The Warsaw Autumn Festival (1956-1961)

by Cindy Bylander

Originally published on the PMC website on 8 August 2000

Introduction

Of the Eastern European countries that were under the domination of the Soviet Union from shortly after World War II until the beginning of the 1990s, Poland has been the most prominent in the area of contemporary musical composition. Beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing throughout more than three decades of Soviet domination, Poland’s government consistently supported the use of avant-garde compositional techniques and promoted the development of international artistic contacts. Its most important initiative in music and, indeed, in the entire area of Polish culture, was the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music. Since its inception in 1956 the Festival has been widely acclaimed for its unique ability to present compositions and performers from both East and West on an annual basis, its promotion of personal contacts among colleagues having varying artistic and political philosophies, and its role in bringing such Polish composers as Lutoslawski and Penderecki to the international limelight.

Despite these publicly acknowledged successes, the Festival has been plagued with many problems not discussed in the published literature. Most of these difficulties have arisen precisely because the event occurred within the geopolitical confines of post-World War II Eastern Europe. Indeed, it is amazing that the Festival was a success at all, given the immense difficulties that confronted the organizers.

I have been able to reconstruct the organizational processes of the first five Festivals – those from 1956 to 1961- from collections of unpublished correspondence and minutes of meetings located at the Polish Composers Union headquarters in Warsaw. Information available in these documents demonstrates clearly that politicized decisions made in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, including Poland, adversely affected the ability of the Festival’s organizers to achieve their goal of presenting an artistically and geographically balanced review of twentieth-century music each year. Although a lack of sufficient amounts of hard currency was an annual problem, the most serious complications confronting the organizers resulted from the blatant disregard by the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries of requests from Poland concerning performers and repertoire. According to interviews conducted with some of the organizers of subsequent Warsaw Autumn Festivals, many of the same politically-motivated hindrances were experienced annually from 1961 until approximately 1989, when a non-Communist government came to power in Poland. Although my focus will be on the Festival’s first five years, a brief summary of the difficulties encountered in the decades after that will be given at the conclusion of this paper.

General Organizational Scenario

In order to understand the specific problems of a political nature that faced the Festivals’ planners, a review of the organizational framework for the Festival is helpful. This framework was approved by Poland’s Ministry of Culture and Art, the event’s principal patron.(2) The basic features of this system remained the same from the Festival’s beginning until approximately 1990. Two groups served as the primary planners. One of these, a Program Committee, was to choose both the repertoire and the performers. Although this Committee did not always exist by this specific name, a small number of composers, musicologists, and conductors always served in that function. (Throughout this paper the term “Program Committee” will be used with the understanding that this was not always the group’s official name.) The program worked out by this Committee was to be approved by a second and larger group, the Festival Committee, which consisted each year of the president and other members of the Polish Composers Union and the directors of three other agencies within the Ministry of Culture and Art, these being the Department of Music,(3) the Bureau of Foreign Cultural Cooperation, and PAGART, the Polish Artists Agency. Beginning in 1960 the Festival Committee also included the directors of the National Philharmonic and the State Opera in Warsaw, the Editor-in-Chief of state-run Polish Radio, and a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In addition to approving the concert programs, this Committee provided a budget estimate for each Festival and ensured that all organizational details were taken care of. For the most part it merely rubber-stamped the choices arranged previously by its constituent agencies and the Program Committee, although on occasion it suggested both performers and compositions. The actions of its member agencies, however, affected the contents of each Festival. For example, the Department of Music, which acted as the spokesman for the Minister of Culture and Art in Festival matters, announced budget allocations for the Festival, rendered judgments about the feasibility of inviting specific performers, and had the power to grant final approval of the Festival program.

The Bureau for Foreign Cultural Cooperation coordinated the activities called for in Poland’s bilateral cultural exchange agreements with the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries. Thus, although the Program and Festival Committees could and did suggest performers and pieces from these regions, the officials in each country who controlled these cultural exchanges could (and did) veto or delay decisions about their inclusion in the program.

PAGART was created in 1957, after the first Festival. It was the only institution empowered to negotiate contracts with the foreign performers who appear at each Festival. However, before initiating talks or finalizing these contracts, its officials have always had to receive permission for such actions from either the Bureau for Foreign Cultural Cooperation or the Department of Music.

