbachev signed a new cultural accord in 1985/86. That was the same agreement that allowed us to start our record company as well, East Wind Records. For this first tour (The Ganelin Trio) it was still very difficult to find the right path to Goskontsert and my partner John Ballard had to go to Moscow and meet the key people at Goskontsert before they took us seriously. Prior to John’s visit it helped that we had signed a contract with the international book department (Mezhdunarodnaia kniga) and the official record label (Melodiya) to release a series of […] jazz albums in the West and the Ganelin Trio was one of our first albums.49

www.reaganlibrary.gov/public/digitallibrary/smof/publicliaison/green/box-028/40-2196927378-028-016-2017.pdf, last accessed January 15, 2022. 45 See Harold C. Schonberg, Horowitz: His Life and Music (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), ch. 1. 46 For more on the official motivations for these exchanges from the US side, see Crist, “Jazz as Democracy? Dave Brubeck and Cold War Politics,” 163n93, and passim. 47 See the letter from Ballard to Tarasov and Tikhomirova, May 23, 1986, in: Tarasov, Trio, 283–86 (1998) and 244–46 (2004); also Steve Boulay, email to author, October 15, 2020; and James Goodman, “A Sunday of Syncopation, Soviet-Style,” Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester, New York], June 23, 1986, 2. 48 Eric Schmitt, “Russian Jazz Group Plans Ground-Breaking U.S. Tour,” New York Times, February 22, 1986. This article was later picked up by regional US newspapers, e.g., as Eric Schmitt, “Russian Jazz Group May Perform in U.S.,” Star Tribune [Minneapolis, Minnesota], March 5, 1986, 34. See also: Tarasov, Trio, 283–86 (1998) and 244–46 (2004). 49 Boulay, email to author.

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Between 1985 and 1987 Boulay’s East Wind records released seven LPs featuring music from Eastern Europe, including the Ganelin Trio’s Poi Segue, as well as recordings by Igor Bril, Alexei Kuznetsov, the group Arsenal, Vagif MustafaZadeh, and Zbigniew Namysłowski. Ballard reported that he originally only planned to bring the Ganelin Trio to Canada, but that this plan “changed after the Reagan-Gorbachev meeting in Geneva” when “Soviet officials contacted him to propose expanding the tour to include American cities.”50 Tarasov reports the opposite situation: that Ballard was advised to include Canada on the itinerary to make the US portions more palatable.51 Why were Ganelin, Chekasin, and Tarasov chosen or allowed to tour to the United States at this time at all? The answer is rooted in past official Soviet attitudes toward the export of difficult domestic art.52 By this point in its existence, the Ganelin Trio, which began performing in 1971, had traveled fairly widely, particularly across the USSR and Eastern Europe (Poland, Georgia, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania), but also to Cuba in 1978, and to West Germany in 1980 and 1981.53 They made a notable tour to the UK, sponsored by the Arts Council, in March 1984, and visited Portugal and Austria in 1985, and India in 1986.54 (Not all of their foreign travel was approved, for example a trip to Poland in 1982 was denied.)55 Like its earlier tours, the trio’s US tour served a specific cultural/political purpose. Speaking about the Minister of Culture for the Lithuanian SSR, Tarasov said: “Now they needed us. With the trio, they were trying to show the west that there was contemporary art in the USSR supported by the party and the government. Gorbachev was already in power and he was trying to put a new mask on the Communist

50 Schmitt, “Russian Jazz Group Plans Ground-Breaking U.S. Tour.” 51 Tarasov, Trio, 187. 52 This paragraph complicates the explanation for the tour offered in Rüdiger Ritter, “Der Kontrollwahn und die Kunst: Die Macht, das Ganelin-Trio und der Jazz,” Osteuropa 60, no. 11 (2010): 233–34. 53 See, e.g., “Berliner Dzhaztage 80: GTCh i ‘Arsenal,’” Kvadrat 16 (1981); and “Prazdnik iskusstv v Gavane,” Sovetskaia kul’tura, July 28, 1978, 4. 54 See, e.g., Ronald Atkins, “Ganelin Trio/Bloomsbury,” Financial Times, March 9, 1984, 13; John Fordham, “Ganelin Trio,” Guardian, March 8, 1984, 20 (arts); John Fordham, “The Ganelin Trio in London,” in Russian Jazz, New Identity, ed. Leo Feigin (London: Quartet Books, 1985), 61–67; “‘Podmoskovnye vechera’ v prigorodakh Lissabona,” Sovetskaia kul’tura, September 19, 1985, 7; and I. Zakharova, “‘Dzhaz Iatra’ proshel s uspekhom,” Sovetskaia kul’tura, April 19, 1986, 7. Tarasov discusses these and other tours in his Trio and Tam-Tam. 55 RGALI, f. 3162, op. 2, ed. khr. 1683, l. 82. I am indebted to Rūta Stanevičiūtė for generously sharing this information with me.

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Party of the USSR called perestroika.”56 The general idea was a familiar one. As Russian composer Nikolai Karetnikov said to musicologist Richard Taruskin about a performance of his dissonant, serial Symphony no. 4 at the 1967 Prague Spring festival, the Soviet authorities wanted “to show we have ugliness too.”57 For despite their fame, the trio had prominent detractors in the USSR. As trumpet player Herman Lukyanov of the band Kadans (Cadence) told a Polish correspondent in 1986, “What Ganelin plays is not jazz. It is another musical idiom which I don’t even understand. Sure, they are a unique phenomenon, but hardly representative of what is going on in the Soviet jazz scene.”58 As émigré record producer Leo Feigin said in 1986 about the Ganelin Trio tour, “the Soviets don’t seem to mind and are perhaps even flattered that the West appreciates the originality of the Soviet musicians.” Feigin continued, “And now that the Soviets feel that the West has appreciated and approved [the Ganelin Trio’s music], they even like it to some extent because they know they can’t go wrong—that every time the Trio performs in the West [the Soviet Union] is making political capital out of it.”59 Not only political capital was involved, for cultural and political capital were intertwined in these matters (and capital itself was also involved).60 As Boulay told me, “Unlike most US and western acts the Soviets made very simple deals, guarantees, expenses and per diem, which made it relatively easy to put a tour deal together.”61 He explained further, [N]egotiating […] deals in the early days was a bit odd from a US perspective because of the issues with hard currency and rules for performers in the USSR. […] Musicians usually were paid a salary so when they were on tour they received a similar wage to when they were at home and usually in rubles. Rubles 56 Tarasov, Trio, 187–90, quotation on 190 (2004). See also: Aleksei Kozlov, “Kozel na sakse”: I tak vsiu zhizn’ (Moscow: Vagrius, 1998), 347–48. 57 Quoted in: Taruskin, “The Birth of Contemporary Russia out of the Spirit of Music (Not),” 353. 58 Pawel Brodowski, “The Tbilisi Earthquake,” Jazz Forum 103 (1986): 44. A full accounting of the Ganelin Trio’s reception over the course of their career in the USSR remains to be written. The first chapter of my book-in-progress on Soviet experimental and improvisational music begins this project. 59 Quoted in: Larry Kart, “Ganelin Trio embodies Russian soul with distant echoes of American jazz,” Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1986 (parentheses added by Kart in the original). 60 Vladimir Mak, “Viacheslav Ganelin: ‘Ia doma, i ia svoboden,’” in Rossiiskii dzhaz, 2 vols., ed. K. Moshkov and A. Filip’eva (Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Krasnodar: Planeta muzyka/Planet music, 2013), 392. 61 Boulay, email to author.

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were not convertible at the time so not worth very much to the musicians. To address this issue, we would try and minimize the fees that the Soviet government received while we maximized what we paid the performers in per diems. That is because per diem was in US dollars which they could use to buy stuff.62 Feigin was surprised that the Ganelin Trio traveled to the US without any official minders. He said: I was absolutely sure there would be someone from the KGB, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that there wasn’t. I guess that the Soviets are clever enough to realize that the Ganelin Trio has traveled so much already, if they wanted to defect, they could have done it a long time ago.63 Feigin, who had emigrated from the USSR in the early 1970s and worked for the BBC Russian-language service, was a crucial mediator for what he called “Russian New Music” in the West, particularly in the United Kingdom, where he was based, but also in North America. His Leo Records, founded in 1979, helped raise awareness of the Ganelin Trio abroad. Thanks to his releases, US critics had some idea of what to expect when they heard the trio live. In 1985 Feigin also published a collection of essays, reviews, and other commentary called Russian Jazz, New Identity that was often mentioned, together with S. Frederick Starr’s 1985 history of Soviet jazz, in reviews of the Ganelin Trio’s performances in the US.64 (As recorded in the Jazz Summit documentary, discussed below, Starr met the members of the trio in Washington, DC—as did famous Voice of America broadcaster Willis Conover.) Feigin’s involvement with the first stage of the Ganelin Trio’s 1986 US tour also led to one of the more humorous moments in the visit, as we will see. Yet Feigin didn’t arrange the 1986 tour. The American promoters did. And they arranged a busy schedule. As Boulay reported, Ganelin, Chekasin, and Tarasov “told me, ‘Let’s play every place we can; let’s kill ourselves. We want to

62 Ibid. 63 Francis Davis, “An Exchange of Special Note: Jazz from the Soviet Union,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 9, 1986, 1-C and 8-C. 64 S. Frederick Starr, Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union (New York: Limelight, 1985).

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get out and play, because America is the birthplace of jazz.’”65 Yet they seem to have gotten more than they bargained for. Tarasov later complained, “We have had no time to see the cities we visit. I know the inside of PeoplExpress [a US regional, budget airline] very well, however.”66 Tarasov told me that the only comparable experience in the trio’s history was their British tour, from March 4–21, 1984, which was “similarly intensive. … But it was, of course, somewhat shorter.”67 As Boulay explained to me, they generally used festivals to “anchor” a tour “to reduce our risk,” building other, smaller concerts around the larger ones.68 Because the Ganelin Trio visit coincided with the summer festival season, much of their schedule, and particularly its first half, featured festival performances (table 2). The first of them was also the most prominent: the JVC Jazz Festival, which had its origins in the fabled Newport Folk Festival, transplanted since the early 1970s to New York City.69 Table 2. Ganelin Trio in the USA: Itinerary and repertoire (when known) Date

Place

Thursday, June 19

Event

Source information

Arrive (Moscow-MontrealNew York)

Ken Franckling, “Ganelin Trio Winds up Historic U.S. Tour,” UPI (USA), July 18, 1986; Vladimir Tarasov, Trio, 1st ed. (Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 1998; 2nd ed. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2004), 191 and 244 (2004).

Friday, June 20

New York City

Today show, “Mack the Knife”

Saturday, June 21

New York City

Town Hall, JVC Jazz Festival, “Non Troppo,” “UmtzaUmtza,” “Mack the Knife”

Sunday, June 22

Rochester, NY

Highland Park Bowl

James Goodman, “A Sunday of Syncopation, Soviet-style,” Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester, NY], June 23, 1986, 2. (Continued)

65 Jack Garner, “Premiere Soviet Jazz Trio Stops in Rochester for Concert Sunday,” Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester, NY], June 20, 1986, 23; and Gina Boubion, “Soviet Trio Jazzes Painted Bride,” Philadelphia Daily News, July 10, 1986. 66 Boubion, “Soviet Trio Jazzes Painted Bride.” 67 Vladimir Tarasov, email to author, February 27, 2021. 68 Boulay, email to author. 69 Peter Keepnews, “Oldest Jazz Festival Is Less Extensive,” Billboard 98 ( June 21, 1986): 23.

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Table 2. (Continued) Date

Place

Event

Source information

Tuesday, June 24

Toronto

Toronto International Jazz Festival

Geoff Chapman, “Soviet Trio Makes Red Hot Debut,” Toronto Star, June 25, 1986, B1.

Wednesday, Los Angeles Los Angeles Theatre Center Don Heckman, “Soviet ‘New Wave’ June 25 and Jazz Aid International, From Ganelin Trio,” Los Angeles Times, “Non Troppo,” “New Wine,” June 27, 1986. “Mack the Knife” Thursday, June 26

Salt Lake City

Utah Arts Festival

Friday, June 27

San Francisco

Veteran’s Building (“Green Room”) (live recording with ROVA saxophone quartet, released as San Francisco Holidays)

Saturday, June 28

Seattle

Fabulous Rainbow Tavern

Paul de Barros, “Ganelin Trio is the First Soviet Jazz Group to Tour in U.S.,” Seattle Times, June 27, 1986, 4; “Soviet Trio’s Visit is Rare Treat for Jazz Fans,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 27, 1986, 3.

Sunday, June 29

Vancouver

du Maurier International Jazz Festival

Paul de Barros, “An Exciting, Deeply Intelligent, Thoroughly Satisfying Feast of Jazz,” Seattle Times, June 30, 1986, D3.

Monday, June 30

Minneapolis Ruby’s Cabaret (Guthrie Theatre), two shows

Tuesday, July 1

Chicago

Wednesday, New York July 2 City

Tom McCarthey, “Handicapped Enjoy the Arts Festival,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 27, 1986.

John Habich, “The Russians Are Coming,” Star Tribune [Minneapolis, Minnesota], June 30, 1986, 21; see also advertisement: “A Significant Show!,” Star and Tribune [Minneapolis, Minnesota], June 15, 1986.

Larry Kart, “Soviet Trio Scores With Pick-Staiger Hall (Northwestern University), Mood, Message,” Chicago Tribune, July “Ritardando,” “New Wine” 2, 1986; and Mike Joyce, “Ganelin’s Soviet Dissonance,” Washington Post, July 4, 1986, WK17. Lone Star Cafe

Note the incorrect date ( July 8) for this performance in New Yorker, July 7, 1986 issue.

Thursday, July 3

Bill Besecker, “Russian Group Uses Buffalo, NY Tralfamadore Café, Jazz to Touch U.S. Audience,” Buffalo “Ritardando,” concert “recorded digitally for […] New, July 4, 1986. East Winds” (visit Niagara Falls)

Friday, July 4

Washington, DC

US-Soviet Cultural Exchanges in the 1980s

Date

Place

Saturday, July 5

(14th St. and Pennsylvania Ave., now Washington, concerts (Western Plaza, DC 8:30 p.m.; and D. C. Space, “Freedom Plaza.”) 11 p.m.)

Sunday, July 6

Washington, concert at Smithsonian DC Institution (Baird Auditorium, National Museum of Natural History)

“Soviet Jazz Comes to the Smithsonian,” New Journal and Guide [Norfolk, VA], June 18, 1986, 9.

Monday, July 7

Washington, attend concert by Bob DC Dylan and the Grateful Dead

Richard Harrington, “Dylan, Bringing It All Back,” Washington Post, July 7, 1986.

Tuesday, July 8

Event

Source information

Travel to Philadelphia

Wednesday, Philadelphia Painted Bride Art Center, July 9 230 Vine St., “three-hour performance”

Gina Boubion, “Soviet Trio Jazzes Painted Bride,” Philadelphia Daily News, July 10, 1986; and “An African Ellington: His Richness Flows,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 27, 1986.

Thursday, July 10

Pittsburgh

Club Graffiti, “Non Troppo” and “New Wine”; encores: “Mack the Knife,” possibly “Umtza Umtza”

Bob Karlovits, “Ganelin Trio Challenges, Captivates Crowd,” Pittsburgh Press, July 11, 1986; and Scott Mervis, “From Russia with love: Ganelin Trio a Treat for Jazz Fans,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 12, 1986.

Friday, July 11

Boston

Nightstage in Central Square

Ernie Santosuosso, “Waterville Valley Kicks Off Second Arts Festival Tonight,” Boston Globe, July 11, 1986, 36; and Vladimir Tarasov, Trio, 214 (2004). Christian Science Monitor says incorrectly that July 10 was the last concert: Amy Duncan, “Soviet trio takes daring liberties with familiar jazz styles,” Christian Science Monitor, June 30, 1986; see also: Gina Boubion, “Soviet Trio Jazzes Painted Bride”.

The trio flew to New York via Montreal on Thursday, June 19, 1986. Tarasov remembered their first, jet-lagged night in New York City: “We went to jazz clubs and cafes, met many new people, saw Greenwich Village, where no one sleeps and all night the streets are filled with people; the car that John [Ballard] called to take us back to the hotel was huge and looked like a sausage on wheels. All of that was like something in a dream, like in one of Federico Fellini’s films.” Tarasov later described the “speed of life in New York”: “In Europe that day would last for a week, in Russia for about three years, but for New York it was

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a normal working day, if, of course, you had a job.”70 (His last remark recalls an anticapitalist Soviet film from 1979 called Tir, or Shooting Gallery, which had been underscored by excerpts from the Ganelin Trio’s album Con Anima and featured homeless New Yorkers being used as living targets in the debauched city.)71 Critic Francis Davis, writing in the venerable Atlantic Monthly, noted that the three Soviet musicians “received more publicity than any other event in jazz this summer, with the possible exception of Benny Goodman’s death [on 13 June 1986].”72 The number of reviews in publications large and small, national and regional, is impressive. Feigin has provided us with a helpful, compact record of representative responses to the trio’s performances on the 1986 tour. It appears, curiously, in the liner notes for the Ganelin LP Ttaango . . . . In Nickelsdorf, a release of an October 1985 performance at the Jazz Gallery in Nickelsdorf, Austria (see table 3).73 As table 3 indicates, issue number 103 of the English-language edition of Jazz Forum published later in 1986 also included longer excerpts from seven of the 13 articles Feigin collected. Like the Rova Saxophone Diplomacy LP, the Nickelsdorf LP resembled earlier Cold War recordings such as Bernstein’s release of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 5, which carried glowing reviews from Soviet and American critics on its jacket.74 Yet unlike that earlier LP, Feigin seemed to relish the negative reviews, displaying them first, like a badge of honor; they confirmed his ongoing vendetta against the mainstream jazz press.75

70 Tarasov, Trio, 195 (2004). 71 Tir, directed by Vladimir Tarasov (Moscow: Soiuzmul’tfil’m, 1979), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H73TwJ1LSs, streaming. The film’s director, Vladimir Il’ich, shares a surname with the Ganelin Trio’s drummer, Vladimir Petrovich, but they are two different men. 72 Davis, “Avant-Garde Comrades,” 127. 73 The Ganelin Trio, Ttaango . . . . In Nickelsdorf (Great Concerts of New Jazz), Leo Records LR 400/401, 1986, 33 1/3. Only 500 copies were pressed. CD re-release: Golden Years of New Jazz, CY 18/19, 2002, compact disc. 74 See Peter J. Schmelz, “‘Shostakovich’ Fights the Cold War: Reflections from Great to Small,” Journal of Musicological Research 34 (2015): 134–35. 75 Adam Baruch, Review of Leo Feigin, ed., Russian Jazz, New Identity, Jazz Forum 103, no. 6 (1986): 56–58; and Milo Fine, review of Ganelin Trio and Mario Schiano, A Concert in Moscow, and The Ganelin Trio, Ttaango . . . . In Nickelsdorf, Cadence 13 ( June 1987): 72–74. See also Leo Feigin, “Notes of a Record Producer,” in Feigin, Russian Jazz, New Identity, 172–207; and Feigin, “A Soviet Stir,” Jazz Forum 101, no. 4 (1986): 13.

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Table 3. List of reviews on back cover of The Ganelin Trio, Ttaango . . . . In Nickelsdorf, Leo LP 400/401 (1986), in order by column Left column Patricia O’Haire, “Jazz that Should Be Sent to Siberia,” Daily News [New York], June 23, 1986, 41.* Peter Keepnews, “Miles Davis: The Old Fire,” New York Post, June 23, 1986.* Philip Elwood, “Jazz from Russia—Sound Without Swing,” San Francisco Examiner, June 25, 1986, E-4. Benjamin Franklin V, “Anatomy of a Festival-One: JVC Festival, New York City,” Coda, 209 (August 1, 1986): 30–31. Gary Giddins, “Weatherbird: The Mixture as Before,” Village Voice, July 22, 1986.* Right column Jon Pareles, “Ganelin Trio’s Debut,” New York Times, June 23, 1986, C13.* Jeff Gottesfeld, “Hot Jazz, Cold War: U.S.S.R.’s Ganelin Trio Tours U.S.A.,” Ear Magazine 11, no. 1 (August/September 1986): 14–15. Norman Weinstein, Idaho Statement (sic: Statesman) later version: Norman Weinstein, “Russian Jazz in U.S. of A.,” Sound Choice, no. 6 ( January/February 1987): 31–32. Bill Besecker, “Russian Group Uses Jazz to Touch U.S. Audience,” Buffalo News, July 4, 1986. Geoff Chapman, “Soviet Trio Makes Red Hot Debut,” Toronto Star, June 25, 1986, B1.* NB: The Nickelsdorf LP includes a sentence that does not appear in the published article: “The trio played with passion and precision, offering up a music that’s certainly representative of the essential nature of jazz.” Larry Kart, “Soviet Trio Scores with Mood, Message,” Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1986. Bob Karlovits, “Ganelin Trio Challenges, Captivates Crowd,” Pittsburgh Press, July 11, 1986.* Larry Kelp, “Ganelin and Ornette Coleman Blast Out Musical Appeal for Freedom,” The Tribune (Oakland CA).* *indicates review excerpts also in Jazz Forum 103, no. 6 (1986): 40–42, https://polishjazzarch.com/jazzforum-en.html#lg=1&slide=100.

The reviews of the Ganelin Trio’s performances (both those selected by Feigin, and those he left off) were written by some of the leading figures in American jazz criticism of the 1980s and appeared in the leading periodicals of the day. Most of the reviews in Feigin’s sampling addressed the JVC Jazz Festival performance in New York, which because of its primacy and visibility understandably drew most of the critical attention on the tour. Yet the coverage of the trio’s JVC Jazz Festival concert, and of the tour in general, was not limited to New York or national news­ papers or magazines. For the tour captures a moment when US regional newspapers were flourishing in comparison to their current shrunken state.76 This could 76 See, e.g., Meryl Kornfield, “Kansas City Newspaper Sends a Warning with a Blank Front Page,” Washington Post, March 25, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/03/25/ blank-front-page-local-newspaper/.

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be a mixed blessing, for although some regional correspondents were qualified, others were obviously out of their depth. Yet such disparities are instructive: they show the variety of perspectives with which American and Canadian listeners approached the Ganelin Trio in 1986. The sheer quantity of reviews, reflecting the sheer quantity of concerts they played, testifies to the seemingly boundless interest in all things Soviet at the time in the United States. The tour was also immortalized in a documentary called Jazz Summit (directed by Jacki Ochs, Human Arts Association, 1987), whose title reflected common perceptions of the tour and its cross-cultural sociopolitical possibilities.77 Feigin was right to be frustrated with many of the reviews, and especially with Patricia O’Haire’s “Jazz that should be sent to Siberia,” which employed a restrictive idea of what jazz could and should be, emphasizing swing as a primary determinant of value.78 The culmination of Peter Keepnews’s article in the New York Post expressed a similar sentiment: “Brass Fantasy swung. The Ganelin Trio didn’t.” (The first sentence refers to Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, which played at Town Hall on the same concert as the trio at the JVC Jazz Festival.) Nat Hentoff ’s review in the Wall Street Journal also focused on swing: “The performances are arresting, sometimes moving, and hardly ever predictable. Yet, at Town Hall in New York and in most of their recordings, something’s missing. Swing.”79 Gary Giddens used related criteria, inflected by familiar stereotypes about American versus European jazz. Writing in the Village Voice, he said: The trio’s debut at Town Hall was disappointing: diverse, wellplayed, witty, theatrical—it was all of that. But it was familiar, too. […] But this was Eurofree jazz, the mixture as before. […] I had hoped for more than caricature, for more perhaps than was fair to expect. Such expectations were partly the result of hype, but in this case had more to do with the dark, gripping passions that erupt on Ganelin’s records but merely simmered in New York.80 Giddens’s comments raised another common complaint: despite its often outlandish sounds, the music was too “familiar.” O’Haire said much the same thing 77 An excerpt from Jazz Summit can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oywZl_ tJz1c. Jacki Ochs kindly provided me access to the full documentary. 78 Patricia O’Haire, “Jazz that Should Be Sent to Siberia,” Daily News [New York], June 23, 1986, 41. 79 Nat Hentoff, “With Chops, but They Ain’t Got That Swing,” Wall Street Journal, July 31, 1986. 80 Gary Giddins, “Weatherbird: The Mixture as Before,” Village Voice, July 22, 1986.

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when she opined, “They were all quite proficient, but it was impossible to understand who they have been listening to in the jazz world. It sounded avant-garde, but the music was avant-garde 20 years ago; it’s déjà vu now.”81 Yet there were also numerous positive reviews. Keepnews’s account of the performance in Billboard unexpectedly (given his comment in his New York Post review) singled out the Ganelin Trio performance as one of the JVC festival’s “highlights,” although his longer summary there was more mixed: “An aggressively avant-garde group, the trio offered an hour of intense free-form improvisation at Town Hall … provoking a dramatically divided audience response.”82 Francis Davis provided one of the most detailed engagements with the Ganelin Trio’s playing, based on his attendance at the group’s performances in both Philadelphia and San Francisco. Contradicting Giddens, for whom the Ganelin recordings had set up too-high expectations, Davis added, “in both cities they turned in spectacular performances, which confirmed the impression the Leo albums had given of them as one of the world’s premier avant-garde jazz ensembles.” He highlighted the surprising (to him) degree to which the playing of the three musicians “resembled their contemporaries in the United States and Western Europe.”83 Davis also commented on their performance style, pushing against the predominant theme of freedom in their music, and subtly echoing the previous comments about their lack of swing, “Although the Ganelin Trio’s music has a boisterous, at times even bellicose, tone, in all of the sets I heard them play the emphasis was on disciplined motivic exposition rather than spontaneous expression.”84 Bill Besecker’s review of the trio’s Buffalo, New York, performance also revealed familiar US biases about self and other: These three Russian players, in this, their first tour of North America, have proven that the message of American jazz has been heard and understood by those who were thought least likely to understand its reflections on our basic lifestyle.85 The Pittsburgh appearance was clearly a highlight of the trip, as Scott Mervis’s review reveals. He said, “it was one of the most inspiring adventurous concerts to 81 O’Haire, “Jazz that should be sent to Siberia.” 82 Peter Keepnews, “JVC Jazz Fest’s Conservative Lineup Was A Financial Success,” Billboard 98 ( July 19, 1986): 24. 83 Davis, “Avant-Garde Comrades,” 126. Note also Davis’s earlier appraisal of Soviet jazz: Francis Davis, “The Fight for Freedom,” Downbeat 51 (April 1984): 69–70. 84 Davis, “Avant-Garde Comrades,” 127. 85 Bill Besecker, “Russian Group Uses Jazz to Touch U.S. Audience,” Buffalo News, July 4, 1986.

