During visits to Poland and Germany in late June and early July by PMC director, Marek Zebrowski, we received several books and CDs for our library. Here then, dear readers, are the descriptions of the latest additions to our research resources.
The Power of Intuition by Ptaszyńska & Lindstedt
A longtime PMC friend and former Paderewski Lecturer at USC, composer Marta Ptaszyńska, presented us with the latest book about her life and artistic endeavors. Siła intuicji [The Power of Intuition] is a long-running and wide-ranging interview with the composer, carried out and carefully assembled into an engaging narrative by musicologist and author Iwona Lindstedt. The book’s seemingly informal tone actually is the key to many discoveries and insights for the reader. It includes extensive details about Ptaszyńska’s youth and her artistic interests and passions, as well as anecdotes from her studies, her experience as a professor, her methods of composing and her thoughts on being a leading Polish woman composer.
Ptaszyńska delightful personality and Lindstedt’s relaxed mode of interviewing her subject add up to a truly riveting publication about an artist and a human being. Moreover—and very importantly for all scholars wishing to research Marta Ptaszyńska’s substantial oeuvre—Dr. Lindstedt also prepared` the complete list of compositions, including music for orchestra, chamber works, operas, vocal-instrumental music and works for solo instruments. This presentation of Marta Ptaszyńska’s persona is further enriched by numerous photographs and reproductions of her manuscript scores as well as a selected discography at the end of this very useful volume. As such, it will be the ideal companion to the substantial collection of Marta Ptaszyńska’s original scores in the PMC Manuscript Collection. Given to Marek Zebrowski by Marta Ptaszyńska in Warsaw, Lindstedt’s Siła intuicji was personally inscribed by the composer and also signed by the author. This rare volume will take pride of place in the PMC library!
Muzyka Continued & Might and Fragility
From our longtime friends at the Instytut Sztuki/Polska Akademia Nauk (PAN) we received the first two issues of this year’s Muzyka, a quarterly journal always full of fascinating articles by various musicologists and music researchers. In the No. 2 (273) issue for the year 2024, we found an article by a USC scholar and PMC’s constant collaborator, Dr. Lisa Cooper Vest, titled “Renegotiating the Borders of National Culture: Polish Émigré Composers and National Music Histories in the Twentieth Century.”
Another beautiful gift from the Instytut Sztuki is a book by Lydia Opieńska-Barblan, the second wife of one of Paderewski’s closest friends and neighbors in Switzerland, Henryk Opieński. Published by the Foundation Archivum Helveto-Polonicum, Opieńska-Barblan’s book, entitled Moc i kruchość [Might and Fragility] provides charming insights into Paderewski’s daily life at his residence, Riond-Bosson, near Morges from the mid-1920s to 1940, when Paderewski left Switzerland for the US.
Opieńska-Barblan’s background as a composer, vocalist, and teacher and her active artistic life in the Morges/Lausanne area (where she was born) led to a substantial archives of correspondence, photos and other documents that were used in this book. According to the author, “In these short stories-snapshots covering about twenty years and often not connected to each other, I wanted to convey the atmosphere evoked by a strong personality. But most of all I tried to find the human being, our true brother hidden under the mask of an esteemed virtuoso, and a persecuted diplomat cloaked in a gilded armor of a legend.” This fascinating and rare book (the press run of only 300 numbered copies) is wonderfully translated into the Polish by Anna Rydz and elegantly designed and laid out by the publishing team.
More Paderewski by Majewska
Continuing with the Paderewski theme, we are pleased to announce the gift of the latest biography of this great Polish pianist and statesman, authored by Magdalena Majewska. It comes from the “Małe monografie” series initiated only a few years ago by Polish Music Publishers (PWM). In an informal and the reader-friendly style, this series has already introduced the public to the lives of some of Poland’s greatest composers: Grażyna Bacewicz, Fryderyk Chopin, Mieczysław Karłowicz, Wojciech Kilar, Stefan Kisielewski, Witold Lutosławski, Stanisław Moniuszko, Roman Palester, Maria Szymanowska, Paweł Szymański, Romuald Twardowski, and Henryk Wieniawski, among others. Written in an engaging, breezy style, Majewska’s Paderewski brings the towering figure of Ignacy Jan Paderewski to life through a series of pithy vignettes of this great man. Majewska explores his impressive accomplishments in music and politics as well as his great charm and success with concert audiences all over the world. A calendar of milestones in Paderewski’s life, the list of selected compositions and a suggested bibliography (for the more curious readers) complete this very successful presentation. The PMC copy of this book was dedicated to us by the author, for which we remain deeply grateful.
Magdalena Majewska—a diplomat working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw—also donated to us her book Outstanding Polish Women, written for and recently published by her Ministerial employers. This attractive bilingual volume in English and Polish provides the reader with short biographies of such historical figures as Maria Skłodowska-Curie (a double Nobel Prize laureate), Anna Walentynowicz (a legendary figure in the Solidarity movement) and Irena Sendlerowa (a social activist who saved over two thousand Jewish children during World War II). Majewska’s survey of the outstanding Polish women also includes literary celebrities like Wisława Szymborska and Olga Tokarczuk, both separately recognized with the Nobel Prize for literature. Other remarkable Polish women in this volume include Polish suffragettes who were among the first in Europe to secure the right to vote for women in Poland shortly after the end of World War I, as well as Maria Siemionow (a face transplant pioneer in the U.S.), Wanda Rutkiewicz (the first woman to reach the summit of K-2 and other Himalayan peaks), or Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz (the first woman to sail solo around the world).
Solarz Documents Polish History
Remaining with the subject of books, dr. Mariusz Solarz at the Centrum Dokumentacji Zsyłek, Wypędzeń i Przesiedleń [The Center for Documenting Exiles, Expulsions and Resettlements] in Kraków presented us with a detailed study of faith-based services to Poles evacuated from the Soviet Union during the years 1942-1952. His book carefully tracks the history of Polish settlements in Africa, India, Mexico and New Zealand and provides many insights into the Polish diaspora that resulted from massive deportations of Polish citizens to the Soviet Union during the early years of World War II. Besides the obvious importance to the researchers of this little-explored area of Polish history, Dr. Solarz graciously inscribed his book to the Polish Music Center, turning it into a very special gift indeed.
Bochwic On Composer Witold Rudziński
Another rather special book gift to the PMC came via Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, who presented us with a 2021 PWM publication, W rytmie Polski—Witold Rudziński, życie twórcy (1913-2004) [Alla polacca—Witold Rudziński, the life in art (1913-2004)], written and gifted to the PMC by the composer’s daughter and noted journalist and author, Teresa Bochwic. This extensive and well-documented biography is filled with great deal of personal and professional detail, gathered from anecdotes and lively conversations that the author recorded with Rudziński during the last decade of his life. Given that Rudziński’s statements are often quoted at length by the author, this book comes much closer to the genre of autobiography, lending it an even deeper level of interest. The chronological presentation of the material in nine chapters (Roots; In the Shadow of Two Wars; Growing Up and Studies; Setting Out; Another War; The New Times; The Years of Unforgettable Changes; Sweet and Bitter Memories; Times of Recognition and Farewell) is capped by an annex (Good and Bad Memories), as well as an extensive timeline of Witold Rudziński’s life. Also valuable in this biography is a detailed index of names (something still relatively rare in Polish books of this kind), which confirms the enormous breadth of contacts and the rich and eventful life of the protagonist.