The role of the Polish Composers Union in the Festival’s organization changed somewhat in the years after 1956. That first year members of the Union personally handled negotiations with Western European ensembles, but relied on the Bureau for Foreign Cultural Cooperation to relay requests to Soviet and Eastern European performers through analogous institutions in each country. In 1958, the year of the second Festival, the Union’s Executive Board acted as the Program Committee, but depended on the other agencies mentioned above to help finalize the program. After 1959 selected members of the Union belonged to the Program and Festival Committees, but the Union as a whole did not have any direct influence on the Festival’s program.

The methods of communications that were required because of the administrative structure of Soviet-bloc governments contributed directly to the difficulties faced by the Program Committee. Beginning in 1958 communications concerning program requests were always sent from the Program Committee or its equivalent through PAGART to all foreign performers invited to the Festival. At the same time, the Program Committee was also able to correspond personally with Western musicians.

Direct communications between this Committee and Soviet or Eastern European performers rarely occurred. With these musicians PAGART played the same role of intermediary as it did with the West, but at least one more layer of bureaucracy was always added. Either the Bureau for Foreign Cultural Cooperation or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs communicated with the Ministry of Culture or an analogous institution in each Soviet-bloc country; these foreign agencies then usually made a decision after only perfunctory consultations with the performers in question. Such impersonal communications offered little chance for the organizers in Poland to discuss Festival matters with musicians from the East; they also slowed down the decision-making process considerably.

Political Problems I: Germany

Although the organizational framework of the Festival called for the Program Committee to choose all performers and repertoire, subject to the approval of the Festival Committee and the Department of Music, governmental agencies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe ultimately controlled which performers from their nations would appear at the Festival and what compositions each would present. Their decisions were not based on artistic considerations, but instead were subjugated to the political concerns of each country. Due in large part to the nature of these decisions and to the frequency with which they occurred, arranging the performers and repertoire from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe became the primary source of difficulties for the Polish organizers each year.

The most flagrant case of political interference documented in the aforementioned collections occurred in 1958, when the organizers in Poland attempted to invite, first, the Hamburg Opera from West Germany, and later, the East Berlin Opera. A detailed description of this episode will serve to illustrate the circuitous paths of communications required to prepare the Festival’s program, and the severity of the politicized maneuverings encountered by the organizers.

Although other Western performers were also invited to participate in the 1958 Festival, the East German government complained only about those from West Germany, probably because diplomatic relations between the two nations were still precarious in the aftermath of the geopolitical divisions made following World War II. No other specific domestic or foreign policy crises that could have had ramifications on the Festival occurred in these countries or in Poland during the years in question.

Negotiations with the Hamburg Opera had begun by April 1957.(4) Nearly a year later, in March 1958, the Opera presented two financial options to PAGART and the Program Committee. One alternative called for performances of Berg’s Wozzeck and operas by Werner Egk and Rolf Liebermann; the second allowed for the presentation of only Egk’s and Liebermann’s works. The Opera was willing to request a subsidy from the German Foreign Office to cover the difference between what the Polish side could afford and the actual cost of bringing the company to Poland. (5)

An agreement with the Opera was never completed. At another meeting held in March, Andrzej Dobrowolski – a member of the Program Committee – noted that bringing the Opera would be extremely expensive, but that it was still being considered. Ostensibly due to the perceived high cost of this company, the East Berlin Opera was mentioned as a possible alternative. The Berlin troupe’s performance could be arranged via a cultural exchange, through which all expenses could be paid in zloties instead of hard currency. One of the operas being discussed with that company was Wozzeck, whose performance evidently was highly desired by the Polish organizers.(6)

In an effort to lower its hard-currency expenses and as a sign of its continued interest in the Festival, the Hamburg Opera then suggested that a Polish orchestra accompany its productions in Warsaw. PAGART responded in late April that such an arrangement was not feasible due to the Polish orchestra’s lack of familiarity with the music to be performed, and that, consequently, the invitation to come to Poland would be withdrawn. (7)

In both Poland and West Germany the publicly stated reason for not bringing the Hamburg Opera to the Festival was that financial difficulties precluded the successful conclusion of negotiations.(8) However, other more convincing reasons for the discontinuation of talks can be identified.