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be played in town this year,” leaving the audience “ecstatic.” Ballard agreed, “The band loved the club and the crowd, and played one of the best performances of the tour.”86 Karlovits wrote that in Pittsburgh the trio “whipped a crowd of about 300 into three standing ovations and left them stomping for more.”87 I would like to turn to the moment from the tour that we have the most complete audiovisual record of, namely the trio’s San Francisco concert. The only “official,” commercial recording from the tour came from this concert on Friday, June 27, 1986, the CD set San Francisco Holidays (Leo Records LR 208/209, 1992). It also featured prominently in the Jazz Summit documentary. The previews of the San Francisco concert were typical. James Evans began his article in the San Francisco Examiner on June 22, 1986 with the familiar refrain: “The Russians are coming—to play jazz.”88 Many articles used this phrase (“The Russians are coming”), “From Russia with Love,” or similar cliches.89 The jokes, it seems, never grew old. But Evans’s preview differed from many others across the country because it relied on knowledgeable figures for information, in this case, members of the Rova Saxophone Quartet, who, as we have seen, had met and played with Tarasov during their notable 1983 trip to the USSR. Larry Ochs told the San Francisco reporter: “We had played with other Russian groups, but they were kind of square. They made valiant efforts, but their music was derivative of recordings from the West. The Ganelin Trio is original. They’re all trained, solid musicians who keep their Russian culture. They don’t try to imitate.”90 Ackley agreed, “They’re masters who can explore many styles and weave them into one composition. It’s good exciting music.”91 I heard more details about the San Francisco concert from Ochs, who was involved in arranging it. The trio played in downtown San Francisco in the “Green Room” of the Veterans’ Building (right across from City Hall), a space that fits about 250 people. Ochs grew enthusiastic as he told me about the concert. I quote at some length from my interview with him:

86 Scott Mervis, “From Russia with Love: Ganelin Trio a Treat for Jazz Fans,” Pittsburgh PostGazette, July 12, 1986. 87 Bob Karlovits, “Ganelin Trio challenges, captivates crowd,” Pittsburgh Press, July 11, 1986. 88 Evans, “No Cold War When It Comes to This Hot Jazz.” 89 See, e.g., Habich, “The Russians Are Coming,” 21; Kart, “Ganelin Trio Embodies Russian Soul with Distant Echoes of American Jazz”; and Mervis, “From Russia with Love.” 90 Evans, “No Cold War When It Comes to This Hot Jazz.” 91 Ibid.

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We put the word out that we were doing this concert with this band from the USSR. … One of the major [television] stations called me up and said we want to interview you for this […] it was on the […] local evening news at some point right before that ‘the Martians were landing,’ and the place was packed, there were two shows and they were both full, I don’t remember if they were sold out, but they were definitely full. And it was a lot of people and we were really surprised because we’d always had a real hard time getting people to our gigs here. And the reception was mind-blowingly great. […] It was a room that if people got excited there was enough resonance in that room that it probably amplified it a little bit. But this was San Francisco, there’s a lot of artists here, and everybody was there; there was plenty of general public there too. It was very, very enthusiastic, and I thought they sounded great. (One of the audience members was David Byrne, from Talking Heads.)92 Ochs continued his description, turning to a perceptive assessment of the trio’s style and approach, and the audience’s response: But, man, you know if you checked out their music, it’s right, I mean half-hour pieces with percussion instruments. […] These guys were their own unique thing: but that’s what they did, they created these terrains that they blew through. […] It was great. I never can feel like I can be a really good judge of “accessible.” I would say it was hardly accessible and yet this audience just rolled with [it], they just loved it. I don’t remember what the response was for us—we played before them—but I’m sure it was pretty good.93

92 Larry Kelp, “Ganelin and Ornette Coleman Blast out Musical Appeal for Freedom,” The Tribune [Oakland, CA], n.d. As quoted in Jazz Forum 103, no. 6 (1986): 42, https://polishjazzarch.com/jazzforum-en.html#lg=1&slide=100. 93 “Terrains” is the name of a track on Rova’s album The Crowd—For Elias Canetti (Hat Hut, hat Art 2032, 1986, 33 1/3; hat Art CD 6098, 1992, compact disc). It was also one of the tunes they played on their 1983 tour and can be heard in the Saxophone Diplomacy documentary (listed in its closing credits). Ochs, telephone interview; and [etc.]; and Saxophone Diplomacy documentary.

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Davis, by contrast, observed some hints of discontent in the San Francisco hall that night: “[T]here were audible sighs of relief followed by loud bursts of applause whenever the musicians happened into a steady four beats per measure.”94 Throughout the tour, the trio played several long-form compositions, among them “Non Troppo,” “New Wine,” and “Ritardando.” (Technically, and confusingly, “Non Troppo” and “New Wine” form a two-part suite called “Non Troppo.”)95 The San Francisco recording includes only “New Wine” and “Ritardando.” (Aside from a short excerpt in a concert film of the 1986 Tbilisi jazz festival, this is the second full recording of “Ritardando” by the trio commercially available; the first appears as “Ttaango” on the Nickelsdorf LP and CD.)96 The trio’s approach and aesthetics emphasized large-scale, longduration “works” that, as Karlovits noted of the trio’s Pittsburgh performance foregrounded a “suite-like […] construction.”97 Besecker, reviewing the trio’s Buffalo performance, observed, “Rather than imitating American jazz by playing themes, and then improvising on them, this group composes ‘landmarks’ from which they travel in extemporaneous fashion to their next composed ‘landmark.’ A suite is formed from a number of these predetermined focal points.”98 Both of the long compositions the trio played in San Francisco, like many of their longer performances, enacted slow build-ups that ended spectacularly. “Ritardando” concludes with a tango, and, notably, “New Wine” is built around, and culminates with, the standard “Too Close for Comfort” from the 1956 musical Mr. Wonderful (by Jerry Bock, George David Weiss, and Larry Holofcener). Yet no American critic, even those so worked up about tradition and accessibility, identified (or even heard) the tune. The Ganelin members frequently played as an encore one of their calling cards—their version of Kurt Weill’s “Mack the Knife” from the Threepenny Opera. The trio recorded this standard more times than any other composition over the course of their career. In the United States the response was mixed,

94 Davis, “Avant-Garde Comrades,” 127. 95 Leo Feigin, “Liner notes to […] Old Bottles,” Leo Records LR 112, 1995, compact disc. See also: Efim Barban, Review of Ganelin Trio, New Wine, in Feigin, Russian Jazz, New Identity, 145–48. 96 The conclusion of “Ritardando” appears at 22’19” of “Igraem dzhaz! Festival’ v Tbilisi” (1986), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVvV59g4hiM. 97 Karlovits, “Ganelin Trio Challenges, Captivates Crowd.” 98 Besecker, “Russian Group Uses Jazz to Touch U.S. Audience.” I go into more detail about the Trio’s performance practice and the analysis of their music in my book-in-progress on Soviet jazz and experimental music in the 1970s and 1980s.

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with critics commenting on “a faintly recognizable ‘Mack the Knife,’”99 “the trio’s abstraction based on ‘Mack the Knife,’”100 and their “irreverent ‘Mack the Knife.’” Franckling offered more details: “One of the most popular tunes on their tour was ‘Mack The Knife.’ But it is a few minutes before the rendition becomes recognizable. They’ve been playing it all along, but only using partial and subtle sections of the rhythm and melody in the opening bars, filling in the blanks much later.”101 Their most prominent performance of “Mack the Knife” was on the nationally broadcast television program the “Today Show,” where Leo Feigin made a faux pas that echoed throughout the tour: he called the show “Good Morning America” on camera.102 Norman Weinstein’s review of the San Francisco performance touched on several recurrent themes, including the group’s “Russianness.” “The Ganelin Trio is Russian in more than a superficial manner,” he wrote. “The grand orchestral gestures in their long compositions, the melodic and rhythmic underpinnings in their music are unmistakenly Russian.” Distinctions between Lithuania (the trio’s home) and Russia eluded almost every American critic and listener (even Ochs made a similar statement above). Weinstein also commented on the tour’s political implications, raising in particularly excited form another recurrent theme in the reception of the 1986 visit. He noted of the two collaborations at the San Francisco concert by Rova and the Ganelin Trio, “The Set-Up” and “The Knock-Off,” “The two groups had no rehearsal time, the final piece was constructed through faith, attention, craft. Suddenly it became apparent that this was the first summit in history between the US and the USSR that worked, succeeding on all levels.” Weinstein breathlessly concluded, “I now listen to my Ganelin records feeling that my life, and perhaps all life, depends upon it.”103 Feigin, pleased, chose to reprint this review as the liner notes for his 1992 CD release of the concert. Tarasov remembered demonstrators outside the San Francisco performance picketing on behalf of Vladimir Feltsman.104 This moment particularly struck 99 Ernie Santosuosso, “Ganelin Trio Impresses the Crowd at JVC Jazzfest,” Boston Globe, June 24, 1986. 100 Howard Mandel, “From the U.S.S.R., Red, White & Blue Jazz,” Washington Post, June 29, 1986, H2 and H4. 101 Franckling, “Ganelin Trio Winds up Historic U.S. Tour.” 102 Tarasov, Trio, 194 and 244 (2004); Mandel, “From the U.S.S.R., Red, White & Blue Jazz”; and Santosuosso, “Ganelin Trio Impresses the Crowd at JVC Jazzfest.” A brief excerpt of the Today Show performance appears early in the Jazz Summit documentary. 103 All the quotations in this paragraph are from: Norman Weinstein, “Russian Jazz in U.S. of A.,” Sound Choice 6 ( January/February 1987): 31–32. 104 Tarasov, Trio, 199 (2004).

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him; he has returned to it in other interviews, as he contemplated in hindsight his role as an official Soviet emissary. He said recently, “Sometimes they received us like a part of the propaganda of the Soviet system against the West. It became ridiculous. We were friends with Volodya Feltsman and played with him often in [violinist] Liana Isakadze’s orchestra. For a long time he couldn’t leave the USSR. And when the trio went to America in 1986 in San Francisco, in front of the concert hall where we performed people stood with placards reading ‘Free Vladimir Feltsman.’”105 As happened so many times in cultural encounters across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, freedom was first and foremost on many minds. A younger woman in the Jazz Summit documentary said after the San Francisco concert, “Coming from a country that is so restrictive that they were playing music that exhibited a very free and open mentality. I thought that was what was wonderful about it, that it was so expressive.” Yet questions of freedom were not on the group’s minds during the 1986 tour, at least that is until near the end of the tour, when they felt more constrained by familiar protocol. Tarasov recalled, “Most likely, only in Washington did we feel that we came to the US on an international exchange. Everything there was very ceremonious and official.” “Insofar as our concert in the capital coincided with the celebration of Independence Day [ July 4], and with that it was as if we were congratulating the USA on behalf of the USSR, the organizers of that concert, besides John Ballard’s Space Agency, was the National Council of SovietAmerican friendship (Institut Sovetsko-Amerikanskoi Druzhby) and the Washington-Moscow Capital Citizen Exchange.”106 The trio also met the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin. Tarasov later wrote that during their stay in Washington “[Soviet] embassy workers tried to be everywhere with us, driving us around, proudly introducing us, underscoring that thanks to the friendship of Gorbachev and Reagan Soviet jazz was already in America.”107 Yet not everything in Washington was official: Tarasov and Chekasin made a memorable visit with Boulay to a concert by Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead on a sultry summer night.108

105 Tarasov and Grigorii Durnovo, “My ponimali, chto na amerikanskikh standartakh ne prozhivem.” 106 Tarasov, Trio, 214 (2004). 107 Ibid., 212 (2004). A photograph of the trio with Dobrynin appears on 213. 108 Boulay, email to author.

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Tarasov later reflected: In fact, they did send us as propaganda. But, to our benefit, since music is not identical to words, and in the Ministry of Culture they in general did not understand what we were doing. They simply didn’t understand how someone could like this kind of music. But they were blinded by dollars. For we began to bring them revenue.109 Revenue was one side effect. But the tour had more immediate, tangible results for the members of the trio: like all tourists they sought out, and acquired, souvenirs. Tarasov remembered heading to Tower Records in New York, what he called (not without justification) “the biggest record store in the world,” and being disappointed not to find the records he was looking for, records by, of all people, the novelty act and comedy musician Spike Jones (1911–65, but most active in the 1940s and 1950s). Tarasov was excited to find the Spike Jones records in Rochester, NY, and returned home in a “great mood.”110 An article at the end of the tour pointed to the group’s purchase of records by Quincy Jones, Duke Ellington with Frank Sinatra, and Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross with Count Basie, along with “several new keyboards, a synthesizer, a portable studio and an electronic drum kit.”111 Tarasov described going instrument shopping near the end of the tour in New York City on Forty-Eighth Street and receiving a substantial discount from a sympathetic shopkeeper.112 The trio’s purchases led to problems on their departure. Boulay remembered: Another unique moment was at JFK trying to check them in at the Aeroflot desk. While traveling they had amassed a massive collection of keyboards, other instruments and gifts to bring back to Russia but they did not have money to pay extra luggage fees. After a stress-filled conversation with the Aeroflot representative they were told they could each check two bags and, for a small fee I paid, those bags could be quite large. 30 minutes later, with the help of a few rolls of heavy tape, several smaller boxes

109 Tarasov and Durnovo, “My ponimali, chto na amerikanskikh standartakh ne prozhivem.” 110 Tarasov, Trio, 197–98 (2004). 111 Franckling, “Ganelin Trio Winds up Historic U.S. Tour.” 112 Tarasov, Trio, 203 (2004).

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had been taped into two gigantic ones which the Aeroflot representative then was willing to check for them.113 Material acquisitions were only one of the tour’s benefits, for the trio also met prominent American musicians and made contacts that have continued up to the present day. Chekasin played with John Zorn in New York (a moment captured in the Jazz Summit documentary). And Tarasov met percussionist Andrew Cyrille during the trio’s July 2, 1986 performance in New York City. Tarasov and Cyrille recorded a live album called Galaxies during performances in Toronto, Vancouver, and Oakland in 1990 (Music and Arts 672, 1991, compact disc); Boulay and the Space Agency helped arrange the duo’s earlier 1988 tour of the USSR.114 At the end of 1986, eminent jazz critic Leonard Feather awarded the Ganelin Trio “Guest Spot of the Year,” declaring that they “represented the first peaceshot fired in a cultural exchange that may find the Leningrad Dixieland Band visiting us next summer, and a group including Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter visiting the Soviet Union.”115 The more palatable Leningrad Dixieland Band did, in fact, visit the United States (twice) in subsequent years, but Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter did not make it to the USSR.116 The Ganelin Trio tour appears to have been almost entirely for external consumption. It received more attention from the international jazz press, including in the Warsaw-based Jazz Forum, as well as in the West German Jazz Podium, than it did within the USSR, where it was given, it seems, only one small notice in Sovetskaia kul’tura titled “in the birthplace of jazz.”117 (There was more coverage of the tour from the Russian-language émigré press in New York City.)118

113 Boulay, email to author. A picture of the trio at the airport is in Tarasov, Trio, 208 (2004). 114 Howard Mandel, “The State of Jazz in the USSR,” Downbeat 55, no. 9 (September 1988): 62; and “Commentary,” The Black Perspective in Music 17, nos. 1–2 (1989): 206. 115 Leonard Feather, “Jazz ’86 Renaissance Time,” Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1986; see his preview concert for the trio as well: Leonard Feather, “New York Bands Still Blow Cool and Sweet,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1986. Also see: Leonard Feather, “Jazz Review: Red-Hot Dixieland by Russian Octet,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1987, 3; as well as: Ken Franckling, “Jazz has Resurgence in ’86,” Afro-American [Baltimore, MD], December 27, 1986. 116 Feather, “Jazz Review: Red-Hot Dixieland by Russian Octet”; and Charles Champlin, “Soviet Jazzmen and Dixie Melodies,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1989. 117 Steve Boulay, “Soviet Trio Swings America,” Jazz Forum 103, no. 6 (1986): 38–39, https:// polishjazzarch.com/jazzforum-en.html#lg=1&slide=100.; Karl Heinz Kessler, “Das Ganelin Trio auf Nordamerika Tournee,” Jazz Podium 35 (1986): 27; and Valerii Kopman, “Na rodine dzhaza,” Sovetskaia kul’tura, October 11, 1986. 118 See, e.g., Lana Mak, “Na festivale dzhaza,” Novoe russkoe slovo, June 28, 1986, 9; and Vladimir Kozlovskii, “Amerikantsy o sovetskikh dzhazistakh,” Novoe russkoe slovo, July 1, 1986, 4.

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This was not exceptional, for unlike returning Soviet sports champions or representatives of higher, more established culture (Bolshoi Theater, Pyatnitsky Folk Choir), foreign musical tours, especially those by jazz musicians, received very little comment at home in the USSR.119 Yet Ganelin’s statements in the Sovetskaia kul’tura article are informative. “Of course, we were very worried,” he said. “We needed to convince the Americans that we can play jazz and that what we play is jazz, although our kind of jazz. I think that we succeeded in doing this. The evidence of this is the friendly applause that American listeners rewarded us with. Jazz connoisseurs and critics said that your compositions are extraordinarily interesting. And one even declared: you won [or ‘triumphed’; vy pobedili].”120 Perhaps such statements help explain Tarasov’s discomfort at the 2008 Brubeck conference: in 1986, the Ganelin Trio had been told they had won. As Steve Boulay recollects the tour, no one lost: My overall feeling at the end of the tour was that I had just spent a month with some of the most articulate, superlative musicians I would ever get to know and we had made more headway in creating a positive relationship between Americans and Soviets then I imagined was possible. Their music was deeply intellectual and challenging yet still somehow it was still largely accessible and well received by audiences everywhere we went. Whether we were at an outdoor venue in Rochester, NY, playing to a soldout theater in San Francisco with the ROVA Saxophone Quartet or at the JVC Jazz Festival in NYC they connected with their audiences in a profound fashion. I don’t know whether it was the unexpected nature of their free form music, complex, humorous, outrageous and beautiful all rolled into one, or simply how open, gracious and charming they were in greeting and thanking their audiences. It certainly was something I will never forget.121 The singularity of the event was lost on no one. Ganelin remembers it as “perhaps the culmination of the trio.”122 As one of Rova’s members, probably Ochs, said just before the tour: “These guys are like Halley’s Comet. They probably

119 Kozlov, “Kozel na sakse,” 349–50. 120 Kopman, “Na rodine dzhaza.” 121 Boulay, email to author. 122 Mak, “Viacheslav Ganelin: ‘Ia doma, i ia svoboden,’” 1:392.

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won’t be back in our lifetimes, but I hope that’s not true.”123 Besides providing some further mid-1980s context and color (the return of Halley’s comet dominated US newspaper headlines in Spring 1986), Ochs’s comment unknowingly presaged the end of the trio itself. For within half a year of the tour, the group had disbanded, instigated by Ganelin’s emigration to Israel. They recorded one last album, with Italian saxophonist Mario Schiano, A Concert in Moscow (Free Records FR LP 00786, 1986, 33 1/3), a recording that foreign critics gave mixed reviews.124 The San Francisco recordings stand as their last official release as a trio, without any other participants.

Conclusion: The End of Cold War Cultural Exchange Tarasov closed his comments at the 2008 Brubeck conference on simultaneously pessimistic and optimistic notes. He said that after the talks by the other participants: It became clear that nothing had changed [from the time of the Cold War], and moreover, it seems, nothing would change for a long time in the relationships between our two countries [that is, Russia and the United States]. Each was oppressed on its own side. That was the negative conclusion. But Tarasov, by now an inveterate traveler, saved his optimistic conclusion for last: The most important thing in cultural exchange and in Culture [with a capital C] in general is the opportunity to travel.125 In some respects, the conclusion is selfish, isolated. Yet it returns our attention to the intimate spaces of Cold War musicking, the—only apparently—mundane roles and mundane effects of musicians during a conflict whose rhetoric grew

123 Evans, “No Cold War When It Comes to This Hot Jazz,” 2. 124 “Mario Schiano - A Concert in Moscow - with the Lithuanian Ganelin trio_1986,” Jazz From Italy (blog), http://jazzfromitaly.blogspot.com/2011/11/mario-schiano-concert-in-moscow-with.html, November 4, 2011. See: Fine, Review of Ganelin Trio and Mario Schiano, A Concert in Moscow, and The Ganelin Trio, Ttaango … In Nickelsdorf, 72–3. 125 Tarasov, Tam-Tam, 96–97.

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exaggerated, over-inflated, and, yes, oppressive. So oppressive in fact, that it lingers with us still. Tarasov touched on the personal. Larry Ochs, in a 1989 interview, touched on something broader. We already considered his provocative interpretation of the political roles of Rova’s improvisational music in the early 1980s United States. By the end of the decade, Ochs had settled into something different, perhaps not far removed from Tarasov’s 2009 perspective (the year in which his reminiscences were published). Rova returned to the USSR in 1989 and found a changed country. It was no longer the “grueling” yet heady experience the group remembered from their 1983 trip.126 Most of the musicians they wanted to see, their friends, were not in the country: they were playing gigs in Europe, trying to make money, now that touring abroad was largely unfettered. Ochs sat down at the end of the trip for a long interview with his old friend Alexander Kan, providing a fascinating accounting of a US musician’s perspective on this tumultuous time not only in the USSR, but in the world, a time just on the cusp of the important 1990 divide emphasized by the 2020 Baltic Musicological Conference. Ochs said to Kan: At this point I am less certain about my motivation for doing this music. And it’s not that I’m not motivated to do it—I am— but I’m so inside the process, and I find it so fascinating from a strictly musical point of view, that I’m not really sure I need to know how important this music is politically or socially. But it’s also in a way not so important a question, because this music has kind of become my life. This is what I do, and that’s my reason for sticking around. In a way, it’s more important now than it was before. So when you asked that question about how important that is politically and socially. […] I don’t know; it’s much less clear to me now than it was ten years ago.127 Long-sought Cold War objectives unexpectedly had been achieved: the musicians Rova had encountered in 1983 now had the freedom to do and say what they wanted, to travel, to leave. But Rova had also won a new kind of freedom. Now they could concentrate more fully on the intricacies of their music, treating their trip to the Soviet Union, and their subsequent trips to Russia, as travel, as 126 Larry Ochs, interview by author. 127 https://www.rova.org/foodforthought/interview-alexander-kan.html, accessed March 30, 2020.

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tourism, gradually shedding their previous Cold War-driven, diplomatic overtones. The changing iconography of Saxophone Diplomacy suggests as much. Although the 1991 CD release featured a cover identical to that on the original double-LP set, massed soldiers marching on Red Square, the 2018 re-release no longer contains any Cold War imagery, replaced instead with a tranquil, “artistic” black-and-white photo of a small group of tourists strolling across Palace Square in St. Petersburg. (The Nixon-Khrushchev photo was also eliminated.) This loss of Cold War purpose struck many in the late 1980s and early 1990s.128 In a 1987 interview, Tarasov said, “I think jazz means glasnost because it is an open form of music.” He also added that “the high point of his jazz career was a coast-to-coast tour of the United States last year.”129 But when glasnost equals jazz and jazz equals glasnost, for some the importance of the music was soon lost. What was often referred to in the American press as “glasnost chic” wore off. Musicians who traveled to the USSR met a reality different from their imaginings. A journalist reported in 1988: “When Pat Metheny toured the Soviet Union last year, he went where he liked, spoke to whomever he wanted and said he was ‘almost disappointed by the absence of the “intrigue factor.”’”130 Writing in July 1987, historian Harlow Robinson declared, “Now, performers are tripping over each other in their eagerness to board the bandwagon bound for Moscow, and hardly a week passes without media appearances by musicians returning from a tour of duty on the Russian front, having bathed in the enthusiasm of Soviet audiences.”131 Note his already tired wartime rhetoric—tour of duty, Russian front—not far removed from the “Russians are coming” headlines that constantly greeted the Ganelin Trio in 1986. Many musicians and other artists made similar comments about many different kinds of music around the 1990/1991 divide, realizing that something had been lost but loudly proclaiming that now music could be just music. Later in his report, Robinson cautioned, “true cultural exchange involves an ongoing reciprocal relationship that involves more than just jetting in, performing and making fervent vodka toasts. It takes time, empathy and enormous patience.”132 Among the few who demonstrated these qualities was Tarasov, who told me that after the 1986 tour: “for me

128 See: Peter J. Schmelz, Sonic Overload: Alfred Schnittke, Valentin Silvestrov, and Polystylism in the Late USSR (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 309–10. 129 Charles J. Gans, “Soviet Jazz Musicians Get in Tune with Glasnost,” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 1987. 130 Mike Zwerin, “Out of the Very Cool,” Wire 54 (August 1988): 38. 131 Harlow Robinson, “The ‘Glasnost’ Tree Bears A Rich Musical Harvest,” New York Times , July 26, 1987, H23. 132 Ibid. See also Schmelz, Sonic Overload, 309 and 327.

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America became a place where I feel at home.”133 He continues to bridge “here” and “there,” or, as his memoir has it, “there” and “there.” A recent interview with Tarasov ended with an archetypally American vignette: listening to music on a cross-country road trip. Tarasov described driving across the United States in 1996 from New Haven, Connecticut, to San Francisco, and hearing on his car radio a “genius saxophonist.” He continued: Then I heard that the drummer and pianist weren’t bad either. And then they announced that it was our trio. On the radio they were having a festival of our trio’s music. Thus that segment of listeners, among whom our music is popular, remember us. […] In the end, it’s not rock, it’s contemporary music that doesn’t have wide popularity, but it seems to me that there is a sufficient number of people who get pleasure from listening to it.134 Turned off by the triumphalism and the unwanted politicization, Tarasov today speaks to the more intimate, emotional results of cultural exchange, outside the framework of winners and losers, fronts and mock invasions. His response suggests a different kind of freedom, a freedom of choice no longer based on the reflexive, reactive binary oppositions of censored art, of approved or unapproved, official or unofficial. Both Ochs in the late 1980s and Tarasov today build on a different kind of pleasure, one no longer involving the desensitization of listeners, but instead on the cultivation of a discrete corner of art amid the ever-growing information onslaught. Lacking the mass headlines, fame, and notoriety of the 1980s, Tarasov finds both encouragement and consolation in the initiated, the knowing, the few, in familiar faces and old memories.

