The reception of the twelve-note and serial techniques in the output of Polish composers is a discontinuous phenomenon, marked by the re-evaluation of the function of serial rules resulting from a strong need for preserving individual aesthetic identity. The chronology of this reception is divided by the authoress into three phases, embedded in a general descriptive model of 'fluctuations of modernism'. The first phase (1926-1944) is represented by works of Koffler, Majerski and Regamey, the second (1948-1955), termed as the 'outlawed' modernism - by Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and other members of the 'dodecaphonic diaspora': Roman Palester, Konstanty Regamey, Karol Rathaus, as well as Boguslaw Schaeffer. The third phase (1956-1976) was characterized by the coexistence of transformatory procedures derived from dodecaphony with other technical solutions such as sonorism and indeterminacy. The article ends with a conclusion that dodecaphony and serialism played a much more significant part in the history of 20th-century Poland than it has been traditionally accorded to them.
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