As mentioned earlier, talks were being held with the Berlin Opera by March. At an April meeting of the Program and Festival Committees, discussion revolved around a message sent from the East German Embassy in Warsaw to the Bureau for Foreign Cultural Cooperation. Purportedly, the directors of the Berlin Opera were insulted that negotiations were being held simultaneously with them and the Hamburg Opera, and therefore they refused to bring their group to the Festival. The Program Committee’s response was to reiterate its preference for the Hamburg Opera, saying that the playing quality of the Leipzig Radio Orchestra was not sufficiently high to warrant an invitation. (9) Within a week, however, as mentioned earlier, PAGART informed the West German group that its services would not be needed. It is my contention that the assertions given publicly and to the director of the Hamburg Opera that this company could not come due to hard-currency insufficiencies or to orchestral difficulties were made precisely to cover the fact that a politically-motivated ruling to substitute an East German group had already been made. In other words, PAGART and the rest of the Festival’s organizers were compelled to withdraw their offer to the Hamburg Opera after governmental institutions in East Germany made clear their displeasure with the prospect of a West German ensemble performing at the Festival instead of one from their country.

Further condemning evidence concerning this incident came in comments made by individuals involved in planning the Festival. As composer Tadeusz Szeligowski put it: “there is nothing we can do about it – for example, with the Hamburg Opera, that is the business of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”(10) Wiktor Weinbaum from the Department of Music confirmed that it was this Ministry that ordered the Program and Festival Committees to stop negotiations with the Hamburg Opera, even though these talks had been progressing smoothly. If a shortage of hard currency or the difficulty of the music had been the only reasons for the withdrawal of the invitation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would not have intervened: this agency did not pay any of the Festival’s expenses, and it would not have been involved in purely artistic matters. Clearly, complaints from the East German government had forced this change.

The decision by Poland to pursue discussions with East Germany did not guarantee a swift or unimpeded conclusion to the matter of opera productions at the 1958 Festival. The East German government, through its Ministry of Culture and Art and its embassy in Warsaw, seemed to be acting to ensure that the Berlin Opera would not perform in Warsaw by falsely claiming that the ensemble was approached only in May or early June, when in reality talks actually had been held as early as March. If the East Germans truly had been concerned about the lateness of invitations, they would not have made yet another change in June, only four months before the start of the Festival. (11) With this new proposal the East Germans upped the ante, stipulating that a group not named previously “the Leipzig Opera” would go to Warsaw as a substitute for the Leipzig Radio Orchestra if specific orchestral and chamber compositions by East German composers were also performed. At the actual Festival the Leipzig Opera did not perform, but the Leipzig Radio Orchestra and Choir did present one concert consisting primarily of works by East German composers.

The decision to refuse permission to the Berlin Opera obviously was made by East Germany’s government, not by Poland’s. All known communications regarding this matter took place between officials from Polish and East German agencies other than the Program Committee or the Opera itself. Nonetheless, even the Polish agencies involved in these negotiations were unable to change the Germans’ minds. The Program Committee made little or no contribution to that decision-making process.

As mentioned earlier, except for the strained governmental relations between East and West Germany, no overriding political crises occurred in these countries or in Poland in 1957 or 1958 that could explain the above actions taken by East Germany. The difficulties just described should be seen instead as the dissatisfaction in East Germany with the liberalizing trends taking place in Polish music in the late 1950s, which were exemplified by the creation of the Warsaw Autumn Festival. The maneuverings by East Germany also should be seen as typical tactics used by East European governments in their quest to be represented at the Festival, not just in 1958 but in subsequent years as well. For example, at a meeting of the Festival’s organizers held immediately following the 1958 Festival, decisions about the future of the event were based on the realities of Poland’s place in Eastern Europe. As Wiktor Weinbaum explained,

“…We are functioning in a certain geographical, political, and financial situation…The Festivals…must take place annually or not at all, since…the People’s Democracies will demand performances of their works…If in the repertoire of the Festival there will not be a suitable amount of works by composers of the People’s Democracies, the Festival loses its political right to exist.” (12)

Political Problems II: Soviet Union

The organizers affirmed the need to invite performers from different countries each year, while maintaining a balanced number of ensembles and soloists from East and West. Such a system has been employed to some extent throughout the Festival’s history; one notable exception has been the annual presence of performers and compositions from the Soviet Union, an occurrence intentionally planned by the Polish organizers. Tadeusz Baird, one of the initiators of the Festival foresaw the need for this during specific discussions about the 1959 Festival: “The Polish Composers Union can count on the possibility of certain attacks and gunfire…It is better to anticipate certain objections than to defend oneself later. For example, the importation of the Hungarian orchestra [in 1959] with the lack of a Soviet group might make many things difficult for us in the future.”(13)