Bibliography “A Significant Show!” Star and Tribune [Minneapolis, Minnesota], June 15, 1986. “An African Ellington: His Richness Flows.” Philadelphia Tribune, June 27, 1986. Atkins, Ronald. “Ganelin Trio/Bloomsbury.” Financial Times, March 9, 1984, 13. Barban, Efim S., ed. Kvadrat: Iz istorii rossiiskogo dzhaza. Saint Petersburg: Kompozitor, 2015. Barban, Efim. Review of Ganelin Trio, New Wine. In Russian Jazz, New Identity, edited by Leo Feigin, 145–48. London: Quartet Books, 1985.

133 Vladimir Tarasov, email to author, March 3, 2021. 134 Tarasov and Durnovo, “My ponimali, chto na amerikanskikh standartakh ne prozhivem.”

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Barros, Paul de. “An Exciting, Deeply Intelligent, Thoroughly Satisfying Feast of Jazz.” Seattle Times, June 30, 1986, D3. ———. “Ganelin Trio is the First Soviet Jazz Group to Tour in U.S.” Seattle Times, June 27, 1986, 4. Baruch, Adam. Review of Leo Feigin, ed., Russian Jazz, New Identity. Jazz Forum 103, no. 6 (1986): 56–58. “Berliner Dzhaztage 80: GTCh i ‘Arsenal.’” Kvadrat 16 (1981). Besecker, Bill. “Interview with Larry Ochs.” Coda, no. 196 (1984): 5–9. ———. “Russian Group Uses Jazz to Touch U.S. Audience.” Buffalo News, July 4, 1986. Bohlen, Celestine. “‘Blowin’ Into Russia.” Washington Post, July 26, 1985. ———. “Dylan Sings his ‘Poems’ In Moscow.” Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1985. Boubion, Gina. “Soviet Trio Jazzes Painted Bride.” Philadelphia Daily News , July 10, 1986. Boulay, Steve. “Soviet Trio Swings America.” Jazz Forum 103, no. 6 (1986): 38–39. https:// polishjazzarch.com/jazzforum-en.html#lg=1&slide=100. Brodowski, Pawel. “The Tbilisi Earthquake.” Jazz Forum 103, no. 6 (1986): 43–45. https:// polishjazzarch.com/jazzforum-en.html#lg=1&slide=100. Champlin, Charles. “Soviet Jazzmen and Dixie Melodies.” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1989. Chapman, Geoff. “Soviet Trio Makes Red Hot Debut.” Toronto Star, June 25, 1986: B1. “Commentary.” The Black Perspective in Music 17, nos. 1–2 (1989): 206. Crist, Stephen A. “Jazz as Democracy? Dave Brubeck and Cold War Politics.” Journal of Musicology 26, no. 2 (2009): 133–74. Davis, Francis. “An Exchange of Special Note: Jazz from the Soviet Union.” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 9, 1986, 1-C, 8-C. ———. “Avant-Garde Comrades.” Atlantic Monthly, November 1986, 127. ———. “The Fight for Freedom.” Downbeat 51, no. 4 (April 1984): 69–70. Duncan, Amy. “Soviet Trio Takes Daring Liberties with Familiar Jazz Styles.” Christian Science Monitor, June 30, 1986. Eaton, William J. “A Rave for Dave in Red Square.” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 1987. Eldridge, John. “Guitar Ace Broadens Base.” Palm Beach Post, September 8, 1989. Evans, James. “No Cold War When It Comes to This Hot Jazz.” San Francisco Examiner, June 22, 1986. Fainberg, Dina, and Artemy M. Kalinovsky, eds. Reconsidering Stagnation in the Brezhnev Era: Ideology and Exchange. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016. Fay, Laurel. “The Russians Came.” Musical America 108, no. 5 (1988): 23–25. Feather, Leonard. “Dr. Billy Taylor Never Rests.” Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1987. ———. “Jazz ’86 Renaissance Time.” Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1986. ———. “Jazz Review: Red-Hot Dixieland by Russian Octet.” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1987, 3. ———. “Jazznost Hits a High Note with Soviet and U.S. Musicians.” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1989, F8. ———. “New York Bands Still Blow Cool and Sweet.” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1986. Feigin, Leo. Liner notes to Ganelin Trio, … Old Bottles. Leo Records LR 112, 1995, compact disc. Feigin, Leo, ed. Russian Jazz, New Identity. London: Quartet Books, 1985. Fine, Milo. Review of Ganelin Trio and Mario Schiano, A Concert in Moscow, and The Ganelin Trio, Ttaango … In Nickelsdorf. Cadence 13 ( June 1987): 72–74. Fordham, John. “Ganelin Trio.” Guardian, March 8, 1984, 20 (arts).

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———. “The Ganelin Trio in London.” In Russian Jazz, New Identity, edited by Leo Feigin, 61–67. London: Quartet Books, 1985. Fosler-Lussier, Danielle. Music in America’s Cold War Diplomacy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015. Fowle, Kate, and Ruth Addison, eds. Exhibit Russia: The New International Decade, 1986–1996. Prague: Artguide; Moscow: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2016. Franckling, Ken. “Ganelin Trio Winds up Historic U.S. Tour.” UPI (USA), July 18, 1986. ———. “Jazz has Resurgence in ’86.” Afro-American [Baltimore, MD], December 27, 1986. Franklin V, Benjamin. “Anatomy of a Festival-One: JVC Festival, New York City.” Coda, no. 209 (August 1, 1986): 30–31. Gamarekian, Barbara. “Swapping Culture With Moscow.” New York Times, May 1, 1986, B10. Ganelin, Viacheslav. “Pochemu Trio bol’she nikogda ne budet.” Jazz.ru, April 14, 2017. http:// journal.jazz.ru/2017/04/14/ganelin-postludium/. Gans, Charles J. “Soviet Jazz Musicians Get in Tune with Glasnost.” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 1987. Garner, Jack. “Premiere Soviet Jazz Trio Stops in Rochester for Concert Sunday.” Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester, NY] , June 20, 1986, 23. Giddins, Gary. “Weatherbird: The Mixture as Before.” Village Voice, July 22, 1986. Givan, Benjamin. “How Democratic is Jazz?” Finding Democracy in Music, edited by Robert Adlington and Esteban Buch, 58–79. New York: Routledge, 2021. Goldberg, Michael. “ROVA Saxophone Quartet Wants You to Wake Up.” Downbeat 48, no. 1 ( January 1981): 25. ———. “Saksofonnyi kvartet ROVA.” Kvadrat 16 (1981). Goodman, James. “A Sunday of Syncopation, Soviet-Style.” Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester, NY], June 23, 1986, 2. Gottesfeld, Jeff. “Hot Jazz, Cold War: U.S.S.R.’s Ganelin Trio Tours U.S.A.” Ear Magazine 11, no. 1 (August/September 1986): 14–15. Habich, John. “The Russians Are Coming.” Star Tribune [Minneapolis, Minnesota], June 30, 1986, 21. Harrington, Richard. “Dylan, Bringing It All Back.” Washington Post, July 7, 1986. Heckman, Don. “Soviet ‘New Wave’ From Ganelin Trio.” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1986. Hentoff, Nat. “With Chops, but They Ain’t Got That Swing.” Wall Street Journal, July 31, 1986. “John Denver Likes Soviet Audiences.” Longview News-Journal [Longview, Texas], June 29, 1985, 2A. “John Denver: Soviets Like Me.” Post-Star [Glens Falls, NY], June 29, 1985. Joyce, Mike. “Ganelin’s Soviet Dissonance.” Washington Post, July 4, 1986, WK17. Kan, Aleksandr. Poka ne nachalsia Jazz. St. Petersburg: Amfora, 2008. ———. Sergei Kuryokhin: Shkiper o kapitane. Moscow: AST, 2020. Karlovits, Bob. “Ganelin Trio Challenges, Captivates Crowd.” Pittsburgh Press, July 11, 1986. Kart, Larry. “Ganelin Trio Embodies Russian Soul with Distant Echoes of American Jazz.” Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1986. ———. “Soviet Trio Scores with Mood, Message.” Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1986. Keepnews, Peter. “JVC Jazz Fest’s Conservative Lineup Was a Financial Success.” Billboard 98 ( July 19, 1986): 24. ———. “Oldest Jazz Festival Is Less Extensive.” Billboard 98 ( June 21, 1986): 23.

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Kelp, Larry. “Ganelin and Ornette Coleman Blast out Musical Appeal for Freedom.” The Tribune [Oakland, CA]; quoted in Jazz Forum 103, no. 6 (1986): 42. https://polishjazzarch.com/ jazzforum-en.html#lg=1&slide=100. Kessler, Karl Heinz. “Das Ganelin Trio auf Nordamerika Tournee.” Jazz Podium 35 (1986): 27. Khodarkovsky, Michael. Russia’s 20th Century: A Journey in 100 Histories. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Kopman, Valerii. “Na rodine dzhaza.” Sovetskaia kul’tura, October 11, 1986. Kornfield, Meryl. “Kansas City Newspaper Sends a Warning with a Blank Front Page.” Washington Post, March 25, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/03/25/ blank-front-page-local-newspaper/. Kozlov, Aleksei. “Kozel na sakse”: I tak vsiu zhizn’. Moscow: Vagrius, 1998. Kozlovskii, Vladimir. “Amerikantsy o sovetskikh dzhazistakh.” Novoe russkoe slovo, July 1, 1986, 4. Lee, Gary. “U.S., Soviet Rock Stars Stage Moscow Concert.” Washington Post, July 5, 1987. “Leningrad’s Young People Mob Elton John.” New York Times, May 23, 1979. Mak, Lana. “Na festivale dzhaza.” Novoe russkoe slovo, June 28, 1986, 9. Mak, Vladimir. “Viacheslav Ganelin: ‘Ia doma, i ia svoboden’.” In Rossiiskii dzhaz, 2 vols., edited by K. Moshkov and A. Filip’eva, 380–97. Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Krasnodar: Planeta muzyka/Planet music, 2013. Mandel, Howard. “From the U.S.S.R., Red, White & Blue Jazz.” Washington Post, June 29, 1986, H2, H4. ———. “The State of Jazz in the USSR.” Downbeat 55, no. 9 (September 1988): 62. McCarthey, Tom. “Handicapped Enjoy the Arts Festival.” Salt Lake Tribune, June 27, 1986. Mervis, Scott. “From Russia with Love: Ganelin Trio a Treat for Jazz Fans.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 12, 1986. Monson, Ingrid. Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call out to Jazz and Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. O’Haire, Patricia. “Jazz That Should Be Sent to Siberia.” Daily News [New York], June 23, 1986, 41. Ochs, Larry. “Devices and Strategies for Structured Improvisation.” In Arcana: Musicians on Music, edited by John Zorn, 325–26. New York: Granary Books/Hips Road, 2000. “Ottepel’ s opozdaniem na shest’ let.” Literaturnaia gazeta, January 29, 1986. Pareles, Jon. “Ganelin Trio’s Debut.” New York Times, June 23, 1986, C13. ———. “A Soviet Rock Singer Far from His Roots.” New York Times, April 17, 1989, C14. Pepe, Barbara. “Russian Rockers Here ‘To Play Jam.’” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 1986. “‘Podmoskovnye vechera’ v prigorodakh Lissabona.” Sovetskaia kul’tura, September 19, 1985, 7. “Prazdnik iskusstv v Gavane.” Sovetskaia kul’tura, July 28, 1978, 4. Pshenichnyi, Oleg. “Sto let spustia, ili ‘metallicheskaia’ khodynka.” Krugozor, no. 12 (1991): 14–15. Quillen, William. “After the End: New Music in Russia from Perestroika to the Present.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2010. Richmond, Yale. U.S.-Soviet Cultural Exchanges, 1958–1986: Who Wins? Boulder: Westview, 1987. Ritter, Rüdiger. “Broadcasting Jazz into the Eastern Bloc—Cold War Weapon or Cultural Exchange? The Example of Willis Conover.” Jazz Perspectives 7, no. 2 (2013): 111–31. ———. “Der Kontrollwahn und die Kunst: Die Macht, das Ganelin-Trio und der Jazz.” Osteuropa 60, no. 11 (2010): 233–34.

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Robinson, Harlow. “The ‘Glasnost’ Tree Bears A Rich Musical Harvest.” New York Times, July 26, 1987, H23. Santosuosso, Ernie. “Ganelin Trio Impresses the Crowd at JVC Jazzfest.” Boston Globe, June 24, 1986. ———. “Waterville Valley Kicks Off Second Arts Festival Tonight.” Boston Globe, July 11, 1986, 36. Schmelz, Peter J. “‘Shostakovich’ Fights the Cold War: Reflections from Great to Small.” Journal of Musicological Research 34 (2015): 91–140. ———. Sonic Overload: Alfred Schnittke, Valentin Silvestrov, and Polystylism in the Late USSR. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Schmemann, Serge. “Sounds of a Moscow Jam Session Are Music to Russian Ears.” New York Times, July 15, 1982, C22. Schmitt, Eric. “Russian Jazz Group May Perform in U.S.” Star Tribune [Minneapolis, Minnesota], March 5, 1986, 34. ———. “Russian Jazz Group Plans Ground-Breaking U.S. Tour.” New York Times, February 22, 1986. Schonberg, Harold C. Horowitz: His Life and Music. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Sigalov, Mikhail. “Avgustovskaia simfoniia v stile rok.” Krugozor, no. 12 (1989): 2–3. “Soviet Jazz Comes to the Smithsonian.” New Journal and Guide [Norfolk, VA], June 18, 1986, 9. “Soviet Trio’s Visit is Rare Treat for Jazz Fans.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 27, 1986, 3. Shere, Charles. “Finding a Place for a Special Kind of Music.” Tribune [Oakland, CA], August 22, 1982. Starr, S. Frederick. Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union. New York: Limelight, 1985. Szwed, John F. Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra. New York: Da Capo, 1998. Tarasov, Vladimir. “Otvet Vladimira Tarasova.” Jazz.ru, August 3, 2017. http://journal.jazz. ru/2017/08/03/vladimir-tarasov-reply-to-ganelin/. ———. Tam-Tam. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009. ———. Trio. 1st ed. Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 1998; 2nd ed. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2004. Tarasov, Vladimir, and Grigorii Durnovo. “My ponimali, chto na amerikanskikh standartakh ne prozhivem.” Colta.ru, January 3, 2017. http://www.colta.ru/articles/music_modern/13497. Taruskin, Richard. “The Birth of Contemporary Russia out of the Spirit of Music (Not).” In Russian Music at Home and Abroad: New Essays, 348–360. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. Voland, John. “Songs of East and West: Russian Rockers in Santa Monica.” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1986. Von Eschen, Penny. Satchmo Blows up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Weinstein, Norman. “Russian Jazz in U.S. of A.” Sound Choice 6 ( January/February 1987): 31–32. Yurchenkov, Vadim. “Joel’s Soviet Tour a Hit.” Billboard 99, no. 37 (September 12, 1987): 76. Zakharova, I. “‘Dzhaz Iatra’ proshel s uspekhom.” Sovetskaia kul’tura, April 19, 1986, 7. Zwerin, Mike. “Out of the Very Cool.” Wire 54 (August 1988): 38.

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CHAPTER 11

On the Other Side of Freedom: The Band Miłość and the Polish Yass Scene Andrzej Mądro

Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music, Krakow Keywords: yass, free jazz, alternative music, Polish jazz, Polish music in 1990s

Why Yass? The establishment, activity, and creative attitude of the Polish yass scene in the 1990s is a perfect example of how music can exude freedom in various ways, showing it in the most glaring, even extreme form. Indeed, interdisciplinary research on this marginal and controversial—as it may seem—area of art provides an opportunity to draw attention to an important, yet still unstudied, 1960s phenomenon hidden under the mythology of the so-called first Polish Jazz School. It is also worth recalling that in the 1990s, the most celebrated yass band—Miłość—was one of the best and most highly regarded jazz outfits in general. From 1994 onwards, it was among the top-ranked groups the annual Jazz Forum poll and it was chosen as the acoustic band of the year four years in a row; in 2001, it was even hailed as the finest group of the past decade. The main methodological tool for my research is the anthropological concept of microhistory, which focuses on the evolution of humankind, (local) cultures, and (small) societies. The center of microhistorical analysis is not only the evolutionary processes themselves, but also the communities, subcultures, bands, and people who are allowed to speak in their own voice (hence this article contains many quotes from interviews). As Ewa Domańska puts it: “this perspective divides stories … into ‘crumbs,’ ‘splinters,’ ‘trifles’; they are shown by means

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of detailed case studies.”1 This type of history decentralizes the events that are customarily considered important and focuses on seemingly trivial and unusual events, which are symptoms of social and political processes. Yet, at the same time, microhistory is a procedure that takes as its starting point a detail that is often very specific and individual and impossible to describe as a typical case.2 Research oriented in this way seeks dynamics within historical evolutionary processes and transitions. This is also one of the fundamental assumptions for the so-called “New History.”3

Jazz Aging Against the background of the rough, Communist Polish reality of the 1960s, jazz seemed to be synonymous with freedom, independence, and modernity. The Polish jazz center at the time was Krakow, where there were more music clubs and bands than there are now, and where jazz was very popular, especially among the young intelligentsia.4 In the 1980s, however, the city’s artistic and social potential was already exhausted, largely because rock and punk grew in power as symptoms of the sociocultural rebellion of the new generation. The Polish jazz scene was dominated by “old masters” such as Zbigniew Namysłowski, Jan “Ptaszyn” Wróblewski, and Janusz Muniak, who were increasingly clearly becoming musical conservatives. There was no “young blood,” and even if there was, it could not come to the fore. Polish jazz decayed under the rule of omnipotent, ossified institutions—the Polish Jazz Association, its publisher Jazz Forum, and the Polish Artistic Agency PAGART. As the only concert agencies, they had the absolute power to issue artists passports for international travel, regardless of the actual interest of international promoters. Joachim Mencel, who was studying at the Academy of Music in Katowice at the time, remembers that in the late 1980s there was not much that was interesting 1 Ewa Domańska, “Historia antropologiczna. Mikrohistoria” [Anthropological history. Microhistory], in Powrót Martina Guerre’a, ed. Natalie Zemon Davis (Poznań: Zysk i Spółka, 2011), 217. 2 Giovanni Levi, “On Microhistory,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. Peter Burke (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 106. 3 Paweł Rodak, Pismo, książka, lektura. Rozmowy: Le Goff, Chartier, Hébrard, Febre, Lejeune [Writing, book, reading. Conversations] (Warszawa: Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2009), 41–42. 4 Katarzyna Siwiec, “Jazzman Jan Boba: Ludzie tracą rozeznanie, czego warto słuchać” [ Jazzman Jan Boba: People lose track of what is worth listening to], Gazeta Wyborcza, March 1, 2016, http://krakow.wyborcza.pl/krakow/1,44425,19698724,jazzman-jan-boba-ludzie-tracarozeznanie-czego-warto-sluchac.html.

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and valuable happening in mainstream jazz. Few concerts were organized and there was a kind of crisis, which affected both jazz fans and jazz musicians, who had nowhere to play.5 On the other hand, Tymon Tymański, a pioneer of yass and the founder of the band Miłość recalls that some of the musicians wanted to distance themselves from the conservative mainstream For me, to play such jazz “honestly” was complete nonsense. I would simply be ashamed to play such music […]. The jazz of the ’80s was for us a synonym of artistic decline. […] The word “jazz” brought to mind the gloomy world of gastronomy and clubs where corpulent, bald, bearded men played for five shortsighted fans.6 Worse, official artistic activities were subordinate to the state. Censorship and strict control of public speaking condemned rebels and innovators to the margins; it was not easy to break through. Tymański adds: I went through the torment of maturing in an aura of impossibility and prohibition, in the center of a gray, depressing commune with its ubiquitous propaganda.7 Thus, artists could only enjoy real freedom by creating independently, in the “underground.” In such an environment, Totart, one of the main roots of yass, was born. This avant-garde alternative art formation was centered around Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz and fed on the influences of the most subversive art trends of the twentieth century, such as Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, happenings, Fluxus, street theater, and so-called stream of consciousness writing. Demonstrations of nudity, vulgarity, and profanation were realized in the most vivid forms. Totart artists performed increasingly radical acts, bringing the idea of paratheatrical performances to the point of brutal absurdity. The happenings were intended to

5 Antoni Krupa, Miasto błękitnych nut, czyli historia krakowskiego jazzu i nie tylko [The city of blue notes, or the history of Krakow’s jazz and more] (Kraków: Centrum Kultury Dworek Białoprądnicki, 2008), 133. 6 Tymon Tymański, Rafał Księżyk, ADHD. Autobiografia (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2013), 248. 7 Joanna Wojdas, “Porozmawiajmy o Miłości. Rozmowa z Tymonem Tymańskim” [Let’s talk about love. Interview with Tymon Tymański], Machina, full date, https://kultura.onet.pl/ muzyka/wywiady-i-artykuly/porozmawiajmy-o-milosci/jscnk86.

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introduce cultural ferment and wake up a numb public, and consequently all of Polish society. Journalist Maciej Chmiel claims that Everything you did back then was political in its own way. The bizarre behavior of Totart, the so-called “transgressions,” bore the hallmarks of a manifesto, but were more like an anarchic shout: “Here we are, and we want to do something with our life!”8 Double bass player Olgierd Walicki, a member of the Łoskot band, which was strongly associated with the yass scene from the very beginning, recalls: Life went on as if we were one big family. We all sat in one rehearsal room where anyone could drop in and start a band with a strange name. Total freedom! It coincided with the change of the system and we felt subcutaneously that certain limitations were ending. This nascent yass was a beautiful way for us to express positive emotions. Suddenly, we all had a lot of creative power.9 Totart grew rapidly, especially in the northern part of the country, inspiring many artists to act in a completely different way. The generation of children of the 1968 revolutions, which was maturing in the 1980s, finally wanted to break the cultural stillness of the period and “make this revolution in Poland, not read about it.”10 Thus, the actions of young artists were driven by the myth of the beatniks, free jazz (in new geopolitical and social contexts), punk rock, and New Wave, at the same time signaling the birth of music that would synergistically combine the most rebellious and pro-freedom genres. As the prominent journalist Rafał Księżyk states: The yass row was a breakthrough, heralding the advent of a new time. […] Gloomy, inspired punk, crowned the 1980s. But the next era needed a different energy—and yass contained it. It was

8 Sebastian Rerak, Chłepcąc ciekły hel – historia yassu [Slurping liquid helium—a history of yass] (Gdynia: A KuKu Sztuka, 2012), ebook. 9 Ibid. 10 Tymański, ADHD, 130.

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also inspired, but bursting with crazy, absurd humor, intriguing with a grotesque grimace, variety, and openness.11 Mikołaj Trzaska recalls that the 1980s were a time of emptiness, which demanded a rebellion. Hippies were basically harmless to the system, because they only had their “peace and love.” But there was no place or time for them then, since Poland is cold. Even in summer.12 Tymański adds: It was our form of protest. We wanted not only a new country, like Solidarność [Solidarity], but a new world in general. […] We felt that we were outside this whole system.13 According to Tomasz Gwinciński, shock related to the change in the system still prevailed, and everything in the country was changing. For a moment there was a sense of freedom, and everyone felt up to doing something of their own.14 After the political transformation, punk lost its importance. Hence the turn of the young alternative scene towards free jazz and unrestricted improvisation, which then seemed to be a no-man’s-land. But there was still the undamaged and living myth of Krzysztof Komeda, Tomasz Stańko, or Zbigniew Seifert; as Tymański says, “we felt that we could tear off a fragment, some ‘Quebec,’ and create our own republic.”15

11 Rafał Księżyk, “Intuicjoniści – pierwsze 15 lat polskiego off jazzu” [Intuitionists—the first 15 years of Polish Off jazz], Dwutygodnik, February 2014, https://www.dwutygodnik.com/ artykul/5072-intuicjonisci-pierwsze-15-lat-polskiego-off-jazzu.html. 12 Rerak, Chłepcąc ciekły hel. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Wojciech Oleksiak, “Yass – jazz, wściekłość i brud” [Yass—jazz, rage, and dirt], Culture.pl, April 9, 2014, https://culture.pl/pl/artykul/yass-jazz-wscieklosc-i-brud.

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Yass Syndrome By using various, often extreme means, yass openly and radically opposed the musical canons and hierarchies of art and pop culture. As a matter a fact, it was opposed to everything: the authorities and state institutions, a sluggish and bland society, the conformist media, and the consumerism of early capitalism. Ideologically, yass still revolved around punk, but above all it should be considered a hypertrophy of the jazz idea of freedom and free improvisation that was implemented and brought to the fore in the 1960s. The freedom of artistic experimentation was practiced even at the price of eclecticism and knocking on unlocked doors. Yass was innovative, though not in a compositional or technical sense, but in a style (punk jazz?). It was an intriguing as well as a controversial phenomenon, close to the counterculture of psychedelia and combined with performance and Dadaist poetry. It embraced controversy, moral provocation, vulgarity, and obscenity. The term “yass” was coined by Tymański, the clarinetist Jerzy “Mazzol” Mazzolewski, and the guitarist Tomasz Gwinciński. The first yass album was Tańce Bydgoskie (Bydgoszcz Dances) by the group Trytony, founded by Gwinciński.16 The scene included bands such as Łoskot, Arhythmic Perfection, Kury, Maestro Trytony, the Tymański Yass Ensemble, Kury, Kablox, Perplex, and Paralaksa. The “melting pot” where the artists associated with yass met was usually the Bydgoszcz club called Mózg (Brain).

Miłość—For the Love of Freedom The leading yass group was Miłość, where the expressive and eccentric personalities of Tymański (double bass, voice) and Trzaska (saxophones) clashed with the musical technique and seriousness of Maciej Sikała (saxophones) and Leszek Możdżer (piano).17 The collective was joined by talented, universal drummer Jacek Olter. “Barbarians and academy men” is how the band’s members described themselves. They exploited the original and rich artistic potential of these musicians, which had germinated back in the Communist era, to the limits of possibility and absurdity in the freedom of post-1989 Poland. Totart 16 The album combines jazz, free improvisation, song, the sounds of poultry, tribal shouts, references to folk dances, and the music of Bela Bartók. 17 Leszek Możdżer replaced Jerzy “Mazzoll” Mazolewski (clarinetist), who collaborated with the band till 1991.

