From 1643, about 20 years after his arrival in Poland where he became maestro di cappella in Warsaw, Marco Scacchi began to publish polemical texts, directed mainly towards German-speaking musicians, in which he familiarized readers with some principles of musical compositions. The article describes the confrontation between two theoretical positions: the Italian one, represented by Scacchi, and the north German one, personified by the organist from Gdansk, Paul Siefert, which originated as an almost purely personal friction, yet with time, it became a polemic with much wider reception. Although Scacchi's theoretical writings do not constitute a fully cohesive body of knowledge, their chronological analysis reveals a perceptible evolution of the author's views, his classification of musical styles being its most original element.
The authoress states that it is worthwhile to treat Szymanowski's creative development as a search for answers to vital questions relating to his personal, artistic and religious identity. The article is to trace different currents, particularly during the last creative period of the composer, and to define the sources of his music. As the nativeness in music is a multidimensional category: it may relate to a locality, region or nationality; it may also refer more broadly to the European culture, it a useful tool in considering Szymanowski's artistic identity. Prior to 1920, the influence of symbolism, expressionism and surrealism is of significance; especially the second stage of his creative development was a time of discovering Mediterranean world and the roots of European culture in general, which corresponded to the forging a new musical language - an idiosyncratic synthesis of the antique, the Orient and contemporary Europe. After 1920, in his last creative period, it is the native Polish tradition, the ancient folk music of Podhale and Kurpie, which is central to his style and his sense of identity.
Several composers adopted the style 'musica more antique mensurata' and the genre of metric ode, which initiation is usually ascribed to Konrad Celtes; both those musicians whose significance was merely local and prominent composers such as Hofhaimer, Senfl, Judenkunig. Polyphonic metric odes were composed throughout the 16th century in Central Europe - Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, as well as in Poland. In the latter repertory several groups could be distinguished according to the category of importation and participation.
The study aims to draw attention to specific stylistic features of the work of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, which is generally thought to be characterised by a certain anachronism, or a one-sided concentration on virtuosity and brilliance. Along with many compositions which correspond to the standard level of contemporary musical thinking and are dominated by virtuoso piano-playing, Hummel composed also a number of works which go beyond this stylistic level, due to their innovative quality and originality in harmony, texture, form and content. These works had an important influence on Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Schubert and Liszt. When considering Hummel’s work, one needs to distinguish between the compositional line of the contemporary standard and his supreme works, which are among the supreme opuses in European musical literature.
The aim of this article is to verify some common and ill-defined views on the Polish instrumental and vocal instrumental music written between 1947 and 1955 (all inspired by the socialist cultural policy), in the light of the analysis of both their texts and forms. A typical feature of these songs of the people, cantatas, operas and some symphonic genres was the use of texts which represented the style of the so-called 'socialist realism'. Yet a thorough study of the music created in the post-war decade allows us to distinguish those works with a clear political motivation, which can indeed be counted among the category of 'socialist-realist' music, and the 'independent' and politically 'neutral' works which belonged to the neo-classical or folkloristic tradition. The latter compositions, through the analysis of their forms and compositional techniques, reveal the features which enable us to verify common, and sometimes inaccurate opinions on their artistic value, and also allow us to bring to life several works forgotten by history.
Funeral laments and farewell hymns represent two genetically and typologically distinct genres of the funeral singing, now at the stage of expiry or with their historical evolution already closed. The farewell hymns were derived from the European literary tradition of valedictions, which can be mapped back to the baroque period. The funeral laments are a component of the archaic layers of orally transmitted culture, with written records and sound recordings made predominantly during the 20th century. The song material from the territory of Slovakia and from the milieu of Slovak enclaves abroad (sound records of laments from oral tradition in the second half of the 20th century, manuscript records of farewell hymns from 19th century historical sources) became the starting-point for a comparison of these two genres of funeral singing, with the aim of identifying their common and distinguishing features. Using selected genre elements (attitude to death, lyrical subject, category of time, composition of the text, tunes) it was possible to identify their typological differences and to define their functions in the funeral ceremony.
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