Information on negotiations with the Soviet Union is scarce in comparison to that available for other countries. Nevertheless, it is evident that the Soviet government did control the selection of its performers and compositions for the Warsaw Festival. One episode, documented in 1960, provides a clear example of such politically-motivated interference. This incident also illustrates the Program Committee’s persistent attempts to link the selection of performers to the repertoire each was capable of offering. In March 1960 the Festival Committee was informed by PAGART director Szymon Zakrzewski that the Soviets had withdrawn Mstislav Rostropovich’s name from consideration as a performer at that year’s Festival, even though the Program Committee had requested his services and had been assured about two weeks earlier that he would come. (14) The Soviets proposed cellist Daniel Shafran as a substitute, even though he would be unable to perform the composition requested by the Polish organizers and already agreed upon with Rostropovich – Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto, written in 1959 and premiered that year by Rostropovich and the Leningrad Philharmonic.

As Zakrzewski reported, the Soviets also “w[ere] placing much emphasis” on the replacement of Sviastoslav Richter, the Soviet pianist requested by the Program Committee, with Arno Babadjanjan, a pianist and composer of folk and classically oriented pieces. The Soviets’ explanation for this proposed change was that Babadjanjan was considered to be “a r epresentative of contemporary Soviet music.”(15) Polish composer Kazimierz Serocki, however, pointed out that Richter had already suggested a recital acceptable to the Committee of compositions by Bartók, Szymanowski, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Hindemith.

The Festival Committee persisted in requesting Rostropovich and Richter because of these performers’ abilities to offer works that the Program Committee desired. The performers suggested by the Soviets – Shafran and Babadjanjan – did not know what they would play in Warsaw, and as Serocki stated in discussing the dilemma, “we [in Poland] are interested only in performers with specific works.”(16) A decision about Richter was expected in a few days; neither he nor Babajanjan performed at the Festival. Rostropovich did appear, playing Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto, while a Soviet vocalist, Zara Dolukhanova, presented a recital of pieces by Prokofiev, Miaskovsky, Iury Kochurov, Grigorij Frid, and Aleksander Dolukhanian. The works of the latter three composers were not widely known even in their own country. This recital apparently was inserted into the schedule only in September, the very month of the Festival.

These actions taken by the Soviet government were not artistically sound or even fully explained to the Festival’s organizers. In the case of Rostropovich no reason was given for his potential replacement by Shafran. As for the suggested substitution of Babadjanjan for Richter, the justification given by the Soviets reflected their intention to present someone whose views and compositions were more in line with their official policy of socialist realism in the arts. The exploits of the Soviet government can also be seen as an attempt to undermine the international attractiveness of the Festival at a time when this event had already begun to draw high praise in the foreign press. Moreover, these acts offer proof that such renowned performers as Richter and Rostropovich were not able to arrange their own touring schedules, but were obligated to adhere to the wishes of their government.

Political Problems III: Poland

In contrast to these endeavors, the leadership in Poland rarely exercised its political leverage in artistic decisions concerning the Festival. Except for its possible complicity in the Hamburg Opera fiasco in 1958, the government’s only other act of interference during the five years in question at this point was to prohibit the performance of works by certain Polish emigrés, most notably Andrzej Panufnik and Roman Palester, both of whom had left the country in the decade following World War II because of their displeasure with the results of socialist realism. Similarly, on only one occasion did a Western government obstruct the organizers’ efforts, that being in 1958, when Italy refused to give Bruno Maderna a passport to come to Poland.

I have been able to see only a few unpublished documents pertaining to the Festivals after 1961, none of which describe the planning process in detail. However, according to comments made to me by musicologist Jozef Patkowski and composers Zygmunt Krauze, Augustyn Bloch, and Marek Stachowski, all of whom were or have been members of the Program Committee for many years, the familiar but critical problems of extra-musical manipulations by Soviet and Eastern European governments persisted at least until 1989. Although these men offered few specific examples, their unanimity of opinions attests to the validity of their remarks. As each indicated, the repertoire for concerts by Soviet and Eastern European performers was selected by the Ministry of Culture in each country, with negotiations being conducted via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bureau for Foreign Cultural Cooperation in Poland. Works of poor quality often were submitted by these foreign agencies to the Program Committee, which then was forced to try to arrange something more in line with its own goals. The Committee’s lack of direct access to scores as well as to most pertinent composers and performers made this task extremely time-consuming and frustrating.