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triggered a spirit of courage in the musicians, and they brazenly and ruthlessly pursued it at all costs and in every dimension. As Trzaska explains, Suddenly it turned out that from today a lot is possible, and yesterday it was impossible to do anything. […] A little earlier, I was concerned about the prospect of taking the state exam, necessary to play on Polish stages, and here we could finally play and we did not need verification for that.18 The beginnings of the Miłość band date back to 1988, but it became more widely known in 1992 thanks to the Jazz Juniors festival, where it took second place. In the same year, the name “yass” appeared on a poster promoting their self-titled debut record. The subsequent albums Taniec Smoka (Dance of the Dragon, 1994) and Asthmatic (1996) turned out to be even more “yassy”—that is, fanciful and varied. The band also managed to record two special albums with legendary avant-garde trumpet player Lester Bowie (from the Art Ensemble of Chicago): Not Two (1995) and Talkin’ About Life And Death (1999). Miłość suspended its activities in 2001 due to the suicide of Jacek Olter. The innocuous sounding name Miłość—meaning love—was supposed to emphasize a positive and affirmative message, but it also resulted from the fascination with the late John Coltrane (A Love Supreme, 1962) and the Beatles (“All You Need Is Love,” 1967). The group’s music is ardent, even ecstatic, but there is no pathos in it; rather, it is ironic, grotesque, deliberately inadequate, and takes an antiheroic approach. Many pieces, such as “Soffties by Profession” or “Plasma-Itch,” are musical antics, goofing around, and mischief. The very titles of the tracks say a lot about the ironic attitude of the musicians. They practiced a kind of “poetry of goofy names” and cultivated the spirit of parody, pastiche, satire, and burlesque, but in a monstrous, mega-caricatural form.19 The music of Miłość is full of contradictions: the precise arrangement of themes is combined with nonharmonic improvisation and a sensitivity to the phrase or sound itself. Its tribalism and free jazz shamanism are close to the attitudes of such legends as Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler, but they also come from African, Far Eastern, and even Balkan traditions, which is why it is far from the cold conceptualism of the avant-garde. Unbridled madness or clownishness was most evident during concerts, where the band mixed various forms, such as poetic improvisation, manifestos, staged collage, action painting, and street 18 Rerak, Chłepcąc ciekły hel. 19 Tymański, ADHD, 80.

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theater. This is less evident in the toned-down studio albums, but even there it is easy to see numerous jokes about traditional jazz and blues—for example, “Your Goatee Gets on My Nerves (Not to Mention the Moustache)” and “Shit blues.” A sincere nod to the past is only in the modality, which is straight from Miles Davis or Frank Zappa. It causes a kind of trance, and because of it—in the opinion of the musicians—it step away from spirituality. In order to negate the ossified idiom of jazz or blues forms, Miłość uses various tradition measures. For example, the Taniec smoka album consists of several asymmetrical themes. On the other hand, in “Łzy smoka” (Tears of a dragon) a slightly bluesy theme is played in all twelve keys. Of course, you can also find on this album pieces that are more conceptualized and “cooler” in expression, reminiscent of proto-free jazz recordings by pianist Lennie Tristano (“Bluesin’ For L. T.”). The atonal or pseudo-dodecaphonic “The Left Side Yass” and “The Bardo of Life” also sound modern. Even though the Miłość band wanted to be independent and original, it employed numerous, pseudo-quotes, allusions, and hidden musical references. Musicians had particular respect for the eccentrics of the twentieth-century avant-garde—for example, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Giacinto Scelsi, as well as lesser-knowns like Alois Hába or Conlon Nancarrow. Tymański repeatedly emphasized that his favorite composer was Charles Ives, hence the interpretations of songs “Maple Leaves” or “Evening,” direct musical dedications (“The Song of a Little Knowing—A Tribute to Charles Ives”) or other references (“Chłepcąc ciekły hel” [Slurping of liquid helium]). This dazzling play with a multiplicity of musical styles confirms demonstrates the group’s openness, nonjazz inspirations, and the musical knowledge of the musicians. Furthermore, rock is an element of “The Dance of the Dragon,” which was supposed to be a travesty of “Psy Pawłowa” [Pavlov’s Dogs] by the iconic 1980s band Republika (important New Wave album Nieustanne tango [Constant tango, 1984]). “Ostatni z ludzkich smoków” [The last of human dragons] is a reference to the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). A particular example of musical opposition is “Asthmatic,” which the musicians define as “sham jazz,” and whose title mockingly refers to the cult album Astigmatic (1966) by the Krzysztof Komeda Quintet, considered to be the most outstanding recording in the history of Polish jazz. This could be read as an attempt to disenchant the cult surrounding this famous work. Undisguised eclecticism, often focused on diversity, even an excess of means and musical material, seems typical of young artists. But youthful nonchalance, or even impudence, sometimes clashes with the seriousness of the topics addressed, such as individualism versus collectivism, precision versus freedom.

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This music is not easy to understand because it is demands emotional and intellectual listening. The colorful artistic activities of the Miłość band, then, and indeed the entire yass scene, provide excellent examples of the full use of artistic freedom, in all its shades: unrestrained stylistic diversity, the spontaneity of improvisation, the debauchery of means, frivolity and live shamelessness. Yass is a tribute to the idea of total freedom announced by the Totart movement. This freedom is no longer used in the fight against the system, but serves freedom itself.

Conclusion The legacy of yass consists of several dozen albums, but also the living myth of an idealistic artistic movement striving for the true and final liberation of sounds and words; a group of enthusiasts who wanted to explode the musical milieu from the inside unleashed a small revolution with the features of a national upheaval, significant enough to change Polish jazz forever. Miłość was undoubtedly a prominent band, which managed to create a valuable alternative to the conservative, incestuous, native musical mainstream. Interestingly, after the year 2000, when the impetus of yass had dissipated, a figure managed to enter this mainstream who today is difficult to associate stylistically and aesthetically with the subversive activity of yass. This figure is Leszek Możdżer—currently one of the most outstanding Polish jazz musicians, an original creator and a world-class pianist. Thanks to his frequent presence in the mass media, he became, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the most recognized Polish jazz musician next to Tomasz Stańko.20 The other members of the band Miłość went in a different artistic direction. Mikołaj Trzaska, who ostentatiously separates himself from the mainstream, writes, among other types of music, film scores. So does Tymon Tymański,21 who is also the founder of several rock bands (Kury, Tymon and Transistors). After all, the jazz world today is very different. The definition of jazz is now much broader and the music incorporates phenomena that are distant from one another of its diversity of genres and approaches. New festivals and various

20 Igor Pietraszewski, Jazz w Polsce, czyli wolność improwizowana [ Jazz in Poland, or improvised freedom] (Kraków: Nomos, 2012), 148. 21 Currently, he is most associated with the music he composed to Wojciech Smarzowski’s film Wesele (2004). The film was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Gdynia Film Festival and the Orły Polish Film Academy festival.

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independent distribution and promotion channels have emerged, and even the niche alternative music scene has gained wider recognition. Moreover, total creative freedom, which was once an unattainable goal artists, is now almost standard and is merely a starting point. There is no need to break any aesthetic barriers anymore, because successive waves of the jazz avant-garde have done so. The first Polish jazz musicians wanted to “play like African Americans in the USA” and felt a lack of musical knowledge; for today’s players, it is quite the opposite. They do not want to copy past masters and idols.22 A completely different problem looms before them—namely, freeing themselves from the mainstream and looking for their own artistic path, their own musical language and aesthetics. Finally, a question must be asked: Is it possible today to create a single and dominant form of generational rebellion, one outlet through which juvenile anger and vigor can flow reach the consumer’s ears and eyes? It seems not, because the key slogans of the present day are variousness and diversity. Jazz, rock, even punk and metal, have no social firepower in Poland. Perhaps the goal of freedom from tradition and conventions has been instilled so deeply that these days it is taken as read. Freedom and broad horizons exude from the work of most young Polish jazz musicians, like Piotr Orzechowski, Marcin Masecki, or Kuba Więcek. They are still writing their own stories. This publication is a result of the research project DAINA 1 No. 2017/27/L/HS2/03240 funded by The National Science Centre (NCN), Poland.

Bibliography Bielenia, Tomasz. “Miłość, czyli zdrada ideałów” [Miłość, or the betrayal of ideals]. Dwutygodnik, June 2013. https://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/4568-milosc-czyli-zdrada-idealow.html. Borowska, Magdalena. “Leszek Możdżer w świecie europejskiego jazzu” [Leszek Możdżer in the world of European jazz]. Culture.pl, April 28, 2011. https://culture.pl/pl/artykul/ leszek-mozdzer-w-swiecie-europejskiego-jazzu. Borowski, Robert. “Anarchia w samym środku głowy” [Anarchy right in the middle of the head]. Dalej 6 (1991): 10.

22 Let us note that in the past the career of a jazzman was based on apprenticeship to other, more experienced musicians. This way of development, for a number reasons, is becoming less and less popular nowadays.

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Burszta, Wojciech, and Rychlewski, Marcin, eds. A po co nam rock? Między duszą a ciałem [Why do we need rock? Between soul and body]. Warszawa: Twój Styl, 2003. Chaciński, Bartek. “Dzieci Miłości” […]. Przekrój 17‒18 (2007): 70–72. Domańska, Ewa. “Historia Antropologiczna. Mikrohistoria” [Anthropological History. Microhistory]. In Powrót Martina Guerre’a, edited by Natalie Zemon Davis 195–246. Poznań: Zysk i Spółka, 2011. Dzierżawski, Filip, dir. Miłość [documentary film]. Warszawa: Lifetime Production/Narodowe Centrum Kultury, 2012. Fic, Maciej. “Rola polskiej muzyki nowofalowej w walce o odzyskanie suwerenności w 1989 roku” [The role of Polish new wave music in the struggle to regain sovereignty in 1989]. In Polska droga do wolności. Rok 1989: polityka – edukacja – kultura, edited by Joanna Raźniewska, Krystyna Stecka, and Marek Białokur, 109–110. Toruń-Opole: Adam Marszałek, 2009. “Jazz a sprawa polska – yass, czyli czemu jazz is the new punk” [ Jazz and the Polish matter—yass, or why jazz is the new punk]. Electronic Beats, November 29, 2018. https://www.electronicbeats.pl/jazz-a-sprawa-polska-yass-czyli-czemu-jazz-is-the-new-punk/. Krupa, Antoni. Miasto błękitnych nut, czyli historia krakowskiego jazzu i nie tylko [The city of blue notes, or the history of Krakow’s jazz and more]. Kraków: Centrum Kultury Dworek Białoprądnicki, 2008. Księżyk, Rafał. “Intuicjoniści – pierwsze 15 lat polskiego off jazzu” [Intuitionists—the first 15 years of Polish jff Jazz]. Dwutygodnik, February 2013. https://www.dwutygodnik.com/ artykul/5072-intuicjonisci-pierwsze-15-lat-polskiego-off-jazzu.html. ———. “Miłość Kur do Trupów” [Hens’ Love for Dead Bodies]. Brum 21‒22 (1995): 16. Księżyk, Rafał, and Tymon Tymański. ADHD. Autobiografia. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie 2013. Levi, Giovanni. “On Microhistory”. In New Perspectives on Historical Writing, edited by Peter Burke, 97­–119. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. Major, Barbara. Dionizos w Glanach [Dionysus in Motorcycle Boots]. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2013. Oleksiak, Wojciech. “Yass – jazz, wściekłość i brud” [Yass—jazz, rage and dirt]. Culture.pl, April 9, 2014. https://culture.pl/pl/artykul/yass-jazz-wscieklosc-i-brud. Pietraszewski, Igor. Jazz w Polsce, czyli wolność improwizowana [ Jazz in Poland, or improvised freedom]. Kraków: Nomos, 2012. Piotrowski, Grzegorz. “Punk against Communism: The Jarocin Rock Festival and Revolting Youth in 1980s Poland”. In A European Youth Revolt: European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s, edited by Knud Andresen and Bart van der Steen, 203–216. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Author. “Polski yass, czyli scena faraonów” [Polish yass, or scene of the pharaohs]. Polskie Radio, April 4, 2013. https://www.polskieradio.pl/8/689/Artykul/816491,Polski-yass-czyli-scenafaraonow. Rerak, Sebastian. Chłepcąc ciekły hel – historia yassu [Slurping liquid helium—history of yass]. Gdynia: A KuKu Sztuka, 2012. Revel, Jacques. “Microanalysis and the Construction of the Social”. In Histories: French Construction of the Past, edited by Jacques Revel and Lynn Hunt, 491–495. New York: The New Press, 1995.

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Rodak, Paweł. Pismo, książka, lektura. Rozmowy: Le Goff, Chartier, Hébrard, Febre, Lejeune [Writing, book, reading. Conversations: Le Goff, Chartier, Hébrard, Febre, Lejeune]. Warszawa: Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2009. Siwiec, Katarzyna. “Jazzman Jan Boba: Ludzie tracą rozeznanie, czego warto słuchać” [ Jazzman Jan Boba: people lose track of what is worth listening to]. Gazeta Wyborcza, March 1, 2016. http://krakow.wyborcza.pl/krakow/1,44425,19698724,jazzman-jan-boba-ludzie-tracarozeznanie-czego-warto-sluchac.html. Various. Cały ten yass [All that yass]. Jazz Forum Records 002, 1997, compact disc. Wojdas, Joanna. “Porozmawiajmy o Miłości. Rozmowa z Tymonem Tymańskim” [Let’s talk about love. Interview with Tymon Tymański]. Machina, full date. https://kultura.onet.pl/muzyka/ wywiady-i-artykuly/porozmawiajmy-o-milosci/jscnk86.

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CHAPTER 12

Critics’ Choice: New Russian Music Criticism and Leonid Desyatnikov Olga Manulkina

Saint Petersburg State University Keywords: new Russian music criticism, contemporary Russian composers, Leonid Desyatnikov, Pyotr Pospelov, Alexander Timofeevsky, postmodernism, Kommersant newspaper, post-Soviet media

Introduction: Names and Numbers The music critic Pyotr Pospelov is rightly held as both the key figure in Russian music criticism since the 1990s and the writer most responsible for its approach. He began his now thirty-year-long career as a music columnist in the fall of 1993 with two reviews on twentieth-century music that were published in the first newspaper he wrote for, Kommersant. The pieces were titled “The European Budetlyane Have Triumphed over the Russian Futurists” (on the reconstruction of the 1913 opera Victory Over the Sun by Matjushin, Malevich, and Kruchenykh) and “Away With Edinichnikov, Let’s Have Desyatnikov” (on composer Leonid Desyatnikov’s recital).1 1 Pyotr Pospelov, “Европейские будетляне победили русских футуристов (Победа над Солнцем в Москве) [The European budetlyane have triumphed over the Russian futurists (Victory over the Sun in Moscow)], Kommersant, October 15, 1993, http://musiccritics.ru/?readfull=2349; “Долой Единичникова, даешь Десятникова (Творческий вечер Леонида Десятникова)” [Away with Yedinichnikov, let’s have Desyatnikov

Critics’ Choice

In 1993, contemporary music was the main subject of Pospelov’s critical and scholarly work; he had graduated as a musicologist from the Moscow Conservatory three years earlier with a thesis on minimalism—a rare topic in the Russian academy at the time and one that is still understudied. He also composed music and, in the previous year (1992), had founded the Creativity and Production Association “Composer” (ТПО «Композитор»)—a composing collective (although later Pospelov was sometimes the only composer of work signed by the collective). His curatorial projects have included St. Matthew Passion 2000 and the opera Tsar Demyan (2001).2 In the 2010s, he developed three interconnected websites: russiancomposers.ru, musiccritics.ru, and theatrecritics.ru. The senior music critic at Kommersant in 1993, Pospelov’s main focus was contemporary music. It is significant that the first composer he reviewed in the culture section of the newspaper—the flagship (together with the newspaper Segodnja) of new Russian media3—was Leonid Desyatnikov. Of equal significance is the fact that it was the second piece on Desyatnikov published in Kommersant within a month. The first one, a review of Desyatnikov’s LP Dichterliebe und Leben, was written by the film critic and film music specialist Irina Lubarskaya.4 The site russiancomposers.ru contains links to most of the Russian critical texts that mention contemporary Russian composers. Among the three hundred composers from the three relevant generations, Leonid Desyatnikov (b. 1955) leads in terms of number of references (294). Compared with the older generation, he leaves venerable St. Petersburg composers like Sergei Slonimsky and Alexander Knaifel miles behind with only sixteen and eighteen references, respectively, and outpaces the Moscow luminaries Edison Denisov (sixty-seven), Sofia Gubaidulina (seventy-eight), and Alfred Schnittke (121). His peer Vladimir (Leonid Desyatnikov’s recital)], Kommersant, November 6, 1993, http://musiccritics. ru/?readfull=2342. Both texts are included in the first and third volumes of Olga Manulkina and Pavel Gershenzon, eds., Новая русская музыкальная критика 1993–2003, vol. 1, Opera; vol. 3, Concerts [New Russian music criticism 1993–2003, vol. 1, Opera; vol. 3, Concerts] (Moscow: Novoje literaturnoje obozrenije, 2015; 2016). 2 Fifteen composers and fifteen poets participated in St. Matthew Passion 2000 and five composers in Tsar Demyan. 3 In this article I will pay special attention to Kommersant, where I worked as a music critic in the St. Petersburg office from 1995 to 2002; I will also draw on texts on Desyatnikov that were published in other newspapers and magazines. 4 Irina Lubarskaya, “Леонид Десятников не стесняется музыки, которая нравится профанам (Новый диск Леонида Десятникова)” [Leonid Desyatnikov does not shy away from music beloved by music laymen (Leonid Desyatnikov’s New Disc], Kommersant, October 06, 1993, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/61337.

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Tarnopolsky (ninety-five) can hardly compete with him. Desyatnikov’s potential rivals are Dmitry Kurljandsky (182) and Sergei Nevsky (185), both in their forties; the only composer who comes close to him is Vladimir Martynov with 280 mentions. This number, however is distributed unevenly throughout three decades (the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s). The leap from the 1990s to the 2000s is striking. It appears that the lion’s share of the texts (approximately 170) on Desyatnikov was in the 2000s, with a peak in 2005, the year of his jubilee, when his opera The Children of Rosenthal (with libretto by Vladimir Sorokin) premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre, provoked a flurry of writing, and was the subject of a scandal. Only about two dozen texts were published in the 1990s. Martynov received the same number, while Alfred Schnittke was mentioned twice as often. The latter fact is not surprising. However, the same cannot be said about the equal numbers of texts on Martynov and Desyatnikov, as in the 1990s they had very different reputations. “Martynov reigned,” said composer Pavel Karmanov in 2015 about the situation in the 1990s.5 Pyotr Pospelov noted that Martynov was “the only one who managed to participate in both the official composers’ festival ‘Moscow Autumn’ and in ‘Alternative’ [Альтернатива], while also getting the support of the Ford Foundation for CDs and the ensemble ‘Opus Posth.’”6 Composer Anton Batagov admitted that “he was a very important guide for us.”7 Martynov dominated the dynamic Moscow music scene—a scene that was in a different league from St. Petersburg, which was not even alluded to in the article by Ekaterina Biryukova about contemporary music in the 1990s from which the above quotations are taken. As Pospelov observed in 1999, Leonid Desyatnikov “was not claimed by the contemporary music festivals, Pierre Boulez, musicologist-theorists, or the musical public, which listens to composers who are considered to be contemporary.”8 The St. Petersburg contemporary music scene, including its festivals, was more

5 Ekaterina Biryukova, “Между АСМ и ‘Альтернативой’ (очевидцы и актуальные герои композиторской музыки 90-х складывают картину эпохи)” [Between ACM and “Alternative” (witnesses and participants of composers’ music in the ’90s assemble a picture of the era)], Colta.ru, September 17, 2015, https://www.colta.ru/articles/music_classic/ 8560-mezhdu-asm-i-alternativoy. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Pyotr Pospelov, “Строгий стиль Леонида Десятникова (‘Враги сожгли родную хату’, пели в консерватории)” [Leonid Desyatnikov’s strict style they sang in the conservatory], Известия, December 25, 1999, http://www.musiccritics.ru/?id=3&readfull=3456.

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modest than Moscow one. On this scene Desyatnikov did enjoyed success: by the early 1990s his music was being performed in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) concert halls and theatres, at St. Petersburg Composers’ Union programs, and at festivals. Moreover, he could boast a rare achievement: his opera Poor Lisa, composed while he was studying at Leningrad Conservatory, premiered—with Boris Pokrovsky directing—at the Moscow Chamber Theatre. In his 1993 review, Pospelov wrote that Desyatnikov composes “a wide range of academic music” and did not add him to his list of the “main landmarks” of St. Petersburg music, which included Galina Ustvolskaya and Alexander Knaifel (whom he called “pillars of the sacred avant-garde”), Yury Khanin (“a shocking radical”), Sergei Kuryokhin (“a commercial star”), and Oleg Karavaichuk (“a Martian disguised as a composer”). Pospelov remarked on the “sophistication of taste and infantile spontaneity” of Desyatnikov’s musical language; his melodiousness, the “broad and unsystematic sensibility that distinguishes Desyatnikov from his post-avant-garde contemporaries,” and his reliance on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music. That same year (1993), I wrote about “the delicate and indissoluble blend” of “heterogeneous, incompatible elements in Desyatnikov’s works,” and about “the niche” where “he and his music reside,” hence his isolation at contemporary music festivals.9 The composer has stayed true to his method since then, and several generations of writers have endeavored to translate it into words.

Life and Work In 1993, Leonid Desyatnikov10 was a composer of theatre works and several vocal cycles, including his magnum opus Dichterliebe und Leben (1989) on poems by Daniil Kharms and Nikolai Oleinikov. This cycle has often been performed since and was choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky at Moscow’s Territory festival in 2007 with the title Old Ladies Falling Out. His Variations on Obtaining a Dwelling for Cello and Piano (1990) and his music for two films define the two main areas of his 1990s work. Another composition that could claim the title of magnum opus is Russian Seasons (2000), commissioned and premiered by

9 Olga Manulkina. Леонид Десятников. Каталог произведений [Leonid Desyatnikov. A catalogue of his compositions] (St. Petersburg: Composers’ Union, 1993). 10 Leonid Desyatnikov was born in 1955 in Kharkiv, Ukraine (then Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR) in a Jewish Russian-speaking family. He came to Leningrad to study at the Conservatory and graduated in 1978.

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Gidon Kremer, and also choreographed by Ratmansky (New York City Ballet, 2006); it was preceded by a series of arrangements, mostly of Astor Piazzolla’s music, made by Desyatnikov for Kremer and his orchestra. Desyatnikov wrote his most famous film score Moscow in the same year, 2000. Earlier, he had composed his only symphony to date The Rite of Winter 1949 (1998). During the 1990s, his chamber works and film music brought him ever-growing popularity and an ever-growing number of critical reviews. By the beginning of the 2000s, he had truly become the Russian music criticism’s center of attention. It is telling that critic Ekaterina Biryukova included Desyatnikov’s Moscow suite among her ten most important music events of the year 2000 (along with, for example, the Mariinsky Theatre premiere of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, which signaled the start of the first staging of the Ring cycle in Russia in a hundred years); Pyotr Pospelov named Moscow the most significant musical work of the year.11 Desyatnikov’s opera The Children of Rosenthal began to draw critical attention in 2002, when the project was announced. The theatre producer Eduard Bojakov and Pyotr Pospelov, who in 2001–2002 was the Bolshoi Theatre’s head of programming, commissioned two operas from two composers—one from Moscow and one from St. Petersburg. The operas were to be staged at the theatre of each composer’s counterpart: the Moscow opera at the Mariinsky Theatre; the St. Petersburg opera at the Bolshoi. It would have been surprising if the two composers selected had been anyone other than Vladimir Martynov and Leonid Desyatnikov. The choice was inevitable; it was the logical conclusion of the composers’ career paths by the early 2000s. Martynov’s Vita nova (2003) has not yet been staged at the Mariinsky; it premiered in March 2021 in Ufa (Bashkortostan).12 Desyatnikov’s opera premiered in 2005 at the Bolshoi’s New Stage and became the first new opera commissioned and performed by the theatre in thirty years. It caused a major commotion, the first of its kind in post-Soviet Russia.13 The protests of the Ours youth movement 11 Ekaterina Biryukova, “Итоги 2000 года. Классическая музыка” [The results of the year 2000. Classical music], Vremja novostei, December 29, 2000, http://russiancomposers. ru/?readfull=4116; Pyotr Pospelov, “Европейская симфония (Музыкальная классика: итоги года)” [The European symphony (Classical music: the results of the year)], Izvestia, December 28, 2000, http://russiancomposers.ru/?readfull=3545. 12 Valery Gergiev conducted a part of the opera called “Introduction” in Moscow in 2002 at his first Easter festival; Andrey Petrenko performed the opera in concert with the Mariinsky Choir and Orchestra in 2003 at the second Easter festival; Vladimir Jurovsky conducted concert performances in London and New York (2009). 13 See 2005 reviews and interviews on Desyatnikov’s page, http://russiancomposers.ru/?lng= ru&about=14§ion=44.

