Renegotiating the Borders of National Culture: Polish Émigré Composers and National Music Histories in the Twentieth Century

Peer-reviewed

Lisa Cooper Vest


University of Southern California, Los Angeles (United States)

Abstract

This review of From Poland with Music: 100 Years of Polish Composers Abroad (1918–2018) contextualises the project within a tradition of cultural outreach. Both the project itself (which aims to reach a general audience) and the stories it tells (of émigré artists who left Poland during the turbulent twentieth century) represent the movement of culture across borders. The conveners seek to reintroduce oft-omitted émigré artists into the canons of Polish national music history. In so doing, the volume serves as a successful and useful tool, introducing readers to new repertoire and inviting them to pose complex questions about the various motivations and effects of artists’ cultural mobility.


Keywords:

émigré composers, cultural outreach, Polish music history

Bohlman, Andrea F. and Florian Scheding. ‘Hanns Eisler on the Move: Tracing Mobility in the “Reisesonate”.’ Music and Letters 96, no. 1 (2015): 77–98.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/gcu122   Google Scholar

Castles, Stephen and Mark J. Miller. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. New York: Macmillan, 1993.
  Google Scholar

Chávez, Alex E. Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Politics of Huapango Arribeno. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822372202   Google Scholar

Dubinets, Elena. Russian Composers Abroad: How They Left, Stayed, Returned. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2021.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv23c33rs   Google Scholar

Dziębowska Elżbieta, ed. Encyklopedia Muzyczna PWM. 12 vols. Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1998.
  Google Scholar

Gratzer, Wolfgang, Nils Grosch, Ulrike Präger, and Susanne Scheiblhhofer, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Music and Migration. Abingdon: Routledge, 2024.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003309437   Google Scholar

Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511804663   Google Scholar

Jakelski, Lisa. ‘Pushing Boundaries: Mobility at the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music.’ East European Politics and Societies 29, no. 1 (2015): 189–211.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325414540935   Google Scholar

MEAKULTUR A. ‘O Nas,’ https://meakultura.pl/o-nas/, accessed 16 January 2024.
  Google Scholar

Podhajski, Marek, ed. Polish Music. Polish Composers 1918–2010. Gdańsk and Lublin: Akademia Muzyczna im. S. Moniuszko and Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2013.
  Google Scholar

Encyklopedia Muzyczna PWM Online, https://polskabibliotekamuzyczna.pl/encyklopedia/, accessed 16 January 2024.
  Google Scholar

Muzyka źle obecna. Krystyna Tarnawska-Kaczorowska, ed. 2 vols. Warszawa: Sekcja Muzykologów Kompozytorów Polskich, 1989.
  Google Scholar

Vest, Lisa Cooper. Awangarda: Modernity and Tradition in Postwar Polish Music. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520975422   Google Scholar

Wieczorek, Marlena et al., eds. Sto lat muzycznej emigracji. Kompozytorzy polscy za granicą (1918–2018). Gliwice: MEAKULTUR A, 2018.
  Google Scholar

‘Wydobywanie dobra. Z Paulem Ricoeurem rozmawia Brat Emil z Taizé.’ Translated by Maria Prussak. Więź 44, no. 12 (2001): 11–24.
  Google Scholar

Download


Published
2024-07-12

Cited by

Cooper Vest, L. (2024). Renegotiating the Borders of National Culture: Polish Émigré Composers and National Music Histories in the Twentieth Century. Muzyka, 69(2), 153–161. https://doi.org/10.36744/m.2704

Authors

Lisa Cooper Vest 

University of Southern California, Los Angeles United States

Statistics

Abstract views: 167
PDF downloads: 64


License

Copyright (c) 2024 Lisa Cooper Vest

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free nonexclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Muzyka, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in "Muzyka" should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). By submitting an article the author agrees to make it available under CC BY 4.0 license.

Articles from 2018/1 to 2022/3 were published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. During this period the authors granted the publisher a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in "Muzyka", retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.