Negotiations with the Soviet Union were regarded by the Program Committee as nearly impossible to conduct, since the Soviet Ministry of Culture frequently either did not answer letters or offered information different from what had been requested. Eventually, the Program Committee recognized that the performers and repertoire for the two to three of the concerts arranged each year through cultural exchanges would always be in flux until the start of each Festival.

Transformations after 1989

The two Festivals held immediately after the collapse of Poland’s Communist government, those presented in 1989 and 1990, stand apart from all earlier ones. In each, the Program Committee demonstrated its astute capacity to be at the forefront of the changing political scene in Europe. Among its most immediate moves was to program compositions by emigré composers that previously had been prohibited or restricted from performance. For example, the works of Andrzej Panufnik, the Polish composer mentioned earlier, could not be played in his native country until 1977; from then until 1989, they could not be performed on the Festival’s opening concert. At the 1989 Festival, which occurred after Solidarity member Tadeusz Mazowiecki became Prime Minister, the inaugural concert featured Panufnik’s music. In 1990 Panufnik agreed to return to Poland for the first time since 1954, in recognition of the fact that the government that had pronounced him a traitor upon his defection was no longer in power. At the 1990 Festival two concerts, including the opening one, were dedicated to his music.

In a similar vein, compositions by Arvo Pärt, who emigrated from the Soviet Union to the West in 1980, had been banned from performance in Poland from that time until 1987. The Program Committee had scheduled his Fratres for the 1985 Festival, but it was cancelled by the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art after protests from the Soviet Embassy in Warsaw. At the 1989 Festival, an entire concert of Pärt’s music was given by the Hilliard Ensemble.

At the 1990 Festival the liberalizing trends in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe continued to emerge: the lone Soviet contribution was the New Music Ensemble from Lithuania, which offered pieces by composers from that republic. Although I have no direct proof of this, I speculate that the Program Committee extended an invitation to performers from Lithuania as a symbol of their solidarity with that republic’s current attempt to achieve independence. Correspondingly, a concert of music by composers from East and West Berlin was programmed that year in recognition of the unification of Germany.

Another example of the recent decrease in politicized maneuverings in the Soviet bloc is the fact that for approximately twenty years the Festival’s organizers had attempted to arrange a program of compositions from the Bratislava Radio Electronic Music Studio. Only in 1989 did they succeed in acquiring permission from the Czechoslovakian government for this concert, although other composers from that country had been heard at these Festivals in the interim.

Conclusions

The Polish organizers of the Festival consistently were affected by the realities of holding an international event in post-World War II Eastern Europe. The mixture of music and politics with regard to this annual gala was unsuccessful in many of its manifestations: deliberate delays in correspondence were added to an already circuitous system of communications, and the Program Committee faced continual difficulties primarily because of political considerations in Poland and, especially, elsewhere in the Soviet bloc.

The reasons for most if not all of the politicized maneuverings that occurred from 1956 to 1989 can be traced to the biases of the Soviet and Eastern European governments. The policy of socialist realism in music had been upheld in the Soviet Union and all Eastern European countries except Poland from at least the 1950s to the late 1980s. Thus, while the Polish government permitted the establishment of an international festival of contemporary music, its counterparts in the East bloc showed their displeasure with these plans by controlling which performers and compositions from their countries could be presented. These compositions often were not those that the Festival’s organizers would have chosen had they had that opportunity. At the same time, of course, Soviet and Eastern European governments insisted on their countries being represented at the Festival, as a ploy to show the Western world that they were committed to openness in the field of music. The actions described in this paper have, I hope, refuted that point.

Notes

(1) An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1990 AMS-Midwest Conference.

(2) “Projekt. Regulamin Miedzynarodowego Festiwalu Muzyki Wspolczesnej,” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, International Festival of Contemporary Music, 1958, Polish Composers Union, Warsaw; Zarzadzenie Nr 39 Ministra Kultury i Sztuki z dnia 24 lutego 1959 r. w sprawie Zorganizowania III Miedzynarodowego Festiwalu Muzyki Wspolczesnej, Biuletyn Ministerstwa Kultury i Sztuki (1959), nr 5, poz. 48; Zarzadzenie nr 214 z dnia 22 grudnia 1959 r. W sprawie miedzynarodowych festiwali muzyki wspolczesnej w Polsce,” Biuletyn Ministerstwa Kultury i Sztuki (1960), nr 1, poz. 7; Zarzadzenie nr 32 Ministra Kultury i Sztuki z dnia 7 marca 1960 r. zmieniajace zarzadzenie Nr 214 z dnia 22 grudnia 1959 r. w sprawie miedzynarodowych festiwali muzyki wspolczesnej w Polsce,” Biuletyn Ministerstwa Kultury i Sztuki (1960), nr 6, poz. 50.