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and by certain Russian parliamentary representatives were directed against the opera’s librettist, however—the writer and dramatist Vladimir Sorokin. The critics and Anatoly Iksanov, the Bolshoi Theatre’s General Director, advocated for the opera and its creators; Desyatnikov himself remarked that the protesters were uninterested in the opera’s music. The number of reviews, interviews, articles on the opera exceeded all precedents in post-Soviet media. Pyotr Pospelov captured the moment, stating that Desyatnikov was “the most appreciated [composer] in enlightened circles in his homeland” and among “the serious composers of the middle generation.” He added that only Martynov “could compete with him.”14 Four months later, Pospelov pronounced Desyatnikov a cultural “hero of the year.” In this article, subtitled “Desyatnikov Cannot Be Replaced,” he wrote that he could not imagine any other Russian musician writing a new opera for the Bolshoi.15 Epithets bestowed upon Desyatnikov since then have ranged from “famous” to “iconic.” Desyatnikov’s collaboration with the Bolshoi Theatre continued with ballets choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. The most dazzling moment in the composer’s career at the Bolshoi was his appointment as music director in 2009, although he only occupied the position for a year. The announcement was something of a sensation: it was out of the ordinary even for 2009 and would have been unthinkable in the early 1990s. The role of new music criticism in the events is hard to overestimate. It is not only the number of texts on Desyatnikov that is important in this respect, but also the names of their authors. It would be difficult to name a single notable writer in three generations who has not published something on the composer. Furthermore, Desyatnikov has inspired some of the most refined literature on music in recent decades. As an example, I quote the following 2005 article by composer and critic Boris Filanovsky: Desyatnikov discovered the secret relationships between any two musical phenomena. He needs only to choose them—and the antagonistic essences grow together cellularly, while their very juxtaposition seems not to have been invented by the 14 Pyotr Pospelov, “Мирный композитор Десятников (Бедную Лизу поместят в компанию детей Розенталя)” [The peaceful composer Desyatnikov (Poor Lisa to be included with The Children of Rosenthal)]. Vedomosti, August 24, 2005, http://russiancomposers.ru/? readfull=4045 15 Pyotr Pospelov, “Равнодушный стратег (Леониду Десятникову замены нет)” [The indifferent strategist (Leonid Desyatnikov cannot be replaced). Vedomosti, December 29, 2005, http://russiancomposers.ru/?readfull=4143.

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author, but to have been naturally conceived. This gift seems to have always been with him. All of Desyatnikov’s opuses are filled with an alchemical flicker. But now it has flared up—and a constellation map has appeared in the test tube. The work of the 45-year-old master now appears as a growing macro-organism, with each new part possessing the properties of the whole.   Leonid Desyatnikov has almost become the Gogol of Russian music, its mysterious shadow, capable of masterly enhancing the very nature of musical experience. The main lesson that the composer’s audience gratefully learns is the continuity and endless plasticity of musical meaning. If this is decadence, then only in the first auditory approximation; if postmodernism, then only for the critical etiquette. Not that we live in the Desyatnikov era—this era is somewhere nearby: parallel, unstable [неверная] and close, perishable and incorruptible.16 Posing the question as to why it was Leonid Desyatnikov who became new music criticism’s “distinct object of desire” might help to define some of the features of this criticism, its questions and agenda.

New Russian Media Those who took the risk of becoming music critics in Russia in the early 1990s faced the challenges of working in new Russian media in general and of music reviewing in particular. In terms of the history of media revolutions in the 1990s, Kommersant newspaper (founded in December 1989) is regarded as the first post-Soviet media outlet. It was “a symbol of change and the foundation of Russian journalism[;] … made according to Western canons, speaking to the reader in a completely new language, and placing equal emphasis on business and culture.”17 The critic and essayist Alexander Timofeevsky (1958–2020) wrote that his immediate reaction to Kommersant in January 1990 was “pure human joy.”18 In 16 Boris Filanovsky, “Композитор Гоголь” [The Gogol-Composer]. Kommersant Saint Petersburg, December 29, 2000. 17 Alexander Gorbachev and Ilya Krasilshchik, eds., История русских медиа 1989–2011. Версия “Афиши” [The history of Russian media 1989–2011. Afisha’s version] (Moscow: Afisha, 2011), 9. 18 Ibid., 25.

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1992, he became the consulting editor of the newspaper and he defined the politics and style of Kommersant’s culture columns. His role as an ideologist of new Russian art criticism and cultural journalism as a whole is almost impossible to exaggerate. Under his guidance, and with Alexei Tarkhanov’s as the editor of the culture section, Kommersant became “a bastion of high culture”19 in the mid-1990s, perhaps even an ivory tower. Timofeevsky observed that “At a certain moment, the culture [desk] was permitted everything,” even “to be as far away from the people as possible.”20 He described Kommersant as the newspaper of “highly intellectual culture,” where “an absolutely unique cultural environment was developing.” As he argued, newspapers were where the best and most important arts writing was found in the 1990s. This was a new and unique moment in the history of Russian journalism and criticism—a true “collaboration between intellectuals and the media.”21 In 2004, looking back on the mid-1990s a decade later, Timofeevsky proposed that the early 1990s flourishing of intellectual debate in Kommersant helped provide both the newspaper and its readers—the “new Russian” [businessman]—with a respectable bourgeois image. According to Timofeevsky, these were the precise goals of Vladimir Yakovlev, Kommersant’s founder, editor until 1992, and owner until 1999. The newspaper enabled “former underground entrepreneurs, Komsomol members who had gone into business, and black marketeers wear a suit that did not fit them, but which they could no longer do without.” He continued: “Next to a clever, sophisticated culture, pyramid schemes stood proudly. […] All of us at Kommersant in the early 1990s worked as if at a laundry.”22 In 1995, answering a question posed by Tatjana Rasskazova,23 Timofeevsky painted a more idealistic picture:

19 Nikolai Vokuev, “Культура как ‘интеллектуальный отбеливатель’ и излишек: об особенностях культурной журналистики в постсоветской России” [Culture as an “intellectual whitener” and redundancy, as well: on the particular qualities of cultural journalism in post-Soviet Russia], Человек, культура, образование [People, culture, education], no. 2 (2017): 6–20. 20 Gorbachev and Krasilshchik, История русских медиа 1989–2011, 65. 21 Alexander Timofeevsky, “А вы говорите – New Yorker …” Беседа с Глебом Моревым [And you say—New Yorker …” A conversation with Gleb Morev]. Kriticheskaya massa, no. 3 (2004), https://magazines.gorky.media/km/2004/3/aleksandr-timofeevskij-a-vy-govorite8212-new-yorker-8230.html. 22 Ibid. 23 Rasskazova was a correspondent at Segodnja newspaper, Kommersant’s culture and arts rival.

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Kommersant … was conceived as an ideal publication in a sense, defining a lifestyle and the type of worldview [мирочувствования] that SHOULD BE and which SHOULD BE FOLLOWED. […] It was conceived on the model of a liberal-conservative newspaper, where life, measured and calm, would be described accordingly—that is, in a measured and calm way. And culture in such a newspaper would be, on the one hand, fundamental, and on the other—devoid of … tabloid journalism and low culture [попсовость]. […] In a bourgeois media, culture is a component of prestige. It may look to a certain extent esoteric and even, if you like, not always be understandable—it does not matter at all.24 Already in about 1996, though, this task was no longer relevant and Kommersant changed course. The new editor demanded simplicity, and the intellectual golden age at Kommersant came to an end. In 1997, some forty people left the newspaper and organized another one, the Russian Telegraph, which existed only for a year.25 It was a “last desperate, romantic project, an attempt to return to a time that was irrevocably gone, or … to try to change the time, to influence it the way that Kommersant once had.”26 In 2004, Timofeevsky diagnosed the end of the era of intellectual media—collaboration between intellectuals—as “the fall of newspaper writing … an incredible journey back […] to the verbal Middle Ages … [and] literary squalor.27

New Russian Music Criticism The most nonverbal of the arts, classical music has never made it easy to write about, particularly in journalistic form. Besides, at culture desks in the mid-’90s, there were few concert- and opera-goers, while at the time, few music professionals and music lovers read Kommersant.28 Classical music was, arguably, 24 Alexander Timofeevsky, “Коммерсантъ – это газета долженствования” [Kommersant is a newspaper defining how it should be], Segodnja, November 03, 1995. 25 Gorbachev and Krasilshchik, История русских медиа 1989–2011, 65–66. 26 Timofeevsky, “А вы говорите – New Yorker …” 27 Ibid. 28 My own experience is typical. It was not until I got my PhD and was invited to work at Kommersant that I learned about its existence—so much for a St. Petersburg Conservatory postgraduate’s awareness of intellectual trends and new media. Since then, as an assistant professor at the Conservatory, I have lived a double life as an academic and a critic.

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inessential for intellectuals in post-Soviet Russia; and conservatories did not particularly value intellectualism. It should also be added that the concert and opera audience changed dramatically in the 1990s, as did everything else in Russia. As listeners emigrated, concert halls and opera theatres tried to recruit new patrons, including the abovementioned “new Russians.” Music critics, therefore, had to develop a way to write about music that would simultaneously satisfy Kommersant’s intellectual readership and appeal to musicians and music lovers. This new readership was wider than in late Soviet times, when regular music criticism existed neither in newspapers (that is, official organs) nor in music journals (overly specialized and always published a long time after the reviewed events).29 During that period, most music writers were musicologists.30 After 1989, and for the first time since the 1920s, Russian music criticism—like other kinds of arts commentary—was free from censorship and could emerge from its cell. The moment was ripe for discussion about the goals of criticism and musicology, as well as the relationship between them; and at the same time that debate became possible in post-Soviet Russia, battles raged in the US and Europe about the New Musicology. However, apart from several articles in the journal Soviet Music in the late 1980s (i.e. before the new criticism appeared), post-Soviet academia hardly reflected on the topic. Tatiana Cherednichenko and Svetlana Savenko in Moscow were among the scholars who wrote for the new media and addressed its problems, while Ludmila Kovnatskaya in St. Petersburg acted as reader (often of work in progress) and advocate for many of her pupils who were setting out to be critics. In general, however, new music criticism was ignored at conservatories, and some older critics even considered it outrageous and offensive.31

29 Desyatnikov described it with Dostoevsky’s formula “winter notes on summer impressions” (Leonid Desyatnikov, “Апология толстопузого насмешника” [An apology for the fat-bellied mocker], in Manulkina and Gershenzon, Новая русская музыкальная критика 1993–2003, 1:7). 30 See: Peter Schmelz, “Music Criticism in the USSR from Asafyev to Cherednichenko,” in The Cambridge History of Music Criticism, ed. Christopher Dingle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 588–89. 31 Iosif Raiskin, “Кресло рецензента стоит на площади” [The reviewer’s chair stands on the square], in Критика. Музыкознание. Современные аспекты (статьи и материалы Международной научной конференции к 35-летию кафедры музыкальной критики) [Criticism. Musicology. Modern aspects (articles and materials from the international academic conference in honor of the 35-year anniversary of the faculty of music criticism], ed. Larissa Dan’ko (St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoria, 2012), 61–75.

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In 1994, Cherednichenko wrote about musicology’s “guilt complex”: “We speak a language understood mainly within our own vocation.”32 She presented her book Music in Cultural History as a corrective. Nearly thirty years later, the problem still exists. Back in the mid-1990s, it was music criticism’s task to develop both a new language for, and new approach to, public musicology—one that the public could understand. In other words, critics needed to find a way to make professional analysis accessible. The editors of Kommersant came up with a mantra: “Precise and readable.” Twentieth-century classical music was the focus of attention in the ’90s, as it had suffered the most under Soviet censorship, and was of particular interest to critics like Pyotr Pospelov. He served the cause of new music with passion, professionalism, and invention; and it is thanks to him that reviews and surveys of contemporary music occupied such a large space in Kommersant’s culture pages.33 Freedom from censorship in the period was accompanied by economic crisis, however. The system of state concerts was destroyed, composers lost royalties, and festivals had to limit themselves to chamber ensembles.34 As for audiences, a significant number of people stopped attending performances and, as noted above, a good part of the traditional audience emigrated. At a Sofia Gubaidulina concert in St. Petersburg at the Small Philharmonic Hall, I witnessed a crowd storming the staircase which was guarded by police; soon afterwards, however, I saw half-empty venues at contemporary music festivals. Moscow concert halls were also empty by 1996.35 It was during this time of change in the 1990s that Leonid Desyatnikov became the public’s favorite contemporary composer and the darling of the critics. In the following, I will discuss what it is about Leonid Desyatnikov’s music and personality that critics found attractive, inspiring, and indispensable, as well as what this “critics’ choice” reveals about the goals and strategies of new music criticism as a whole.

Postmodernist “Slice me up [if you like,] but he is not a postmodernist,” wrote Pyotr Pospelov in a 1993 review. The composer once played with the label, but he later dismissed 32 Tatyana Cherednichenko, “К читателю” [To the reader], in Музыка в истории культуры [Music in cultural history], vol. 1 (Moscow: Аллегро-Пресс, 1994). 33 See Pyotr Pospelov’s web page: http://musiccritics.ru/?cr=3. 34 Biryukova, “Между АСМ и ‘Альтернативой,’” 35 See Victoria Korshunova’s text in Biryukova, “Между АСМ и ‘Альтернативой.’”

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it. In 2015, composer Sergei Nevsky took on the task of explaining the difference between Desyatnikov’s attitude to the past and that of postmodernism: Postmodernism in the Russian tradition is often understood not so much as the artist’s philosophizing … [about] “grand narratives,” as Jean-François Lyotard describes them, but [is] rather […] a nostalgic navigation through recognizable topoi. […] In Desyatnikov’s music, references to existing music are more reminiscent of […] a “longing for world culture,” [for] “universal responsiveness,” which inevitably generates the composer’s self-identification with the quoted or deconstructed object, and leads to a certain smoothness of presentation and completeness of form—a quality rather rare for a true postmodernist.36 Through the 1990s, though, and as late as 2005 when Sorokin’s and Desyatnikov’s opera was pitched as a collaboration between two postmodernists, the composer was defined as a postmodern artist, and it certainly distanced him from modernism and the avant-garde. In the mid-1970s, major Soviet composers like Vladimir Martynov, Valentin Silvestrov, and Arvo Pärt were turning away from the avant-garde. Desyatnikov, who was studying at the Leningrad Conservatory at that moment, avoided avant-garde aesthetics and techniques from the beginning, being influenced by Stravinsky’s neoclassicism. His opera Poor Liza and vocal cycles like Dichterliebe und Leben followed tradition of Stravinsky’s Mavra, but without the preceding period of modernist experiment. Later, when Desyatnikov composed Russian Seasons—which can be considered his Les Noces—he met “the task in the spirit of ‘The Mighty Handful’ or ‘The New Folk Wave’ of the 1960s” (that is, “arranging authentic folk material for European instruments and an academic voice”) “with the delight of an alien […] discovering and developing the outlandish properties of Russian melodies.” He wrote the work “subtly, gently, […] with no ideology in its graceful body, sheer aestheticism.”37

36 Sergei Nevsky, “Поэзия избыточности” [The poetry of redundancy], in Десятников. Фестиваль музыки [Desyatnikov. Music Festival], ed. Pavel Gershenzon and Alexander Ryabin (Moscow: Bolshoi Theatre, 2015), 95. 37 Kira Vernikova, “Леонид Десятников прозвучал в Петербурге” [Leonid Desyatnikov was heard in St. Petersburg]. Kommersant, March 14, 2001, https://www.kommersant.ru/ doc/245780.

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Desyatnikov declared his position regarding the avant-garde as follows: I do not understand why my hypothetical colleague in Germany sincerely considers himself obligated to work only on the basis of the tradition of the 20th century. I believe that I have the right to ignore it and turn to the traditions of the 19th, 17th, any century. I don’t feel like I belong to the modernist tradition. For a long time we weren’t so much apart from it as in a very provincial area of it. And I believe that there should be no insecurities about this.38 Both this “fatigue with the avant-garde” (Boris Gasparov) and the particular choices Desyatnikov had made may also have appealed to Pyotr Pospelov, the curator and composer. In 2009, when the Bolshoi Theatre was staging Wozzeck, Pospelov published a manifesto titled “Away with the 20th Century, the Nag of History,” in which he suggested that the modernist repertoire of the twentieth century—largely missed in Soviet Russia—should not be compensated for; on the contrary, he encouraged Russian composers and music programmers to look to the nineteenth and earlier centuries.39 Deliberate impudence in the style of the Futurists’ 1917 “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” notwithstanding, this was the approach that Pospelov exercised in his own music. Indeed, the first ever review of Desyatnikov, by Irina Lubarskaya, was also an anti-avant-garde manifesto, and its ardor demonstrates why Desyatnikov was the ideal composer for Kommersant to champion: Composers of the 20th century pushed the limits of the concept of “music” to the limit. […] The cosmopolitan selection of several compositional techniques created a certain transcontinental style that lost the “air” that the music of the pre-avant-garde past had. This is what allows specialists to constantly exploit the theme of a crisis in musical thought, and listeners to ignore both the crisis and the music. Desyatnikov’s culture studies reflection 38 Leonid Desyatnikov, “Тем, кто выставил себя на посмешище – мои соболезнования” (Продолжается скандал вокруг грядущей премьеры Большого театра “Дети Розенталя”) [To those who made mockeries of themselves—my condolences], Vremja novostei, April 03, 2005, http://vremya.ru/2005/37/10/119830.html 39 Pyotr Pospelov, “Долой ХХ век, клячу истории” [Away with the 20th century, the nag of history]. Openspace.ru, October 30, 2009, http://os.colta.ru/music_classic/projects/118/ details/13283/?view_comments=all&expand=yes#comments.

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has led to disgust towards “the generally accepted avant-garde” […]. He […] does not use the radical means of avant-garde musical writing, which have gone from shocking innovation to the mortal boredom of the norm and almost tradition.40 As far as the Kommersant reader and the potential concert audience were concerned, the kind of contemporary music that Desyatnikov composes—consonant, melodious, neoclassical, and, most importantly, beautiful—was a blessed relief. His music attracted listeners from every social strata: the new Russian bourgeoisie, intellectuals, music lovers, and professional musicians who were not fond of the avant-garde. But even people who did like the “cutting edge and up-to-date” appreciated “old-fashioned Desyatnikov.” Pospelov wrote of an “exhaustion, even among most uncompromising public, with the categorical and categoricality” of contemporary art: The need appeared for just such a character, who did not assert values ​​that were opposite to traditional ones, did not oppose himself to more radical colleagues, did not fence [himself] off from the music of the street, but, on the contrary, united different spaces, [while] safely keeping within the academic framework.41

“A-Soviet” The first post-Soviet revisions of Shostakovich’s life and work occurred in the mid-1990s. There were stagings of Katerina Izmailova and the first version of the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Mariinsky Theatre, conducted by Valery Gergiev; there were further performances of Lady Macbeth, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, in St. Petersburg and Moscow concert halls, as well as the great cellist’s Shostakovich festival during the composer’s jubilee year (1996); and there were various other events. Kommersant and other media followed these events closely.42 The Soviet avant-garde was also regularly discussed 40 Lubarskaya, “Леонид Десятников не стесняется музыки, которая нравится профанам.” 41 Pospelov, “Мирный композитор Десятников.” 42 My article on Shostakovich’s ninetieth anniversary and the interview with Mstislav Rostropovish about Lady Macbeth are typical of this revisionist approach; see: Olga Manulkina, “Что мы знаем о Дмитрии Шостаковиче” [What we know about Dmitri Shostakovich], Kommersant, September 28,1996, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/240374; Mstislav

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in the paper. Both Shostakovich and the avant-garde addressed issues surrounding the Soviet regime—repression, censorship, dissidence, and the ’60s generation (“шестидесятники”). During the process of revaluation of the Soviet experience, music criticism seemed far less dynamic than literary studies.43 In Kommersant, though, there were also fast-moving currents. In a 1993 article, before working at Kommersant, Pyotr Pospelov had already proposed a reassessment of Soviet music and film in order to unearth its valuable qualities,44 that is, to revise the revision, as if the latter had already been accomplished. That same year, interviewed on TV by Andrey Karaulov, Alexander Timofeevsky (then a columnist at the journal Stolitsa [the Capital]) and Andrey Mal’gin (the journal’s editor in chief) talked about the polemic with the ’60s generation (and even—more controversially— about nostalgia for the Brezhnev period).45 These issues were a concern for Kommersant too. In 1990, the subheading of the newspaper read: “From 1917 to 1990 the newspaper was not published for reasons beyond editorial control.” It is tempting to say that Desyatnikov and his music took the same disinterested position on the Soviet system. His attitude might be better summed up by Anatoly Nyman’s term “a-Soviet” (neither pro- nor anti-Soviet). Desyatnikov thus distanced himself from both Khrennikov/Shostakovich and Shchedrin/ Schnittke. When he did touch on Soviet themes, it was in the form of parody, parable, or both: antisemitism and the Stalinist terror in Dichterliebe und Leben; Soviet clichés and myths in The Rite of Winter 1949; Soviet songs in the music for the film Moscow; Soviet “science and life” in The Children of Rosenthal. The words he chose were by the Russian absurdist poets Daniil Kharms and Nikolai Oleinikov, the postmodernist writer and dramatist Vladimir Sorokin, and from the Soviet English textbook. In short, Desyatnikov has a certain “lightness of being” (however “unbearable” it might be), compared to Shostakovich or

Rostropovich: “Слишком много опасности для моралистов” [Too much danger for moralists], Kommersant, September 14, 1996, http://musiccritics.ru/?readfull=2567. 43 Ilya Kukulin and Mark Lipovetsky, “Постсоветская критика и новый статус литературы в России,” in История русской литературной критики: советская и постсоветская эпохи [The history of Russian literary criticism: Soviet and post-Soviet eras], ed. Evgeny Dobrenko and Galina Tikhanova (Мoscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2011), 636. 44 Pyotr Pospelov, “Удаление противоречий” [The deletion of contradictions], Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1993, http://www.gomba.ru/articles/pres1993/19930003.htm. 45 “Момент истины.” Ведущий Андрей Караулов, участники Андрей Мальгин и Александр Тимофеевский [“The moment of truth.” Host: Andrey Karaulov, participants: Andrey Mal’gin and Alexander Timofeevsky], YouTube, February 6, 2012, part 1, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=v6DVaHkflSo&ab_channel=AndreyMalgin; part 2, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=mFtukTA5ZUc&ab_channel=AndreyMalgin.

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Schnittke; something like the lightness of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier after Wagner’s solemnity.

Intellectual, Intertextual, Interdisciplinary “It seems impossible for a critic to imagine an idea of Desyatnikov’s music more beautiful than the composer’s own,” I wrote in 2002.46 Nevertheless, many have attempted to define his work. The number of texts on Desyatnikov, and the number of authors who have written them, means that hardly any living Russian composer has been interpreted and reinterpreted so often. Desyatnikov’s music draws the attention not only of music critics and certainly not of academics—something exceptional for a contemporary Russian composer. His work has been addressed by film critic Irina Lubarskaya, quoted above, poet and writer Maria Stepanova, poet Ivan Sokolov, artist and curator Pyotr Bely, and journalist and the pop music critic Jury Saprykin. Writers outside music criticism are drawn to his work because of its intellectual riddles and puzzles (as well as, of course, its quality, attractiveness, listener-friendly nature, and variety); it is also a treasure trove for anyone who has to write about music for non-specialists and knows that “absolute music” can only find its way into popular discussion with great difficulty. In her review, Irina Lubarskaya took a cultural studies approach to Desyatnikov: The difference between the comic and the cosmic lies in one sibilant consonant—Nabokov’s bon mot surprisingly accurately represents Leonid Desyatnikov’s credo. He seems to say that the sublimity and beauty of tragedy always deceive, while the absurdity and routine of farce—never. Dichterliebe und Leben is not just a funny paraphrase of the titles of two Schumann’s song cycles. These are the border markers, behind which ars longa lies in wait for vita brevis. […] At first glance, Desyatnikov’s chamber works look like sound drapery in the style of late Romantic salons. […] With a grin, the composer formulates his tasks as the “transformation of the banal” and the “emancipation of

46 Olga Manulkina, “The Rite of Beauty: An Introduction to the Music of Leonid Desyatnikov,” Tempo 220 (April 2002): 20.

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consonance.” His irony hides the subtle and heartfelt thought that art, by its nature, cannot be “poor.”47 “If the concert was extremely good, it does not mean that you have to write about it. Is there a story here, that is the question.” This was one of the theses on music criticism that Alex Ross and Justin Davidson put forward at the “Shifting Ears” symposium at Columbia University in 2004. Desyatnikov’s works always have a story—fascinating, elegant, and elitist, with a dash of irony; his titles allude to Schumann, Proust, or Stravinsky; and the verbal and musical texts he uses engage in a paradoxical play of styles, symbols, and references. Dichterliebe und Leben is written to verses by Kharms and Oleinikov, and, besides Schumann, alludes to Chopin and Tchaikovsky; Du côté de chez Swan is based on The Swan by Saint-Saëns, but invites John Adams to join in; The Rite of Winter, 1949 sets extracts from the English textbook for Soviet schools to music, but starts with Pushkin’s line about Mozart’s Requiem and unites Soviet pioneer songs with Mahler, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky again. It is easy, then, to call Desyatnikov a postmodernist. But his art is even better defined by his close circle comprising prominent writers for Kommersant and other new media. “Intellect” and “intellectual” were keywords at Kommersant. In his columns, Alexander Timofeevsky created a model for an intellectual and interdisciplinary approach to art and culture; he placed them in their social, ideological, and historical contexts. He exhibited a talent for discussing phenomena (“He was the first one to explain to the Russian intelligentsia what the notorious [term] postmodernism meant, through the examples of Sergei Soloviev’s film Assa and Fassbinder’s films”)48 and for embracing culture as a whole. In 2006, a decade after Kommersant’s heyday, the ballet critic and curator Pavel Gershenzon mourned the loss of such an approach: This is our cultural situation: drama critics do not know the music, music critics are blind, architects do not read anything, […] the writer hates Black Square because it is black, while she likes pistachio more, ballet dancers do not understand anything.

47 Lubarskaya, “Леонид Десятников не стесняется музыки, которая нравится профанам.” 48 “Мы все в долгу перед ним. Aвторы “Ъ” вспоминают Александра Тимофеевского” [We are all indebted to him. Writers from Kommersant remember Alexander Timofeevsky], Kommersant, April 12, 2020, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4320608.

