• Panufnik: One Song or Three?

Last month I spent a few days researching Panufnik manuscripts in Kraków’s Jagiellonian Library.  I was interested mainly in his working versions of major pieces from the 1940s and 50s; I will write on these shortly.  Another set of manuscripts also caught my eye.  These were of three songs written for a competition celebrating the imminent formation in December 1948 of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR).  Although Panufnik professed in his autobiography to writing just one song, and that under duress, it has been known for a while, from other archives, that like five of his colleagues he wrote music to all three set texts.  But the existence of these fair copies in his own hand has not been so well-known.  I have written a short article exploring these manuscripts and their history.