Articles

I’m gradually putting up transcripts of some of my articles and chapters on Polish music, especially when their original source may not otherwise be readily available.  Until I put them into PDF format, they exclude musical examples and the footnotes are not ‘clickable’, just listed numerically as endnotes that have to be scrolled down to – sorry!  Even so, I hope that the articles will be of help to anyone pursuing an interest in Polish music.  Most of the illustrations did not appear in the original publications.

You can access them either by clicking on the titles below or scrolling down the ARTICLES tab above.

If you want to quote from an article, please give the normal details of author, title, source, date and pagination (this last is indicated within articles by ‘// page no.’).

• An Enigmatic Figure (2015)
an article written for the programme book for the Royal Opera House’s first production of Szymanowski’s Król Roger (London, 1-19 May 2015)

• Andrzej Panufnik (2014)
an article written for ‘Composer of the Month’, BBC Music Magazine (September 2014)

• On Bogusław Schaeffer (2005/2014, extracts)
extracts from my book Polish Music since Szymanowski (2005) to celebrate Schaeffer’s 85th birthday

• Lutosławski and his Performers (2013)
an essay written for Witold Lutosławski (Brussels, 2013)

• Witold Lutosławski (2013)
an article written for ‘Composer of the Month’, BBC Music Magazine (August 2013)

• A Polish Awakening (2013)
an essay written for the 2013 BBC Proms, which celebrated Lutosławski’s centenary alongside music by other Polish composers

• Parallel Lives of a Captive Muse (2012)
an essay written for the Philharmonia’s celebration of Lutosławski centenary in 2013

• ‘Był na czele peletonu’ – rozmowa o Henryku Mikołaju Góreckim z Adrianem Thomasem (2011)
an interview by Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska, carried out in Warsaw shortly after Górecki’s funeral, published by Ruch Muzyczny (6 February 2011)  in Polish

• Górecki – An Appreciation (2010)
recollections of one of the most important figures in my own life and, thanks largely to the international success of his Third Symphony, to a multitude of music-lovers around the world

• Boundaries and Definitions: The Compositional Realities of Polish Sonorism (2008)
an examination of a key phenomenon in Polish music, especially during the 1960s, not only with regard to the music of Penderecki but also in different degrees to that of a wide range of Polish composers 

• One Last Meeting: Lutosławski, Szymanowski and the Fantasia (2007)
an exploration of stylistic and structural parallels between Szymanowski (Violin Concerto no.1) and Lutosławski (Les Espaces du sommeil, Symphonies no.3 and no.4)

• File 750: Composers, Politics and the Festival of Polish Music (1951) (2002, posted 2014)
an exploration of a file containing grant applications from Polish composers in March-June 1950, in which hitherto unknown works, or proposals for works, are revealed, especially in the letters from Lutosławski and Panufnik 

• The Hidden Composer: Witold Lutosławski and Polish Radio (1997)
An exhibition first shown as part of the Breaking Chains festival, Barbican Centre, London, 13-19 January 1997

• A Deep Resonance: Lutosławski Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux (1970)
the first English-language discussion of this important work, based on the UK premiere on 25 June 1969 for which I was one of the two conductors