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Nobody here perceives the culture as an integrated and continuing space.49 Timofeevsky’s writings, now collected in two books, have this broad perspective, as does the work of the art historian, Hermitage curator, and critic Arcady Ippolitov (who, according to Timofeevsky, was an example for him) and the writings of the ballet critic and curator Pavel Gershenzon. All three—Timofeevsky, Ippolitov, and Gershenzon—were Kommersant writers; all three then wrote for the Russian Telegraph (later, Timofeevsky and Ippolitov published in the journal Russian Life) and all three were Desyatnikov’s close friends and have defined the intellectual milieu he exists in. Kommersant’s culture section was fundamentally interdisciplinary. For music critics, it meant, to quote Joseph Kerman’s seminal article, that they had “to get out of analysis.” For Russian music critics, in particular, this meant that they had to exit the safe niche of so-called “holistic analysis.” Ironically, this term meant a “holistic” approach to music only, that is, the study of every element of musical language and form. Tat’iana Bukina characterizes this analysis as a “survival strategy” born of necessity, for it enabled Soviet musicologists to avoid charges of “formalism,” on the one hand, and of “vulgar sociologism” on the other.50 The trauma of Stalin’s 1948 and 1949 campaigns against formalism and cosmopolitanism, during which musicologists were dragged before “courts of honor” and fired from their posts,51 resulted in a fear of all nonmusical subjects and selfisolation from all other disciplines. Desyatnikov’s circle includes intellectuals and artists from all fields, making it truly interdisciplinary; few living Russian composers can boast of such a milieu.52 In this respect, as in others, his model was Stravinsky (the endless index of names in the 1971 Russian edition of Stravinsky’s conversations with Robert

49 Dmitry Tcherniakov, “Я никому не доверяю.” Дмитрий Черняков о порочном восприятии оперы, теории заговора и критической самодеятельности. Беседа с Павлом Гершензоном [I don’t trust anyone. Dmitry Tcherniakov on a flawed perception of opera, conspiracy theory and critical amateurism. A conversation with Pavel Gershenson], Kriticheskaya massa, no. 3 (2006), https://magazines.gorky.media/km/2006/3/ya-nikomu-ne-doveryayu.html. 50 Tat’iana Bukina. Музыкальная наука в России 1920–2000-х годов [Music scholarship in Russia 1920–2000] (St. Petersburg: Russkaya khristianskaya gumanitarnaya akademiya, 2010), 128. 51 Olga Manulkina, “‘Foreign’ versus ‘Russian’ in Soviet and Post-Soviet Musicology and Music Education,” in Russian Music Since 1917: Reappraisal and Rediscovery, ed. Patrick Zuk and Marina Frolova-Walker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 221–43. 52 In the next generation composers, Vladimir Rannev, Boris Filanovsky, and Sergei Nevsky could be named.

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Craft boggled the mind of the Soviet reader). Few living Russian composers can match Desyatnikov’s knowledge of the other arts and his comments and judgments on ideas, trends, and texts. As with Stravinsky, Desyatnikov’s range of interests and sharp remarks have made him a sought-after interviewee. Desyatnikov has not responded to the interdisciplinary idea of a “unified culture” only with words. Connecting everything with everything, even styles and musical traditions that appear to conflict with each other, has been his musical strategy—his musical cultural studies, as it were, described by Irina Lubarskaya as “culturological reflection.”

The Composer Speaks Desyatnikov’s passion for verse and words in general and his gift for setting them to music was noted in the very first articles and reviews about him, together with his uncommon taste in poetry—from Gavrila Derzhavin to Oleg Grigoriev. In interviews, one discovers (if only between the lines) that the composer is also well-read in both new criticism and new media. He has enjoyed popularity not only because of the breadth of subjects he can talk about, but because of his style of thought and speech. One can always get an ironic aphorism or two. His comments, therefore, are solicited on every occasion and he is often quoted—for example, “minimalism with a human face” or “emancipation of consonance.” The art of ironic elegance and the laconic brilliance of his sometimes rather cutting comments, something Desyatnikov is evidently gifted at, again takes Stravinsky as its model. Desyatnikov has admitted that Stravinsky’s texts have strongly influenced him. The one-volume edition of Stravinsky and Craft’s conversations in Russian, titled Dialogues, was published in 1971, soon after the composer’s death, and became a bible for Soviet intellectuals.53 Desyatnikov, who was then sixteen, once said: “I know the Dialogues virtually by heart and quote it as often as Marcel’s grandmother in Proust’s novel quoted the Marquise de Sévigné.”54

53 See: Olga Manulkina, “The Stravinsky/Craft Conversations in Russian and Their Reception,” in Stravinsky in Context, ed. Graham Griffits (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 279–87. 54 Leonid Desyatnikov. “Надо ставить перед собой скромные задачи” [One must set humbler tasks before oneself], Kriticheskaya massa, no. 1 (2003), https://magazines.gorky.media/ km/2003/1/.

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A perfect match of content and form is achieved here: Desyatnikov’s confession about Stravinsky’s Dialogues is made in an ironic aphoristic form—that is, in Stravinsky’s own manner. “Irony” has figured in most descriptions of Desyatnikov’s musical oeuvre as a whole, his way of examining art and life and speaking about them, and he himself as an individual and intellectual. This irony was central for Kommersant’s style, and, as Julia Bederova observed, for the early 1990s, when “the name of Desyatnikov … was a symbol of the ironic mood of the era.”55 Irony was one of the instruments the period used to distance itself from Soviet journalism, its vocabulary, stylistic clichés, pathos, and “sweet, sentimental breath,”56 of freeing itself from the yoke of authority and its untouchables. While the new music criticism’s language varied depending on a critics’ personal style and taste, there was a general tone of haughty judgment. This was made further confrontational by a biting irony, which was no less responsible for the shock effect this criticism had than the assessments it made. The fact that Desyatnikov shared this style, that he literally spoke the same ironic language—only in a more refined way—made him once more an ideal critical object. “You could fight with him” (unlike with most other composers), Bogdan Korolek, a 2010s critic noted, since Desyatnikov could always answer, though never did directly. It was a fight on equal terms, a kind of duel of irony. He spoke ironically in his music too—playing with words in the titles of his works, just as in the titles of Kommersant articles, only more enigmatically. He called his compositional method “commentary” and, indeed, defined the genre of his 1997 piece as such: “Wie der alte Leiermann … is not variations, not a fantasy, not a paraphrase. It is commentary, a kind of criticism (in the most positive sense of the word!).”57 In 2008, his literary work went beyond interviews: for a year he wrote a column titled “Youtube with Leonid Desyatnikov” on Openspace.ru58 (for another year, it was on LiveJournal.com). It is tempting to suggest that this is exactly how Stravinsky’s and Craft’s conversations would have read had YouTube existed in the 1950s.

55 Julia Bederova, “Почему Леонид Десятников – важнейший композитор современности?” [Why is Leonid Desyatniov the most important composer of our time]. Sobaka.ru, October 16, 2020, https://www.sobaka.ru/entertainment/music/4121. 56 Desyatnikov, “Апология толстопузого насмешника,” 8. 57 See https://www.compozitor.spb.ru/catalog/strunnye/desyatnikov-l-kak-staryy-sharmanshchikdlya-alta-i-f-no-klavir-i-partiya/. 58 Leonid Desyatnikov, “Youtube с Леонидом Десятниковым” [YouTube with Leonid Desyatnikov], Openspase.ru, 2008–2009, http://os.colta.ru/music_classic/projects/148.

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“Incognito from Saint Petersburg”59 Mozart’s profile, a shock of ashen hair, sad omniscient eyes, a lit cigarette held by thin fingers, graceful negligence, a sliding halfsmile. […] For me Desyatnikov is a symbol of St. Petersburg. It is a rare case when the image of a city and the image of a person merge. The homeland of his music could only be this strange city, and no other. Tired beauty, culture as everyday life, soaring above the soil, northern existence, air with a slight oxygen deficiency.60 This poetic portrait by artist Pyotr Bely is one of many descriptions of Leonid Desyatnikov. There is probably no living Russian academic composer whose photos have been published more frequently (his only rival among classical musicians since 2000 has been the conductor Teodor Currentzis). Desyatnikov is also one of the few people from the Russian academic music scene who could be classed as a socialite, a personality out of a society column, a member of the beau monde. Nevertheless, he dislikes wasting time at parties and tends to call himself a homebody. Desyatnikov’s St. Petersburg identity, his inseparability from the city (he used to say that he can’t imagine himself a resident of any other city), is another important part of his persona. From a Moscow perspective, a composer from Saint Petersburg is a slightly exotic, enigmatic phenomenon. In many articles about him, Desyatnikov is presented as a symbol of the city. Sometimes the stereotypi­ cal differences between the two cities are cited (St. Petersburg’s rigour versus Moscow’s carelessness, stiffness versus warm-heartedness, etc.). Desyatnikov’s insularity, snobbery, aestheticism are habitually attributed to St. Petersburg effect, as well as his special relationship with the music of the past, particularly that of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with which the city—commonly thought of as a living museum of classical architecture—is associated. The fact that this St. Petersburger has composed music about Moscow has also been noted (“The song 59 Mikhail Fichtengolz, “Инкогнито из Петербурга (в Москве прошел творческий вечер композитора Леонида Десятникова)” [Incognito from St. Petersburg (an evening recital by Leonid Desyatnikov took place in Moscow], Vedomosti, December 23, 1999, http://russiancomposers.ru/?readfull=4811. 60 Pyotr Bely, “Он помирил Стравинского и Прокофьева (но, написав «Детей Розенталя», поссорил Большой театр с Госдумой” [He reconciled Stravinsky and Prokofiev (but, having composed The Children of Rosenthal caused a quarrel between the Bolshoi theatre and the State Duma], Novaya gazeta, December 12, 2005, http://russiancomposers.ru/?readfull=4285.

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[…] sounds like a hymn to disheveled Moscow, which orderly Petersburg has come to love. Speaking as a Muscovite, [I offer] many thanks to Desyatnikov for this”).61 The two cities’ rivalry was implied in comparisons between Desyatnikov and Martynov during their opera project, as well as discussions of the relationship between the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky. Desyatnikov’s and his music’s appeal has been reinforced by the team of excellent, devoted, (crucially) young, and beautiful performers led by the pianist and impresario Alexey Goribol, who has shown a talent for turning any hall—for example, Small Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg—into a music salon and a concert into music making among friends.

Conclusion In the 2010s, the musically interested reader had subscriptions to blogs and Telegram channels run by professional and nonprofessional writers and/or became a writer themselves. A decade earlier, Pavel Gershenzon defined such criticism as “parallel.” Since then, the balance between the two kinds of criticism has changed dramatically. The style of critical texts in general has followed that of the new Russian music criticism of the 1990s and 2000s, if not the old Soviet style that is still taught at the conservatories. As of 2021, a “new linguistic consciousness,” as Alexander Timofeevsky termed it,62 is needed again. It is necessary now to reject Kommersant’s style and format, or at least put it aside for a while; but there is no influential media to do this. Newspapers employ fewer journalists, culture sections have closed, and newspapers themselves have folded; there are not many freelance critics and staff critics are becoming rare; Pyotr Pospelov works as editor in chief at the Composer Publishing House under the auspices of the Composers’ Union, and he publishes reviews in Vedomosti and in the journal Musical Life. It is “parallel” criticism that regularly reviews music events. For many years, the most interesting critical texts about St Petersburg music events could be found in a blog on Facebook under the username Karl Buratinovich. The name of the critic, Sergei Privalov, was only revealed in 2021, when collection of his reviews was published.63

61 Pospelov, “Строгий стиль Леонида Десятникова.” 62 Gorbachev and Krasilshchik, История русских медиа 1989–2011, 25. 63 See https://www.facebook.com/buratinovich; Буратиныч и другие. Необъективные музыкальные заметки (Привалов С) [Buratinovich and others. Biased musical notes (Privalov, S.)] (St. Petersburg: Jaromir Hladik Press, 2021).

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There are hardly any events that are reviewed by several media at once; among them have been the premieres of operas directed by Dmitry Tcherniakov, and premieres of Leonid Desyatnikov’s works, such as Songs of Bukovina. 24 Preludes for Piano, inspired by Ukrainian folk songs (2017). The composer’s jubilees in 2015 and 2020 also inspired pieces in many publications; his 2015 jubilee was celebrated by festivals at the Bolshoi and the Diaghilev festival in Perm; and texts for the Bolshoi booklet were written by authors from several generations. In 2020, the celebrations were modest due to pandemic restrictions, but there were many publications again. The composer remains, as the title of one of the 2020 articles declares, “The Most Important Composer of Our Time.”64 Desyatnikov has announced that he will not compose film music anymore. His preferred genre in the 2010s was ballet, his collaboration with Ratmansky has already been compared with Stravinsky-Balanchine and Tchaikovsky-Petipa,65 and the number of reviews and interviews in English is growing. Desyatnikov’s audience has swelled too, as has his team of performers, which now includes conductor Teodor Currentzis. The composer is working on a new project with Maria Stepanova, a writer, poet, intellectual, and the editor in chief of Colta.ru, the main cultural and critical media in the 2010s and early 2020s. To turn to another St. Petersburg musician who has been as regularly written about during last three decades would be to create another paradox, since he receives the most critical attention and, in many respects, is Desyatnikov’s polar opposite. Valery Gergiev and Desyatnikov are Pushkin’s “ice and flame” (Onegin), Apollo versus Dionysus. While the two musicians seem to belong to different generations, Gergiev (b. 1953) is only two years older than Desyatnikov; they were contemporaries at Leningrad Conservatory, graduating in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Their careers can be imagined as two parallel lines. Both Gergiev and Desyatnikov have been, each in his own way, fundamental to St. Petersburg’s leap ahead in the music competition with Moscow—another striking feature of the Russian music scene in the 1990s and 2000s. The thesis that critical texts have contributed to the phenomenon of Desyatnikov—his image, career, and popularity—is nothing new. What this article has aimed to show is that he has also contributed to the new Russian music criticism and helped to define it, being its ideal object, reader, adviser, “consulting editor,” supporter, and like-minded writer. Many of us have felt Desyatnikov’s critical eye and have engaged in dialogue with him. 64 Bederova, “Почему Леонид Десятников – важнейший композитор современности?” 65 Roslyn Sulcas, “Not Easygoing, and Not Sure About a Donkey,” New York Times, January 31, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/arts/dance/alexei-ratmansky-and-leoniddesyatnikov-on-collaborating.html.

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In the ’90s, Leonid Desyatnikov’s music—as well as its performances, commissions, and the way it was presented—created a space for discussing new practices and the new balance between the classical and contemporary, the oldfashioned and innovative, the academic and popular, the mainstream and marginal, concert and film, “high” and “low” culture, and the highbrow and nobrow. It allowed critics to write on delightfully a-Soviet themes and yet immerse themselves in the recent past (that of Leningrad, Moscow, and Kharkiv), in everyday life, music, films, songs, language, experience, and customs.66 These were things we were eager to discover, learn about, embrace, and reflect upon in that decade, that then seemed to be the beginning of a new era of Russian music criticism. It turned out that it was not. “The end of intellectual media” (Alexander Timofeevsky) and then the end of all independent media did not leave much chance for this process—as for so many others.

Bibliography Belyi, Piotr. “Он помирил Стравинского и Прокофьева (но, написав «Детей Розенталя», поссорил Большой театр с Госдумой” [He reconciled Stravinsky and Prokofiev (but, having composed The Children of Rosenthal caused a quarrel between the Bolshoi Theatre and the State Duma]. Novaia gazeta, December 12, 2005. http://russiancomposers.ru/?readfull=4285. Bederova, Iuliia. “Почему Леонид Десятников – важнейший композитор современности?” [Why is Leonid Desyatniov the most important composer of our time]. Sobaka.ru, October 16, 2020. https://www.sobaka.ru/entertainment/music/4121. Biriukova, Ekaterina. “Итоги 2000 года. Классическая музыка” [The results of the year 2000. Classical music]. Vremia novostei, December 29, 2000. http://russiancomposers. ru/?readfull=4116. ———. “Между АСМ и ‘Альтернативой’ (очевидцы и актуальные герои композиторской музыки 90-х складывают картину эпохи)” [Between ACM and “Alternative” (witnesses and participants of composers’ music in the 90s assemble an picture of the era]. Colta.ru, September 17, 2015. https://www.colta.ru/articles/music_classic/8560-mezhdu-asm-i-alternativoy. Bukina, Tat’iana. Музыкальная наука в России 1920–2000-х годов [Music scholarship in Russia 1920–2000]. St. Petersburg: Russkaia khristianskaia gumanitarnaia akademiia, 2010. Cherednichenko, Tat’iana. “К читателю” [To the reader]. In Tat’iana Cherednichenko, Музыка в истории культуры [Music in cultural history], vol. 1. Moscow: Allegro Press, 1994. Desiatnikov, Leonid. “Надо ставить перед собой скромные задачи” [One must set humbler tasks before oneself]. Interview by Еlena Fanailova and Gleb Morev. Kriticheskaia massa, no. 1 (2003). https://magazines.gorky.media/km/2003/1/.

66 The references to the private life of the Soviet people allows one to draw a parallel with Dmitry Tcherniakov’s stagings.

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———. “Тем, кто выставил себя на посмешище, – мои соболезнования” (Продолжается скандал вокруг грядущей премьеры Большого театра “Дети Розенталя”) [To those who made mockeries of themselves—my condolences]. Interview by Iuliia Bederova. Vremia novostei, April 03, 2005. http://vremya.ru/2005/37/10/119830.html. ———. “YouTube с Леонидом Десятниковым” [Youtube with Leonid Desyatnikov]. Openspase. ru, 2008–2009. http://os.colta.ru/music_classic/projects/148/. Dolinina, Kira, Mikhail Trofimenkov, and Dmitry Butrin. “Мы все в долгу перед ним. Aвторы “Ъ” вспоминают Александра Тимофеевского” [We are all indebted to him. Writers from Kommersant remember Alexander Timofeevsky]. Kommersant, April 12, 2020. https://www. kommersant.ru/doc/4320608. Fikhtengol’z, Mikhail. “Инкогнито из Петербурга (в Москве прошел творческий вечер композитора Леонида Десятникова)” [Incognito from St. Petersburg (an evening recital by Leonid Desyatnikov took place in Moscow]. Vedomosti, December 23, 1999. http://russiancomposers.ru/?readfull=4811. Filanovskii, Boris. “Композитор Гоголь” [The Gogol-Composer]. Kommersant Saint Petersburg, December 29, 2000. Gorbachev, Aleksandr, and Il’ia Krasil’shchik, eds. История русских медиа 1989–2011. Версия “Афиши” [The history of Russian media 1989–2011. “Afisha”’s version]. Moscow: Afisha, 2011. Karaulov, Andrei, Andrei Mal’gin, and Aleksandr Timofeevskii. “Момент истины.” Ведущий Андрей Караулов, участники Андрей Мальгин и Александр Тимофеевский [“The Moment of truth.” Host: Andrey Karaulov, Participants: Andrey Mal’gin and Alexander Timofeevsky], part 1. YouTube. February 6, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6DVaHkflSo&ab_ channel=AndreyMalgin; part II. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFtukTA5ZUc&ab_ channel=AndreyMalgin. Kukulin, Il’ia, and Mark Lipovetskii. “Постсоветская критика и новый статус литературы в России” [Post-Soviet criticism and the new status of literature in Russia]. In История русской литературной критики: советская и постсоветская эпохи [The history of Russian literary criticism: Soviet and post-Soviet eras], edited by Evgenii Dobrenko and Galina Tikhanova, 635–722. Мoscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2011. Liubarskaia, Irina. “Леонид Десятников не стесняется музыки, которая нравится профанам (Новый диск Леонида Десятникова)” [Leonid Desyatnikov does not shy away from music beloved by music laymen (Leonid Desyatnikov’s new disc)]. Kommersant, October 6, 1993. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/61337. Manulkina, Ol’ga. Леонид Десятников. Каталог произведений [Leonid Desyatnikov. A catalogue of his compositions]. St. Petersburg: Composers’ Union, 1993. ———. “Что мы знаем о Дмитрии Шостаковиче” [What we know about Dmitri Shostakovich]. Kommersant, September 28, 1996. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/240374. ———. “The Rite of Beauty: An Introduction to the Music of Leonid Desyatnikov.” Tempo 220 (April 2002): 20–23. ———. “‘Foreign’ Versus ‘Russian’ in Soviet and Post-Soviet Musicology and Music Education.” In Russian Music Since 1917: Reappraisal and Rediscovery, edited by Patrick Zuk and Marina Frolova-Walker. 221–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. ———. “The Stravinsky/Craft Conversations in Russian and Their Reception.” In Stravinsky in Context, edited by Graham Griffits, 279–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

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Manulkina, Ol’ga, and Pavel Gershenzon, eds. Новая русская музыкальная критика 1993–2003 [New Russian music criticism 1993–2003]. Vol. 1, Opera; vol. 3, Concerts. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2015, 2016. Nevskii, Sergei. “Поэзия избыточности” [The Poetry of Redundancy]. In Десятников. Фестиваль музыки [Desyatnikov. Music festival], edited by Pavel Gershenzon and Aleksandr Riabin, 95–98. Moscow: Bolshoi Theatre, 2015. Pospelov, Piotr. “Удаление противоречий” [The deletion of contradictions]. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1993. http://www.gomba.ru/articles/pres1993/19930003.htm. ———. “Европейские будетляне победили русских футуристов (Победа над Солнцем в Москве)” [The European budetlyane have triumphed over the Russian futurists (Victory over the Sun in Moscow)]. Kommersant, October 15, 1993. http://musiccritics.ru/?readfull=2349. ———. “Долой Единичникова, даешь Десятникова (Творческий вечер Леонида Десятникова)” [Away with Yedinichnikov, let’s have Desyatnikov (Leonid Desyatnikov’s recital)]. Kommersant, November 06, 1993. http://musiccritics.ru/?readfull=2342. ———. “Строгий стиль Леонида Десятникова (‘Враги сожгли родную хату’, пели в консерватории)” [Leonid Desyatnikov’s strict style (“The foes have burned down the homestead,” they sang in the Conservatory)]. Izvestiia, December 25, 1999. http://www.musiccritics.ru/?id=3&readfull=3456. ———. “Европейская симфония (Музыкальная классика: итоги года)” [The European symphony (Classical music: the results of the year)]. Izvestiia, December 28, 2000. http://russiancomposers.ru/?readfull=3545. ———. “Мирный композитор Десятников (Бедную Лизу поместят в компанию детей Розенталя)” [The peaceful composer Desyatnikov (Poor Lisa to be included in the company of The Children of Rosenthal)]. Vedomosti, August 24, 2005. http://russiancomposers. ru/?readfull=4045. ———. “Равнодушный стратег (Леониду Десятникову замены нет)” [The indifferent strategist (Leonid Desyatnikov cannot be replaced). Vedomosti, December 29, 2005. http:// russiancomposers.ru/?readfull=4143. ———. “Долой ХХ век, клячу истории” [Away with the 20th century, the nag of history]. Openspace.ru, October 30, 2009. http://os.colta.ru/music_classic/projects/118/ details/13283/?view_comments=all&expand=yes#comments. Raiskin, Iosif. “Кресло рецензента стоит на площади” [The reviewer’s chair stands on the square]. In Критика. Музыкознание. Современные аспекты (статьи и материалы Международной научной конференции к 35-летию кафедры музыкальной критики) [Criticism. Musicology. Modern aspects (articles and materials from the international academic conference in honor of the 35-year-anniversary of the faculty of music criticism], edited by Larisa Dan’ko, 61–75. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoria, 2012). Rostropovich, Mstislav: “Слишком много опасности для моралистов” [Too much danger for moralists]. Interview by Ol’ga Manulkina. Kommersant, September 14, 1996. http://musiccritics.ru/?readfull=2567. Schmelz, Peter. “Music Criticism in the USSR from Asafyev to Cherednichenko.” In The Cambridge History of Music Criticism, edited by Christopher Dingle, 571–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Sulcas, Roslyn. “Not Easygoing, and Not Sure About a Donkey.” New York Times, January 31, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/arts/dance/alexei-ratmansky-and-leoniddesyatnikov-on-collaborating.html.

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Tcherniakov, Dmitry: “Я никому не доверяю.” Дмитрий Черняков о порочном восприятии оперы, теории заговора и критической самодеятельности. Беседа с Павлом Гершензоном [I don’t trust anyone. Dmitry Tcherniakov on a flawed perception of opera, conspiracy theory and critical amateurism. A conversation with Pavel Gershenson]. Kriticheskaia massa, no. 3 (2006). https://magazines.gorky.media/km/2006/3/ya-nikomu-ne-doveryayu.html. Timofeevskii, Aleksandr: “А вы говорите – New Yorker …” Беседа с Глебом Моревым [And you say—New Yorker …” A conversation with Gleb Morev]. Критическая масса, no. 3 (2004). https://magazines.gorky.media/km/2004/3/aleksandr-timofeevskij-a-vy-govorite8212-new-yorker-8230.html. ———. “Коммерсантъ – это газета долженствования” [Kommersant is a newspaper defining how it should be]. Segodnia, November 03, 1995. Vernikova, Kira. “Леонид Десятников прозвучал в Петербурге” [Leonid Desyatnikov was heard in St. Petersburg]. Kommersant, March 14, 2001. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/245780. Vokuev, Nikolai. “Культура как ‘интеллектуальный отбеливатель’ и излишек: об особенностях культурной журналистики в постсоветской России” [Culture as an “intellectual whitener” and redundancy, as well: on the particular qualities of cultural journalism in post-Soviet Russia]. Человек, культура, образование [People, culture, education], no. 2 (2017): 6–20.

Editors and Contributors About the Editors Prof. dr. hab. Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz is a music theorist, head of the Department of Theory and Interpretation of Musical Work at Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music, Krakow, a member of the editorial board of the journal Theory of Music, and professor at the Academy of Music, Krakow. She has participated at international conferences in Vilnius, Århus, London, Leuven, Leipzig, Zurich, Canterbury, Paris, Lisbon, Aberdeen, and in her home city of Krakow. Her book are Vytautas Bacevićius i jego idee muzyki kosmicznej [Vytautas Bacevićius and His Ideas of Cosmic Music, 2001], Poetyka muzyczna Karola Szymanowskiego. Studia i interpretacje [The Poetics of Karol Szymanowski’s Music. Studies and Interpretations, 2013], and forty articles in Polish and foreign publications. She was awarded the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music’s Excellence in Teaching Prize (2012). E-mail: malgorzata.janicka.slysz@ amuz.krakow.pl. Rūta Stanevičiūtė is full professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Her current fields of interest are modernism and nationalism in twentieth- to twenty-first-century music, philosophical and cultural issues in the analysis of contemporary music, music and politics, studies of music reception, and the theory and history of music historiography. She is the author The Figures of Modernity: The International Society for Contemporary Music and the Spread of Musical Modernism in Lithuania (VDA, 2015), co-author of Nylon Curtain: Cold War, International Exchange and Lithuanian Music (LMTA, 2018), and Sound Utopias: Lithuanian Music Modernization in Context (2021). She has also edited and co-edited twelve collections of articles on twentieth- and twentyfirst-century musical culture, music philosophy, and the history of music reception, including the recent collections Of Essence and Context (Springer, 2019) and Microtonal Music in Central and Eastern Europe: Historical Outlines and Current Practices (Ljubljana University Press, 2020). Stanevičiūtė is active as an initiator and coordinator of scientific exchange and networking at both national and international levels. In 2005–10, she was chair of the musicological section at the Lithuanian Composers’ Union and in 2003–8 chair of the Lithuanian section of the International Society for Contemporary

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Music. Since 2020, she has been the editor in chief editor of the international scholarly journal Lithuanian Musicology. In 2020, she was awarded the National Prize of Lithuania. E-mail: [email protected].

