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The 'Warsaw Autumn' (Warszawska Jesień) is a
festival with a long history, an enormous tradition, and can be called a
witness to history. It is the only festival in Poland on an international
scale and with an international status, dedicated to contemporary music.
For many years, it was the only event of this kind in Central and Eastern
Europe. It is still, however, a living organism: it develops and thrives
to the extent that the Polish cultural budget and the general state of
music allow it to. The Festival is organized by the Polish Composers'
Union (Związek Kompozytorów Polskich). The Repertoire Committee, which
is in turn appointed by the Board of the Union, determines the program of
each particular festival. This year, the festival will take place for the
47th time.
The Festival was created in 1956, during the thaw that followed years of
Stalinist dictatorship. Even though the government quickly left the
democratization course, the Festival continued without interruption (with
two exceptions) during the entire communist era - its finances were
secured by the state (up to this day, its main source of funding comes
from public funds). Only recently has the new economic and social
situation of a country working its way to prosperity threatened the
financial stability of the 'Warsaw Autumn'. Nevertheless, the Festival
still plays an essential role in shaping contemporary culture in Poland.
Paradoxically, the communist era was a period in which the 'Warsaw Autumn'
thrived. It constituted an evident crack in the Iron Curtain, it was an
island of creative freedom. Socialist Realism was not obligatory here: the
most varied forms of artistic invention were possible. These created a
sense of freedom of expression in general, and were viewed as a form of
political protest. The government tolerated this situation, wanting to
present itself as a liberal patron of the arts.
And anyway, art itself back then - I am thinking of the first two decades
of the festival's existence - was a site of incredibly interesting and new
phenomena, which roused the interest of the general public. Thus, after a
period of being cut off from new musical currents and phenomena in Western
Europe caused by the war and later by Stalinist isolationist politics,
Poles were now doubly driven to make up for lost time, and got to know the
works of Schönberg, Berg, Webern, Varese, or even Bartok or Stravinski
through the festival. At the same time, they followed the current
avant-garde experiments of those years: Boulez, Nono, Dallapiccola,
Maderna, Cage. On the other side, composers, performers, critics and
musicologists from the West were eager to come to Warsaw: on one hand, out
of curiosity about the countries that were on the other side of the
curtain, but soon enough also simply because the 'Warsaw Autumn' gained
world-wide recognition as one of the most important places where new music
is performed. The modernist image of the Festival formed itself almost
from the very beginning: conservative music definitely stays on the
margins of the festival. The 'Autumn' has an open formula, and tries to
present a variety of phenomena and tendencies typical for the music of our
times: from the sonic radicalism derived from the Webernean tradition
(Lachenman, Ferneyhough, Hollinger), though the currents that make
reference to the music of the past or traditional cultures, all the way to
audio-art or sound installations. It is said - appropriately - that the
'Warsaw Autumn' is positively eclectic. That is the way it has to be, if
the festival wants to inform its Polish audience about what is going on in
the musical world as fully as possible - which is what it wants to do and
what it should do. The program books for the 'Warsaw Autumn' are the
Polish musicologist's or journalist's first source of knowledge about the
newest music. The Sonic Chronicle ('Kronika Dźwiękowa') the full set of
recordings that appears after every festival, performs a similar function
(up until recently, these only included Polish music; the record Aimard
plays Ligeti, published as part of WA 2000 Chronicle, began the broadening
of the series to include music from abroad as well).
Today, one of the organizers' main goals - to familiarize the Polish
listener with the classic works of the 20th century (i.e. with works that
were seen as such already at the beginning of the festival) - has been
fulfilled, of course. At the same time, new gaping holes in terms of the
classic works from the second half of the XX century have appeared. For
example, Stockhausen's Gruppen was performed for the first time in Poland
only at 'Warsaw Autumn' 2000. The two other goals, however, remain
timeless: to present new music from Poland and abroad.
Contemporary music in Poland works on somewhat crazy terms; in general
this kind of music is considered hermetic, made only for a narrow group of
specialists, unrelated to reality. It is thus important to abolish this
stereotype and these efforts have been partially successful. For several
years, new groups of listeners have been attending the 'Warsaw Autumn's'
concerts; the auditoriums are full, sometimes even overflowing. And what
is important - the majority of the listeners are young. It seems that
after a long pause, the interest in more refined, complicated music is
growing. An elite group of young people is being formed - they are not
afraid of 'difficult' things, they want to set themselves apart from the
consumers of popular culture that is made for young people. These people
are looking for the 'other', for the 'new', for the exotic in the broad
sense of the word. But simultaneously they are looking for a music that is
enriching for the listener. This was shown by the aforementioned
performance of Gruppen - a sports hall was filled to the brim, mainly by
an audience of young listeners; this was also visible at other concerts at
the previous festivals.
Despite all of the resistance, and all of its difficulties, the Festival
is seen as a creative event, with an enormous amount of work to its
credit, and great prestige. Traditionally, numerous other Polish cultural
institutions, such as the National Philharmonic, the Polish Radio and
Polish Television cooperate with the 'Warsaw Autumn'
What is also very important is that many embassies, cultural institutes,
as well as foundations in countries whose music is presented at the
festival, work together with the festival. This kind of cooperation can be
very tight, especially in the case when the music of a given country or
region is being broadly exposed at the festival (the Scandinavian theme in
1998 was a memorable case of this kind of cooperation: the festival
happened with the support of the Nordic Council of Ministers).
Tadeusz Wielecki
Director of the Festival
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