(3) The Department of Music has gone through several name changes since the creation of the Warsaw Autumn Festival. In 1958 it was called the Central Board of Music Institutions.

(4) Sikorski and Dobrowolski to Heinz Tietjen or Herbert Paris, Hamburg Opera, September 1957-March 1958; and “Wyciag ze stenogramu obrad Plenum ZG ZKP w dniu 4.X.57 r.,” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1958.

(5) Herbert Paris, Director of the Hamburg Opera, to PAGART, March 30 and April 29, 1958; and Herbert Paris to the Polish Composers Union, December 5, 1957, Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1958.

(6) “Protokol z zebrania Plenum ZG ZKP w dn. 15 marca 1958 r.,” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1958.

(7) Szymon Zakrzewski, PAGART, to Herbert Paris, Hamburg Opera, June 24, 1958, Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1958.

(8) Dobrowolski noted on June 6 that the West German press had cited financial difficulties as the reason for the cessation of negotiations: “Protokol z zebrania rozszerzonego plenum Zarzadu Glownego Zwiazku Kompozytorow Polskich i Komitetu Festiwalowego w dniu 6 czerwca 1958 r.,” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1958. Similarly, Kotonski, in an interview published in Poland in April, had stated that the Polish organizers lacked the hard currency required to pay for such a large group: (SDr), “Juz wiosnal myslimy o ‘Warszawskiej Jesieni’, “Kurier Polski, no. 99 (April 29, 1958).

(9) “Protokol z zebrania plenarnego Zarzadu Glownego Z.K.P. oraz Komisji Festiwalowej w dniu 26 kwietnia 1958 r., ” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1958.

(10) “Na to nie mamy rady – np z opera hamburska to jest sprawa MSZ [Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych].” “Stenogram z posiedzenia Komitetu Festiwalowego II Miedzynarodowego Festiwalu Muzyki Wspolczesnej, w dniu 30 sierpnia 1958 r.,” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1958.

(11) “Protokol z zebrania plenarnego Zarzadu Glownego Z.K.P. oraz Komisji Festiwalowej w dniu 26 kwietnia 1958 r., ” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1958; hen, “Dzis rozmawiamy z sekretarzem generalnym Zwiazku Kompozytorow Polskich,” Sztandar mlodych, no. 218 (1958).

(12) “Dzialamy w pewnej sytuacji geograficznej, politycznej i finansowej…Festiwale musza odbywac sie corocznie albo wcale, gdyz…Kraje Demokracji Ludowej beda zadaly wykonywania ich utworow…Jezeli w repertuarze festiwalu nie bedzie odpowiedniej ilosci utworow kompozytorow Krajow Demokracji ludowej, festiwal traci polityczna racje bytu.” “Protokol z posiedzenia rozszerzonego Plenum Zarzadu Glownego Zwiazku Kompozytorow Polskich w dniu 17 pazdzierniku 1958 r.” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1959.

(13) “Z.K.P. moze sie liczyc z mozliwoscia pewnych atakow i obstrzalow…lepiej uprzedzic pewne zarzuty niz bronic sie potem, np. sprowadzenie orkiestry we gierskiej przy braku zespolu radzieckiego mogloby nam w przyszlosci utrudnic wiele rzeczy.” “Protokol z posiedzenia rozszerzonego Plenum Zarza du Glownego Zwia zku Kompozytorow Polskich w dniu 17 pazdzierniku 1958 r.,” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1959.

(14) “Protokol z posiedzenia Komisji Repertuarowej IV Miedzynarodowego Festiwalu Muzyki Wspolczesnej – w dniu 1 marca 1960 r.”; and “Protokol z zebrania Prezydijm Komitetu Festiwalowego w dniu 19 marca 1960 r.,” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1960.

(15) “reprezentanta wspolczesnej muzyki radzieckiej.” “Protokol z zebrania Prezydium Komitetu Festiwalowego w dniu 19 marca 1960 r.,” Collection of Correspondence and Minutes, 1960.

(16) “Interesuja nas ich wykonawcy tylko konkretnymi utworami.” Ibid.