Contributors Ewa Czachorowska-Zygor, PhD, is a music theorist and assistant professor in the Music Theory and Interpretation Department at the Academy of Music in Krakow. Her research interests center upon film music, contemporary Polish music (i.e. A. Walaciński and K. Penderecki), and the correspondence between the arts and interdisciplinary studies. She received a supervisor research grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, a scholarship from the Institute of Music and Dance, and the 2014 City of Krakow Award in the category “Culture and Art.” She participates in international and national musicological conferences, and is involved with PWM Edition, the Polish Film Institute, and Ruch muzyczny. Her output also includes several dozen research articles in Polish and English. E-mail: [email protected]. Vita Gruodytė is a researcher at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius. After her doctoral studies (the Tempus Programme, Helsinki University), she gained a PhD in musicology from the Lithuanian Academy of Theatre and Music (2000) with a thesis titled “The Phenomena of Space in the Music of the 20th Century.” She was researcher at the Lithuanian Museum of Music, Theater and Cinema, at the University of Klaipeda, Lithuania, and has supervised research at the Invisible College of the Soros Foundation in Vilnius. She is a member of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union and a correspondent at the Lithuanian magazine Fields of Culture. Her research (conferences and articles) focuses on aesthetics and the history of twentieth-century music, cultural and political influences in contemporary music, and, in particular, the emergence of national identity in Lithuanian music. E-mail: [email protected]. Kevin C. Karnes is professor of music and associate dean for the arts at Emory University, Atlanta. His current research explores sounding expressions of identity, difference, and belonging in twentieth-century Eastern and Central Europe. His work explores archives and ethnomusicological fields, engaging projects in such domains as sound studies, art history, anthropology, philosophy, Jewish studies, and Baltic studies. Recent and forthcoming publications include the monographs Sounds Beyond: Arvo Pärt and the 1970s Soviet Underground

Editors and Contributors

(University of Chicago Press, 2021) and Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa (Oxford University Press, 2017), the edited volume Korngold and His World (Princeton University Press, 2019), and the critical edition Jewish Folk Songs from the Baltics: Selections from the Melngailis Collection (A-R Editions, 2014). He is presently researching artistic exchanges between Eastern and Western European spaces in the years 1987–92, and the coalescence of new wave music and culture on both sides of the former Iron Curtain. His work as editor comprises seven volumes, including Korngold and His World (Princeton University Press, 2019), Jewish Folk Songs from the Baltics (A-R Editions, 2014), and Baltic Musics/Baltic Musicologies: The Landscape since 1991 (Routledge, 2009). He serves as editor of the Oxford Keynotes Series published by Oxford University Press and as editor in chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society. E-mail: [email protected]. Kinga Kiwała is a music theorist with an MA in philosophy and assistant professor in the Department of Theory and Interpretation of Musical Work at the Academy of Music in Krakow. Her research interests center upon contemporary Polish music, the sacred in music, and the philosophy and aesthetics of music (especially phenomenology). Her work is of an interdisciplinary nature. She focuses on relationships—between music and words; music, philosophy, and aesthetics; and music and the other arts. In 2013, she published the monograph A Symphonic Work from the Perspective of Polish Phenomenological Concepts: Lutosławski, Górecki, Penderecki. In 2019, she published her habilitation thesis The Stalowa Wola Generation: Eugeniusz Knapik, Andrzej Krzanowski, Aleksander Lasoń. Aesthetic Studies. She has participated in conferences and symposiums in Poland and abroad, including in Bratislava, Lisbon, Vilnius, Kaunas, Lucca, Dresden, and Prague. Her output also includes more than fifty research articles. Kiwała was awarded a scholarship from the Minister of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young scientists and she has received several awards for her scientific activities. She has also been a member of juries and conference program committees. E-mail: [email protected]. Andrzej Mądro, PhD, is a music theorist and assistant professor at the Academy of Music in Krakow. His interests are in twentieth- and twenty-first-century music—Polish music in particular—as well as borderline genres, including experimental and multimedia platforms, while still involving jazz, progressive rock, and modern metal. He is the author of Muzyka i nowe media [Music and new media, 2017], awarded by the musicologists section of the Polish Composers’ Union and the Meakultura Foundation (Kropka Competition, 2018). He is

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also a member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, the Polish Composers’ Union, the Polish Electroacoustic Music Association, and lecturer at the Krakow School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. He is the creator of websites hosting materials on the history of jazz and popular music. He explores the possibilities of new technological solutions: interactive MIDI systems, computer software, and network communication. Since 2017, he has been a co-organizer of the Silver Glass Contemporary Children’s and Youth Music Competition. In 2015, he received the Award of the Mayor of the City of Krakow for his educational work. E-mail: [email protected]. Prof. dr. hab. Teresa Malecka is a music theorist, the head of the Documentation Center of Krakow Composers Output, and an editor at the scientific journal Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje. At the Academy of Music in Krakow, she was vice rector for students in 1992–99; in 2002–8, she was vice rector for science and teaching. She has organized many international and Polish musicological conferences and acted as the scientific editor for several publishing houses. She has researched Russian music (Rimski-Korsakov and Mussorgsky), contemporary Polish music (Penderecki, Górecki, and Bujarski), the relationship between words and sounds and the relationship between the arts from a semiotic perspective. She is the author of Słowo, obraz i dźwięk w twórczości Modesta Musorgskiego (1996) and Zbigniew Bujarski. Twórczość i osobowość (2006), as well as about one hundred scientific articles. She has taken part in international conferences and symposia in West and East Europe, the US, and Poland). Malecka is a member of Polish Composer Union, the Société Internationale d’Histoire Comparée du Théâtre, de l’Opéra et du Ballet, the head of the artistic board of the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, and in 2010–18 she was on the board of the National Center of Science in Poland. E-mail: teresa.malecka@ amuz.krakow.pl. Olga Manulkina is associate professor at St. Petersburg State University, a founding director of the Master’s program in music criticism, sits on the editorial boards at the journals Music Academy (Compozitor Publishing House, Russia) and Twentieth Century Music (Cambridge University Press). She is a Fulbright alumna (CUNY Graduate Center, 2002), has been on the jury of the Golden Mask Russian National Theatre Prize, and was a music critic at the Russian federal newspaper Kommersant and the magazine Afisha. She was also associate professor at St. Petersburg State Conservatory and the founding editor in chief of the journal Opera Musicologica. She is the author of From Ives to Adams:

Editors and Contributors

American Music of the 20th Century (2010) and numerous articles, including “Leonard Bernstein’s 1959 Triumph in the Soviet Union” (in The Rite of Spring at 100 [Indiana University Press, 2017]), “‘Foreign’ versus ‘Russian’ in Soviet and Post-Soviet Musicology and Music Education” (in Russian Music since 1917 [Oxford University Press, 2017]), and “The Stravinsky/Craft Conversations in Russian and Their Reception” (in Stravinsky in Context [Cambridge University Press, 2020]). She has also published translations and more than five hundred reviews. She co-edited the books A Century of Le Sacre—A Century of Modernism (2013) and New Russian Music Criticism: 1993–2003, vol. 1 (2015). E-mail: [email protected]. Dominika Micał graduated from the Academy of Music in Krakow (music theory) and Jagiellonian University in Krakow (comparative literature). Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at the Academy of Music in Krakow, where she is writing a dissertation on musical works composed after 1950 that are inspired by the Renaissance madrigal. She is also participating in the Polish-Lithuanian DAINA 1 project. Her research interests include British and Polish contemporary music, connections between music and literature, and vocal music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She has taken part in conferences in Cambridge, Edinburgh, Rome, Krakow, and elsewhere. She is a music critic at Ruch Muzyczny and pisanezesluchu.pl. E-mail: [email protected]. Peter J. Schmelz is professor of musicology at Arizona State University, Tempe. His areas of expertise include twentieth- and twenty-first-century music; Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet music, particularly Shostakovich, Silvestrov, and Schnittke; music during the Cold War; popular and experimental music; music and politics; film music; and sound studies. His recent books include Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1 (Oxford, 2019) and Sonic Overload: Alfred Schnittke, Valentin Silvestrov, and Polystylism in the Late USSR (Oxford, 2021). He is currently working on the book Some Combinations of Freedoms and Passions: Soviet Experimental Music from 1970 through the End, which focuses on the Ganelin Trio, Sergey Kuryokhin and Pop Mekhanika, Valentina Ponomareva, Auktsyon, and Sainkho Namchylak. Professor Schmelz received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 2011; and in 2010 his first book Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music during the Thaw (Oxford, 2009) won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. In Fall 2017, he was Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2019, he was named a Guggenheim Fellow. Professor Schmelz is co-editor (with Simon Morrison) of Indiana University Press’s

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Russian Music Studies; he also served as editor of the Journal of Musicology from 2014–18. He has taught at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) and Washington University in St. Louis, where he also served as chair of the Music Department. E-mail: [email protected]. Iwona Sowińska-Fruhtrunk, PhD, is a conductor, music and theorist. She studied at the Academy of Music in Krakow and the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University in Ohio (USA). She has published several dozen articles, essays, and program notes and participated in numerous international conferences in Poland and abroad. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the problematics of musical representation in Arnold Schoenberg’s works. Currently, she is associate professor in the Department of Theory and Interpretation of Musical Work at the Academy of Music in Krakow and the editorial secretary of the scientific journal Theory of Music: Studies, Interpretations, Documentations. She was the principal investigator (PRELUDIUM 11) and is one of the main investigators (DAINA 1) for Polish-Lithuanian research projects financed by the National Science Centre, Poland. In 2020, she received the Prime Minister’s Award for an outstanding doctoral thesis. E-mail: iwona.sowinska.fruhtrunk@amuz. krakow.pl.

Index of Names Academy of Music in Kraków, 65 Ackley, Bruce, 8, 261–62, 268, 280. See also Rova Adams, John, 324 Adler, Mortimer J., 5, 111–12 Agamben, Giorgio, 125–26 Akvarium, 233 Aleknaitė, Vilija, 201 Allen, Woody, 146–48, 163 Purple Rose of Cairo, 146, 163 alternative culture, 2, 7, 23 alternative music, 305 Alternative music festival (Alternatyvios muzikos festivalis), 168 America, 227, 261, 272–73, 279, 283–84, 291 Anderson, Jon, 232 Anglican Church, 236, 239 anonymous art, 196 Anykščiai, 168, 176, 178–79, 181, 193–94, 196, 204, 206–7, 209 architecture, 223, 234, 248, 249, 328 Aristotle, 112 Arsenal, 270 Art Ensemble of Chicago, 262, 302 Artaud, Antonin, 177 Arte povera, 170 Astahovska, Ieva, 230 Ateitininkai, 195 Attali, Jacques, 1 Augustinas, Vaclovas, 173 Augustine, St., 57, 112 Auschwitz, 117, 120 Austria, 270, 276 avant-garde, 4, 18, 19, 30, 49, 54, 58, 61, 73, 88, 91, 137, 178, 181, 182,

235, 262, 279, 298, 302–303, 305, 319–322 Aygi, Gennady, 222 Ayler, Albert, 302 Ažuožeriai, 180, 186, 206–7 Ažuožeris, 206 Babenskas, Edmondas, 169, 181, 208 Bacevičius, Kiejstut, 46 Bacevičius, Maria, 46 Bacevičius, Vincas, 46 Bacevičius, Vytautas, 46–47, 79 Bacewicz, Grażyna, 46, 78 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 31, 46, 56, 201, 212 Bailey, Derek, 262 Bajoras, Feliksas, 25, 33, 39, 49, 51, 60–61, 75 Dzięcko Europy, 39 Missa in musica, 60 Momenti sacri, 60 Triptych, 33 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 54 Balakauskas, Osvaldas, 25, 33, 39, 49, 53, 60, 75, 169–70, 192, 199–200, 212 Chopin-Hauer, 53, 200 Spengla-Ūla, 33, 199 Tyla. Le Silence, 39, 174 Veda-seka-budi, 200 Balbus, Stanisław, 6 Ballard, John, 269–70, 275, 280, 284 ballet, 312, 324–25 Baltic Singing Revolution, 1 Baltics, 1–2, 10 Baltrūnas, Arvydas, 197 Body Art, 197 Banaszak, Hanna, 152

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Band Miłość, 8, 9, 296, 298, 302, 303–4 Baranów, 3–4, 21, 28, 30–31, 33–34, 64–82 Bareikis, Aidas, 180 Painting from Nature, 180 Bartók, Béla, 35 Bartulis, Vidmantas, 55–56, 60, 168, 170, 173, 181, 198, 200, 207–8 Bashkortostan, 312 Basie, Count, 285 Batagov, Anton, 310 Baušķenieks, Ingus, 247 Bayadyan, Hrach, 229 BBC, 272 Beatles, 302 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 131, 141 Bely, Pyotr, 323, 328 Bergman, Ingmar, 67 Berio, Luciano, 200 Berlin, 1, 5, 15, 111–13, 125, 134 Berlin Wall, 1, 15, 134 Berlin, Isaiah, 5, 111–13, 125 Bernstein, Leonard, 276 Bērziņa, Aina, 234 Besecker, Bill, 279, 282 Bieliukas, Kęstutis, 184 Bieńkowska, Ewa, 69 Bigler, Gene, 256 Billboard, 279 Biryukova, Ekaterina, 310, 312 Błoński, Jan, 69 Bock, Jerry, 282 Boiko, Juris, 226–27, 229, 231–33, 240–41, 243–47, 249–50 Empty/Alone, 243 Boiko, Martin, 233 Bojakov, Eduard, 312 Bolderāja, 226–27, 229, 240–41, 244–47, 249–50 Bolshoi Theatre, 287, 310, 312–13, 320 Bonn, 141 Bosseur, Jean-Yves, 179, 182, 204

Boulay, Steve, 269–73, 284–87 Boulez, Pierre, 235, 310 Bourdieu, Pierre, 20, 30 Bowie, Lester, 278, 302 Boym, Svetlana, 35–36, 39 Bragdon, Claude, 46 Brahms, Johannes, 31, 89 Branów, 80 Braun, Kazimierz, 69 Brecht, George, 196 Brezhnev, Leonid, 7, 222, 227–28, 322 Bril, Igor, 270 Bristiger, Michał, 66–67, 81 Brown, John H., 256 Brubeck, Dave, 255–56, 287–88 Bruckner, Anton, 89 Bryzgel, Amy, 227 Brzozowski, Tadeusz, 69 Budapest, 212 Budraitytė, Daiva, 57 Buffalo, 279, 282 Bujarski, Zbigniew, 49, 60, 87 Lumen, 60 Bukina, Tatiana, 325 Bulgakov, Mikhail, 146–47 Master and Margarita, 146, 156, 243 Bulgaria, 74 Bullerjahn, Claudia, 6, 156–58 Burke, Kenneth, 51, 112 Burokaitė, Jūratė, 75 Bydgoszcz, 298, 301 Byrne, David, 281 Byrski, Krzysztof, 69 Cage, John, 8, 18, 165, 177–78, 204, 209, 221, 226–27, 241–42, 245–46, 303 California, 255 Canada, 8, 269–70 Carmeli, Boris, 120 Carter, Elliott, 262 Catholic Church, 18 Celant, German, 170

Index of Names

Chekasin, Vladimir, 8, 200, 268, 270, 272, 284, 286 Cherednichenko, Tatiana, 19, 317–18 Chernobyl, 184 Chicago, 232, 262, 302 Chłopecki, Andrzej, 36, 58, 74–75, 208 Chłopicka, Regina, 116, 125 Chmiel, Maciej, 299 Chopin, Frederik, 49, 129, 131, 155, 324 Christiansen, Henning, 195 Chukhrov, Keti, 229, 250 Čiurlionis, Mikalojus Konstantinas, 38, 213 Cold War, 1–2, 6, 8, 10, 13–14, 17, 38, 41–42, 59, 255–57, 265, 267, 276, 284, 288–90, 300, 302 Coleman, Ornette, 302 Collectanea, 4, 37, 65, 68, 75, 80, 82 Collective Actions group, 226, 241–43 Action 16: Ten Appearances, 242 Cologne, 20 Coltrane, John, 302 communism, 82, 89, 229 Communist Party, 18, 134 Communist regime, 3 Connecticut, 291 Conover, Willis, 272 Corelli, Arcangelo, 31 Craiova, 265 Cuba, 270 Cyrille, Andrew, 286 Cytryn, Abram, 120, 126 Czachorowska-Zygor, Ewa, 6 Czapliński, Przemysław, 59 Czechoslovakia, 74, 256, 270 Dada, 53 Dadaism, 298 Darmstadt, 31, 76 Darmstädter Ferienkurse, 64 Davidson, Justin, 324 Davies, Norman, 140

Davis, Francis, 235, 276, 279, 282, 303 Davydova, Lydia, 239 Denisov, Edison, 309 Derrida, Jacques, 3 Desyatnikov, Leonid, 15, 314–16, 318, 320, 324 Children of Rosenthal, 310, 312, 322 Dichterliebe und Leben, 309, 311, 319, 322–24 Du cote de chez Swan, 324 Moscow, 312 Old Ladies Falling Out, 311 Poor Liza, 319 Rite of Winter 1949, The, 324 Russian Seasons, 311, 319 Songs of Bukovina, 330 Variations on Obtaining a Dwelling, 311 Dewey, John, 112 Dikčius, Arūnas, 168, 174, 187, 192, 205, 213 Dikčiūtė, Snieguolė, 165, 168, 170, 173–76, 180–83, 190, 196, 198, 200 Equinox, 183 Estampida, 183 Fomalhaut, 200 Labirintas, 175–76 Parafonija, 200 Solitude, 183 Weathervane in the Shape of a Fish Tail, 180 dissent, 1, 2, 33 Dmytrzak, Lucjan, 73, 78, 81 Dniepropetrovsk, 224, 230 Dobriakov, Yuri, 214 Dobrynin, Anatoly, 284 Domańska, Ewa, 296 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 146–47 Droba, Krzysztof, 17, 21, 25, 27, 30–31, 34, 48–50, 54–55, 64, 66–68, 70, 72–79, 81–82, 90, 129, 131–32 Druskininkai, 168, 171–72, 178, 181, 184, 187–88, 195, 200, 202–3, 206–9

343

344

Index of Names

Dvarionaite, Aldona, 74 Dybciak, Krzysztof, 70–71 Dylan, Bob, 284 Dzeltenie Pastnieki, 247 Dziewulska, Małgorzata, 69, 76, 79 East Wind Records, 269–70 education, 22, 77 electronic music, 211, 235, 245 Ellington, Duke, 285 engaged music, 10, 89, 113 Estonia, 46, 198, 224–25 Europe, 2, 15–16, 38–39, 42, 82, 104, 117, 133, 139, 200, 227, 255, 264, 270, 275, 279, 289, 317 eurythmics, 249 Evans, James, 280 Expression, 111, 117 Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, 324 Feather, Leonard, 286 Feigin, Leo, 271–72, 276–78, 283 Fellini, Federico, 67, 275 Feltsman, Vladimir, 283–84 Filaktos, Nikos, 74 Filanovsky, Boris, 313 film music, 10, 151, 154, 157, 158, 161 Flock of Seagulls, A, 249 Fluxus, 165, 178–80, 189, 195, 204, 212–13, 298 Fomalhaut project, 181 Ford Foundation, 310 Forman, Miloš, 67 France, 66 Franckling, Ken, 283 freedom, 45, 47–49, 111–117, 128, 144, 255 acquired freedom, 5, 112, 115 artistic freedom, 198, 304 circumstantial freedom, 5, 112, 115 freedom in music, 5 natural freedom, 5, 112, 115

negative freedom, 5, 113, 114 positive freedom, 5, 113, 114 free jazz, 9, 299, 300, 302 Freud, Zigmund, 112 Fripp, Robert, 232 Fuliński, Andrzej, 69 Functions (of music), 6, 23, 105, 136, 151, 153, 154–159, 161 futurism, 298 futurists, 308, 320 Gabriel, Peter, 232 Gaida Festival, 171, 202 Gaidamavičiūtė, Rita, 47 Gajos, Janusz, 146 Galaxies, 286 Galenieks, Ivers, 268 Galicia, 120 Ganelin Trio, 8, 255, 257, 261–62, 265, 267–73, 276–80, 282–83, 286–87, 290 Con Anima, 276 Knock-Off, The, 267, 283 Mack the Knife, 282–83 New Wine, 282 Non Troppo, 282 Poi Segue, 270 Ritardando, 282 San Francisco Holidays, 274, 280 Set-Up, The, 283 Tir, or Shooting Gallery, 276 Too Close for Comfort, 282 Ttaango .... In Nickelsdorf, 276, 282 Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin Trio. See Ganelin Trio Ganelin, Vyacheslav, 278, 287–88 Gapšys, Giedrius, 168, 188–89, 203 Gąsiorowska, Małgorzata, 70, 79 Gasparov, Boris, 320 Gdańsk, 81, 117, 298 Generation 33, 4, 49, 87–88, 90–92 Genette, Gérard, 151, 156, 158 Palimpsests, 156

Index of Names

Geneva, 268, 270 Georgia, 270 Gergiev, Valery, 321 Germany, 174, 234, 270, 320 Gershenzon, Pavel, 324–25 Gerulaitis, Viktoras, 202 Giddens, Gary, 278–79 Giemza, Lech, 104 Giraitis, Liudas, 200 Girios aidas Museum, 206 glasnost, 269, 290 Glass, Philipp, 209 Gloyd, Russell, 256 Golianek, Daniel, 71, 77–78, 81 Gomułka, Władysław, 134 Goodman, Benny, 276 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 8, 184, 188, 268–70, 284 Gorbacheva, Raisa, 188 Gorbman, Claudia, 6, 156–60 Gordon, William J., 175 Górecki, Henryk Mikołaj, V, 4–5, 49–50, 54, 61, 72, 85, 87–88, 90, 128–43, 337–38 Ad Matrem, 88, 132, 136–37 Beatus Vir, 132, 136, 139–40 Euntes Ibant et Flebant, 88 Kyrie, 142 Sanctus Adalbertus, 142 Scontri, 132 Songs of Joy and Rythm, 50, 132, 314 Sorrowful Songs, 54, 72, 87, 129, 136 Tansman Episodes, 142 Two Tristan Postludes and Chorale, 142 Goskontsert, 21, 26, 269 Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 40, 319 Grateful Dead, 284 Graz, 31, 76 Great Britain, 65 Grebenshchikov, Boris, 233, 268 Greece, 74 Greenwich Village, 275 Gregorian chant, 87

Greimas, Algirdas J., 165, 187, 212–13 Grindenko, Tatiana, 225, 237, 239, 245 Griniuk, Marija, 169 Grodno, 26 Groys, Boris, 243 Gruodytė, Vita, 6 Gubaidulina, Sofia, 19, 309, 318 Gučas, Rimantas, 202 Guzy-Pasiak, Jolanta, 10 Gwinciński, Tomasz, 300–1 Tańce Bydgoskie, 301 Hába, Alois, 303 Hakobian, Levon, 20 Halecki, Oskar, 38 Halley’s Comet, 287–88 Hancock, Herbie, 286 Hanson, Howard, 54 Harasymowicz, Jerzy, 69 Hare Krishna, 199 Hatschek, Keith, 255–56 Havel, Václav, 15 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 112 Hejinian, Lyn, 261 Helsinki, 225 Hendricks, Jimmy, 285 Hentoff, Nat, 278 Hermitage, 325 Hesse, Herman, 183, 200 Holocaust, 120, 125–26 Holofcener, Larry, 282 Horowitz, Vladimir, 268–69 Hume, David, 112 Hungary, 270 Hybridization, 166, 167 Iksanov, Anatoly, 313 Imanta, 222 imperfection, 212 India, 255, 270 interdisciplinary approach in music theory and musicology, 324

345

346

Index of Names

Ippolitov, Arcady, 325 Iron Curtain, 8, 18, 20, 42, 49, 64, 111, 284 Isakadze, Liana, 284 Israel, 288 Ives, Charles, 32, 55, 90–91, 235, 262, 303 Maple Leaves, 303 Iwaszkiewicz, Jarosław, 69 Jackowska-Pociejowa, Krystyna, 68, 70–71, 74 Jakelski, Lisa, 37 Janicka-Słysz, Małgorzata, 3, 10, 72, 77–78 Janion, Maria, 69, 87, 104 Jarociński, Stefan, 45, 66 Jaruzelski, Wojciech, 82 Jasenka, Antanas, 181, 199 Paramatma, 199 Jauna muzika, 184, 200 jazz as freedom, 260 as democracy, 260 Jazz Summit (documentary film), 272, 278, 280, 284 John Paul II, Pope, 25, 89–91, 116–17, 134, 136 Jones, Quincy, 285 Jones, Spike, 285 Juzeliūnas, Tomas, 168, 173, 177, 192–95, 204 A Veterans’ Morning, 194 JVC Jazz Festival, 273, 277–79, 287 Kabelis, Ričardas, 165, 168, 181, 184–85, 191, 193, 195–96, 198, 204, 206–8 Auksaspalvis, 171, 194 Sheep instead of Violins, 195 Kablox, 301 Kaczyński, Tadeusz, 28, 32 Kadans, 271 Kaddish, 120 Kalanta, Romas, 18, 195 Kalinowski, Lech, 69

Kamieńska, Anna, 69 Kan, Alexander, 263, 267–68, 289 Kant, Immanuel, 112 Karaulov, Andrey, 322 Karavaichuk, Oleg, 311 Karetnikov, Nikolai, 271 Karlovits, Bob, 280, 282 Karmanov, Pavel, 310 Karnes, Kevin C., 7–8 Katkus, Donatas, 27, 172, 193 Kątny, Michał, 148–50, 164 Katowice, 90, 297 Katyń, 90, 117 Kaukaitė, Giedrė, 32 Kaunas, 168, 202, 206–7 Keepnews, Peter, 278–79 Kenney, Padraic, 15–16, 41 Kerman, Joseph, 325 KGB, 231, 233, 239, 265, 272 Khachaturian, Aram, 17 Khanin, Yury, 311 Kharms, Daniil, 311, 322, 324 Khazdan, Evgenia, 10 Khlebnikov, Velimir, 141 Khrennikov, Tichon, 25, 322 Khrushchev, Nikita, 265 Kiev, 19, 22, 54 Kilar, Wojciech, 54, 87 Krzesany, 54 King Crimson, 232, 235–36 Kisielewski, Stefan, 26 Kiwała, Kinga, 4 Knaifel, Alexander, 309, 311 Knapik, Eugeniusz, 26, 30, 54, 60, 85, 87, 90–93, 105 Islands, 91 Le Chant, 91 Minds of Helena Troubleyn, The, 60 Knock-Off, The, 267, 283 Kochan, Anna, 66–67 Kochan, Halina, 32 Koestler, Arthur, 176

Index of Names

Koivunen, Pia, 14 Kołakowski, Leszek, 142 Kolarzowa, Romana, 71 Kolbe, Maximilian, 117 Komeda, Krzysztof, 300, 303 Kommersant, 9–10, 308–9, 314–16, 318, 320–22, 324–25 Komsomol, 22, 171–72, 184, 188, 195, 221, 224, 236, 315 Konieczny, 152 Konieczny, Zygmunt, 6, 151, 154–55, 157–58, 161 Konstantinas, Mikalojus, 32, 207 Kopaliński, Władysław, 150 Kostka, Violetta, 71, 78 Kosuth, Joseph, 201 Kosz, Stanisław, 71, 73, 80 Kovnatskaya, Ludmila, 317 Kowalczyk, Mariola, 36 Kraków, V–IX, 3–4, 21, 28–29, 34, 42–43, 45–46, 48–50, 52, 54–55, 59–67, 69, 77–79, 81–84, 86–90, 92–93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103, 106–7, 116–17, 127, 128, 131, 139, 141–43, 156, 162, 297–98, 304, 306, 335–40 Krauze-Świderska, Janina, 69 Krauze, Zygmunt, 56 Kremer, Gidon, 312 Kremlin, 188 Krishna, 199 Kronos Quartet, 264 Kruchenykh, Aleksei, 308 Krzanowski, Andrzej, 30, 54, 72, 87, 90–91, 105 Księżyk, Rafał, 299 Kubiak, Zygmunt, 69 Kubilius, Kerry, 10 Kulbak, Moyshe, 40 Kumža, Algirdas, 184 Kunca, Petras, 27 Kuncewiczowa, Maria, 69 Kuprevičius, Giedrius, 17

Kurljandsky, Dmitry, 310 Kury, 301, 304 Kuryokhin, Sergey, 268, 311 Kutavičius-Balakauskas-Bajoras trinity, 47 Kutavičius, Bronius, 3, 22, 25, 27, 31–33, 35–39, 47–49, 51, 58, 60–61, 75, 165, 167, 169–70, 174, 190–92, 199–200, 208–9 Anno cum Tettigonia, 33 Clocks of the Past, 32 From the Yatvingian Stone, 38, 200 Last Pagan Rites, The, 22, 35–37, 60 Pantheistic Oratorio, 48, 51, 55, 191–92 Perpetuum Mobile, 32 Three Sonnets by A. Mickiewicz, 39 Kuznetsov, Alexei, 270 Lake, Greg, 232 Lambert, 285 Lamentations, 120 Lampsatytė, Raminta, 174 Landsbergis, Vytautas, 25–26, 28, 31, 48, 74, 81, 172, 192, 207 Lasoń, Aleksander, 30, 54, 87, 90–91, 93, 105 Cathedral, 91 Mountains, The, 91 Latėnas, Faustas, 175 Musa memoria, 175 Late style, 140–142 Latgalia, 232 Latvia, 1, 46, 224–25, 233, 249 Le Carré, John, 265 Lediņa, Rute, 233 Lediņš, Hardijs, 7–8, 221–41, 243, 245–50 Empty/Alone, 243 Māja Bolderājā, 246 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 112 Lenin, Vladimir, 179–80, 249 Leningrad, 25, 233, 263–65, 268, 286, 311, 319

347

348

Index of Names

Leningrad Contemporary Music Club, 263, 268 Leningrad Dixieland Band, 286 Leo Records, 272, 280 Leszczyński, Witold, 6, 144–45, 148–52, 158–61 Siekierezada (Axiliad), 6, 145, 148–49, 151–53, 158, 160 Żywot Mateusza, 148 Liberation, 1–4, 10, 16, 90, 114, 133, 166–167, 175, 178, 209, 257 Ligeikaitė, Laimutė, 171–72 Ligeti, György, 200 Lissa, Zofia, 6, 73, 156–59 Lithuania, IV, 1, 3, 6, 18–19, 21–25, 27, 30, 33–42, 45–49, 55, 58, 60, 74–75, 166, 172, 174, 179, 189–90, 194–95, 202, 209–10, 212, 214, 283, 335–36 Lithuanian Music Academy, 35n53 Lithuanian Reform Movement. See Sąjūdis Litzmannstadt Ghetto, 120 Ljubljana, 230 London, 224 Lozoraitis, Stasys, 60 Lubarskaya, Irina, 309, 320, 323 Lubimov, Alexei, 225, 237–40, 245 Lublin, 151 Lukyanov, Herman, 271 Lusławice, 22, 24б 26, 33 Luther, 112 Lutosławski, Witold, 31, 52, 60, 72 Lyatoshinsky, Boris, 54 Lyotard, Jean-François, 319 Mačiūnas, George, 165, 178–79, 182, 196, 204, 211 Mądro, Andrzej, 8 Maestro Trytony, 301 magnetic tape, 246 Magnitizdat, 246 Mahler, Gustav, 77, 89, 324 Makosz, Jadwiga, 77

Mal’gin, Andrey, 322 Malecka, Teresa, 5, 80 Malevich, Kazimir, 308 Mannheim, Karl, 85 Manulkina, Olga, 9–10 Marczewski-Konieczny duo, 154 Escape from the “Liberty” Cinema, 6, 145–54, 158, 160, 163 Housemaster, The, 154 Nightmares, 154 Marczewski, Wojciech, 6, 144–47, 151, 153, 155–58, 160–61 Mariinsky Theatre, 312, 321 Martinaitis, Algirdas, 55–56, 60, 181, 200 Cantus ad futurum, 60 Danse Macabre, 200 Martynov, Vladimir, 239, 241, 310, 312–13, 319 Passionslieder, 239 Masecki, Marcin, 305 Matjushin, Mikhail, 308 Mattingly, George, 268 Mazowiecki, Tadeusz, 134 Mažulis, Rytis, 170, 193, 198–99, 210 Auksaspalvis, 171, 194 Mazzolewski, Jerzy, 301 Melodiya, 269 memory emotional memory, 54–57 memory of values, 59–61 systemic memory, 52 Mencel, Joachim, 297 Merkelys, Remigijus, 199–200 Mervis, Scott, 279 Messiaen, Olivuer, 18, 235, 266 Metheny, Pat, 260, 290 Meyer, Krzysztof, 73 Meyer, Leonard B., 47 Mezhdunarodnaia kniga, 269 Micał, Dominika, 3–4 Mickiewicz, Adam, 39–40 Mida, Iwona, 70, 80

Index of Names

Mighty handful, 319 Mikėnaitė, Rima, 75 Mikkonen, Simo, 14 Milašius, Juozas, 182, 199–200 Tabalai, 182, 200 Milašius, Oskaras, 39 Miłość, 8–9, 296, 298, 301–4 Asthmatic, 302–3 Soffties by Profession, 302 Taniec Smoka, 302–3 Miłosz, Czesław, 26–27, 37–40, 55, 129 The Walley of Isa, 26 Rodzinna Europa, 38 Dzięcie Europy, 39 Zniewolony umysł, 55, 62 Miltinis, Juozas, 181–82 Minimalism, 18, 35, 49–52, 166, 309, 326 Mirka, Danuta, 53, 77 Młodzi Muzycy Młodemu Miastu, 32, 65 Modlińska, Maria. See Bacevičius, Maria Molino, Jean, 166 Monastyrsky, Andrei, 226–27, 241–43 Moniuszko, Stanisław, 31 Montreal, 275 Moscow, 3, 17–19, 21, 25, 34, 171, 224, 226, 229–30, 239, 241, 264–66, 269, 288, 290, 309–12, 317–18, 321–22, 328, 331 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 6, 31, 147, 151–52, 156–57, 324 Możdżer, Leszek, 9, 161, 301, 304 Mózg, 301 multisociative expression, 198 Muniak, Janusz, 9, 297 music in revolution, 7, 167, 174, 235 music and politics, 7–8, 13–4, 37, 42, 44, 48, 183, 190, 212, 256–58, 263, 267, 269, 292 music reception, 8, 16, 35–37, 88, 281, 283 music theatre, 58, 154 music theory and musicology in Polish People Republic, 69, 76

Mustafa-Zadeh, Vagif, 270 Mustonen, Andres, 240 Musical Meetings in Baranów, 4, 28, 30, 64–65, 67, 69, 76, 81 Musical September at the Castle (Wrzesień Muzyczny na Zamku), 4, 65, 67, 75 Mycielski, Zygmunt, 30, 72, 76 Nabokov, Vladimir, 323 Nakas, Šarūnas, 19, 33, 75, 170, 185, 187, 191, 193, 196, 200 Namysłowski, Zbigniew, 9, 270, 297 Nancarrow, Conlon, 303 Narbutaitė, Onutė, 3, 39–40, 55, 60 Centones meae urbi, 39–41, 60 Garden of Olives, 60 Sonnetà l’amour, 39 Tres Dei Matris Symphoniae, 60 Vijoklis, 60 Narvilaitė, Loreta, 173 NASA, 175 National Science Centre, 10, 61, 82, 106, 126, 142, 161, 263, 305, 322 Naujokaitis, Dalius, 199 networking, 2, 13–16, 41–2, 64, 115, 335 Nevsky, Sergei, 310, 319 New Age, 46 New Haven, 291 New Orleans, 266 New Romanticism, 65, 90–91 New Russian music criticism, 9, 316–18, 329, 330 New York, 47, 221–22, 224, 226–27, 273, 275, 277–79, 285–86, 312 Newport Jazz Festival. See JVC Jazz Festival Nida, 168 Nixon, Richard, 265 North America, 227, 272, 279 Northern Europe, 39

349

350

Index of Names

Nostalgia, 3, 35–36, 39–40, 55, 214, 322 Nowosielski, Jerzy, 69 NSRD (Workshop for the Restoration of Unfelt Feelings), 247–49 Nycz, Ryszard, 59, 125 Nyman, Anatoly, 322 O’Haire, Patricia, 278 Oakland, 286 Ochs, Jacki ( Jacquelin), 278 Jazz Summit, 278, 280, 284, 286, 272 Ochs, Larry, 8, 261–67, 278, 280–81, 283, 287–89, 291. See also Rova Olbrychski, Daniel, 150, 153 Oleinikov, Nikolai, 311, 322, 324 Olter, Jacek, 301–2 Opus Posth, 310 Orff, Karl, 35 Orzechowski, Piotr, 305 Osiński, Zbigniew, 69 Oxford, 113 PAGART (Polish Art Agency), 21, 297 Paik, Nam June, 182 Opéra sextronique, 182 Palace Square, 290 Palanga, 208 Pamir, 208 Panevėžys, 168, 172–73, 180–81, 202, 206–7 Paralaksa, 301 Paris, 31, 38 Paris-Moscow Exhibition, 20 Parker, Evan, 262 Pärt, Arvo, 22, 225, 230, 237–39, 319 Cantate Domino, 239 Tabula Rasa, 22 Patkowski, Józef, 66 Paukštelis, Viktoras, 196 Paulauskis, Linas, 182

Penderecka, Elżbieta, 31 Penderecki, Krzysztof, 3–5, 19, 22, 25–27, 33, 47, 49, 54, 58, 60–61, 85, 87–89, 91–92, 105, 111, 116–17, 120, 125–26, 235 Agnus Dei, 117 Awakening of Jacob, The, 88 Brygada śmierci, 120 Chaconne, 90, 117 Dies irae, 117, 120, 150, 152, 155 Kadisz, 120, 125 Lacrimosa, 90, 117 Libera me, Domine, 117 Polish Requiem, 6, 47, 60, 89–90, 116–17, 147, 151, 155–58, 225, 230, 324 Polymorphia, 58 Sanctus, 117 St. Luke passion, 60, 87, 89 Te Deum, 47, 60, 89, 116 Threnody, 58 perestroika, 20, 24, 184, 222, 271 Perplex, 301 Philadelphia, 279 Piazzolla, Astor, 312 Pink Floyd, 232 Piotrowski, Piotr, 229–30 Pisarenko, Olgierd, 32 Pittsburgh, 279–80, 282 Platelis, Kornelijus, 206 Plato, 112 Plotinus, 112 Pociej, Bohdan, 69–70, 72–74, 76, 79, 140 Pokrovsky, Boris, 311 police, 247 Polish Art Agency. See PAGART Polish jazz, 8–9, 161, 296–97, 303–5 Polish music, 3–4, 9, 28, 31, 33–34, 37, 49, 52, 54, 76, 85, 88, 90, 105, 132, 137, 296 Polish music in 1990s, 296

Index of Names

Polony, Leszek, 54, 76, 92, 105 Polskie Towarzystwo Muzyki Współczesnej, 22 Ponomaryova, Valentina, 268 Popper, Frank, 175, 201, 206 Porębski, Mieczysław, 69 Portugal, 270 Pospelov, Pyotr, 308–13, 318, 320–22, 329 Creativity and Production Association “Composer,” 309 St. Matthew Passion, 309 Tsar Demyan, 309 Postmodernism, 65, 68, 73, 138, 166, 227, 308, 314, 319, 324 Povilionienė, Rima, 10 Poznań, 134 Pradera, Janek, 148–50, 159, 163–64 Prague, 18, 212, 271 Pranulis, Valdas, 175 Proust, Marcel, 324 Providence, 140 Prusevičius, Donatas, 173 Psy Pawłowa, 303 Puppet Theatre, 173 puritanism, 182 Purvciems, 222 Pushkin, Alexander, 324 Pyatnitsky Folk Choir, 287 Pyżik, Kazimierz, 32 Quebec, 300 Queen, 232 Rabkiewicz, 146–47, 155, 163 Rakauskienė, Lilija, 185 Ramans, Ģederts, 237 Ramoškaitė, Živilė, 201 Raskin, Jon, 8, 262, 265. See also Rova Rasskazova, Tatiana, 315 Ratmansky, Alexei, 311–13 Ratnyčia, 206

Rauschenberg, 177 Reagan-Gorbachev Meeting, 270 Reagan, Ronald, 8, 267–69, 284 Redding, Otis, 266 Regamey, Konstanty, 72 Renaissance, 69, 125, 129 Republika, 303 Nieustanne tango, 303 Res Facta, 66 Riga, 7, 19, 22, 221–27, 229–30, 232–34, 240, 245, 247–49, 264–65, 268 Riga Polytechnic, 7, 222–23, 225, 232, 234, 236–38, 247–49 Rivest, Johanne, 174 Robinson, Harlow, 290 Rochester, 285, 287 rock music, 235, 236 Romania, 8, 120, 264–65, 270 Ross, Alex, 285, 324 Rostropovich, Mstislav, 321 Roth, Sol, 125 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 112 Rova Saxophone Quartet, 8, 255, 257, 261–68, 276, 280, 283, 287, 289 As Was, 266 Saxophone Diplomacy, 8, 261, 264–68, 276, 290 Detroit or Détente, 268 Knock-Off, The, 267, 283 Paint Another Take of the Shootpop, 266–67 Set-Up, The, 283 Roxy Music, 232 Rubtsovsk, 232 Ruch Muzyczny, 65, 69, 76 Russell, Bertrand, 112 Russia, 1, 188, 225, 261, 275, 280, 283, 285, 288–89, 312, 314, 317, 320 Russian Seasons, 311, 319 Rzepińska, Maria, 69

351

352

Index of Names

Sadłowki, Krzysztof, 32 Saint Petersburg, 290, 309–12, 317–18, 321, 328–29 Saint-Saëns, Camille, 324 Sąjūdis, 15, 29, 190–92, 194, 205 samizdat, 15, 27, 233 San Francisco, 255, 262, 267, 279–84, 287–88, 291 Sandomierz, 3–4, 21, 30, 33–34, 38, 64–65, 67–68, 70–75, 77–82 Saprykin, Jury, 323 Sarbievius, 40 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 156 Satanowski, Jerzy, 6, 152–53, 159, 161 Savenko, Svetlana, 317 Scandinavia, 233 Scelsi, Giacinto, 303 Schaeffer, Bogusław, 49 Schiano, Mario, 288 Schmelz, Peter J., 8, 16, 23, 115 Schnittke, Alfred, 19, 113, 225, 230, 309–10, 322–23 Schoenberg, Arnold, 235 Schubert, Franz, 131 Schumann, Robert, 323–24 Scriabin, Alexander, 32 Scruton, Roger, 54, 58 Seifert, Zbigniew, 300 Sendecka, Magdalena, 151 Seneca, 112 Seque, 245 Shchedrin, Rodion, 322 Shorter, Wayne, 286 Shostakovich, Dmitri, 89, 188, 276, 321–22, 324 Katerina Izmailova, 321 Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, 321 Shumaker, Robert, 265 Siarkopol, 66–67, 77 Siberia, 278 Sikała, Maciej, 301 Silesia, 4, 105

Silvestrov, Valentin, 319 Sinatra, Frank, 285 Sīpoli, 249 Slade, 232 Slonimsky, Sergei, 309 Słowacki, Juliusz, 129 Smolensk, 225 Sobolewski, Tadeusz, 149 Sodeika, Gintaras, 165, 168, 170, 173, 176–79, 185–87, 193–97, 199, 203–5, 207–8, 210–12 Baza Gaza, 173, 186, 199 Bureaucratic Traffic Stop, 186 The Train …, 205 SOJUZ, 194–95 Sokolniki park, 266 Sokolov, Ivan, 323 Solidarity movement, 15, 25–26, 74–75, 87, 90, 134, 222, 300 Solidarność. See Solidarity movement Soloviev, Sergei, 324 Assa, 324 sonorism, 4, 49–50, 54, 65, 92, 129, 132, 135, 136 Sorokin, Vladimir, 310, 313, 319, 322 Soviet Concert Agency (See Goskoncert). See Goskontsert Soviet Union, 8, 18, 21, 25, 134, 178, 188, 222, 227, 233, 247, 256–57, 260–61, 263–64, 266–68, 271, 286, 289–90. See also USSR Sowińska-Fruhtrunk, Iwona, 4–5 Spinoza, Baruch, 112 Stachowski, Marek, 67 Stachura, Edward, 6, 148–50, 153, 159–60 Stadalnikaitė, Regina, 170, 194 Stafisz, Maria, 76 Stalin, Joseph, 5, 135, 325 Stalinism, 28 Stalowa Wola Festival, 21, 30–31, 33–34, 54–55, 65–67, 85, 87, 90–92

Index of Names

Stančikas, Liutauras, 168–69, 173, 180, 182–83, 196, 200, 207–8, 210 Naujausias Kūrinys Specialiai Šiai Popietei, 183 Sidharta, 183, 200 Stanevičiūtė, Rūta, 2–3, 10 Stańko, Tomasz, 300, 304 Starr, S. Frederick, 272 Stary Theatre, 151 Stepanova, Maria, 323 Stęszewski, Jan, 67 Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 209, 235, 241, 245–46, 262, 303 Aus den sieben Tagen, 235, 241 Stockton, 255 Strauss, Richard, 31, 323 Rosenkavalier, Der, 323 Stravinsky, Igor, 31, 35, 53, 319, 324–26 Mavra, 319 Štreihfelds, Edmunds, 223, 234 Stróżewski, Władysław, 69 Sturm und Drang, 132 Summer Rhythms Festival, 264 Supičić, Ivo, 191 Surrealism, 298 Świda-Ziemba, Hanna, 85–86, 152 Switzerland, 268 Szabelski, Bolesław, 132 Szpakowska, Małgorzata, 69 Szukalski, Piotr, 86 Szupiluk, Iwona, 77 Szwajgier, Krzysztof, 70 Szyma, Tadeusz, 149 Szymanowski, Karol, 50, 88, 129, 132 Szymborska, Wisława, 69 Tallinn, 19, 22, 225, 230, 240 Talmud, 126 Tangerine Dream, 235 Tarasov, Vladimir, 8, 255–56, 268–70, 272–73, 275, 280, 283–91 Tir, 276

Targosz, Jacek, 78–79 Tarkhanov, Alexei, 315 Tarnawczyk, Tomasz, 71 Tarnobrzeg, 66–67 Tarnopolsky, Vladimir, 310 Tartu, 225 Taruskin, Richard, 271 Tashkent, 222 Tbilisi Jazz Festival, 282 Tchaikovsky, Piotr, 188, 324 Thaw, 5, 20, 23, 27, 134, 135, 184 Tikhomirova, Yelena, 269 Timofeevsky, Alexander, 308, 314–16, 322, 324–25 Tischner, Józef, 26, 81 Today Show, 283 Tomaszewski, Mieczysław, 3, 5, 27, 30, 50, 59, 64–67, 69, 73, 75–76, 79–81, 111, 113–17, 131–33, 138–40, 142 musica vera, 5, 113, 114 musica conventionalis, 5, 113 musica convivalis, 5, 113–115 musica falsa, 5, 113 “Too Close for Comfort” (song), 282 Toronto, 286 Totart, 298–99, 301, 304 Transistors, 304 Transition, 1, 6, 42, 159, 165–214 Traugutt, Romuald, 29 Tristano, Lennie, 303 Troitsky, Artemy, 224 Trytony, 301 Trzaska, Mikołaj, 300–302, 304 Tuchowski, Andrzej, 49 Tupitsyn, Margarita, 243 Turino, Thomas, 34 Tymański, Tymon, 9, 298, 300–1, 303–4 Ufa, 312 Ukraine, 120, 224

353

354

Index of Names

Ultravox, 246 United Kingdom, 270, 272 United States, 8, 17, 21, 31, 36, 41, 46–48, 59, 66, 71–73, 75, 77–78, 80, 89, 114, 117, 129, 134, 145, 158–59, 170, 174, 176, 178–79, 182–83, 187, 194, 197, 203, 206–7, 209, 221, 227, 235, 243, 248, 250, 255–57, 260–65, 267–73, 275–79, 281–91, 298–99, 305, 310, 315, 317, 330, 338, 340 Urbaitis, Mindaugas, 39, 55–56, 170–71 Resignatio, 39 Urbański, Kazimierz, 69 Urbonas, Gediminas, 182, 200 US State Department, 260, 264 USSR, 3, 7, 14, 17, 20–21, 23, 25–26, 34, 41, 74, 221–25, 227–30, 233, 246–47, 256–57, 260–66, 268–72, 280–81, 283–84, 286–87, 289–90 See also Soviet Union USSR Ministry of Culture, 285 Ustvolskaya, Galina, 311 Vainiūnaitė, Audronė, 27, 32 Vaitkus, Jonas, 191–92 Valančiūtė, Nomeda, 199 Narcissus, 199 Valéry, Paul, 91 Vancouver, 286 Varèse, Edgard, 262 Vartai Gallery, 200 Vasiliauskas, Augustinas, 27 Vatican, 27 Velvet Curtain (Aksamitna kurtyna) Festival, 42 Venclova, Tomas, 40 Vertovec, Steven, 16 Vietnam, 256 Vilnius, 1, 18, 22, 24, 26, 32–35, 38, 40–41, 79, 168–69, 172, 181, 189, 200, 206–8, 214

Virginia, 264 Visocka, Asja, 238 vitalism, 46 Vivaldi, Antonio, 6, 150–52, 158–59 Stabat Mater, 6, 88, 137, 150–52, 158 Voight, Andrew, 8, 262. See also Rova Voltaire, 112 Vorslavs, Lauris, 230 Vyšniauskaitė, Ilmė, 169 Wagner, Richard, 236, 312, 323 Rheingold, Das, 312 Ring cycle, 312 Wajda, Andrzej, 67 Wałęsa, Lech, 26, 89–90, 117 Walicki, Olgierd, 299 Waligórski, Łukasz, 161 Wallis, Mieczysław, 140, 142 Wardour Castle, 65 Warsaw, 19, 89, 117 Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music, 5, 17–18, 28, 32, 36–37, 48, 65, 134–35 Warszawska Jesień. See Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music Washington, 272, 284 Wasyluk, Peresada, 148, 150, 163 Weigel, George, 5, 133, 141 Weill, Kurt, 282 Mack the Knife, 282–83 Threepenny opera, 282 Weinstein, Norman, 283 Weiss, George David, 282 Welanyk, Stanisław, 36 Werner, Michael, 15 West Virginia Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble, 264 Więcek, Kuba, 305 Wnuk-Nazarowa, 66, 70, 74, 77, 79, 81

Index of Names

Wojtyła, Karol, 87, 116, 138 Wozzeck, 320 Wróblewski, Jan, 9, 297 Wrzesień Muzyczny na Zamku. See Musical September at the Castle Wyka, Kazimierz, 85–86 Wyszyński, Stefan, 89, 117 Yakovlev, Vladimir, 315 yass, 8–9, 296, 298–99, 301–4 Young, La Monte, 209 Yugoslavia, 226 Yurchak, Alexei, 19–20, 22–23, 114, 228–29, 250

Zagajewski, Adam, 145 Zajcówna, Ziuta, 71 Zake, Ieva, 233 Zaleski, Marek, 57 Zapasiewicz, Zbigniew, 69 Zappa, Frank, 303 Zavadskaia, Evgeniia, 226–27 Zawadzka-Gołosz, Anna, 3, 60 Mirrors, 60 Zaworska, Helena, 69–70 Zhuk, Sergei, 224, 232 Zimmermann, Bénédicte, 15 Zirkahbols, 231–32 Zorn, John, 286 Żyłko, Magdalena, 83

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