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Zygmunt Krauze - About my music

I. Unistic Music

Zygmunt Krauze is known, first of all as a composer of "unistic" music, based on the theory of unistic art adopted from the painting of Wladyslaw Strzeminski (1893- 1952). Unistic music lacks contrasts, tensions and climaxes in the traditional sense. Its from is as homogenous as possible. According to the composer in this music "everything that the listener discovers in the first few seconds will last to the end without any surprise." The composer worked out this formula in such works from the 1960s and 1970s as Five Unistic Piano Pieces (1963), Polychromy (1968), Pieces for Orchestra No. 1 (1969) and No. 2 (1970), String Quartet No. 1 (1965) and No. 2 (1970).

Tableu Vivant, Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Jan Krenz

II. Musical space compositions

The form without contrasts, in its essence, has neither a beginning nor an end. This music can have an arbitrary time length. It can be interrupted at any moment and this will not change its basic traits. The musical form creates the possibility of a new mode of perception. In the ideal situation the music would be continually played. The listener would come at a convenient time and leave whenever he considered it appropriate. This music waits for the listener. It lends itself to the possibility of listening in an architectural setting, different from that of the traditional concert halls. Musical Space Compositions are works like: Spatial-Musical Composition No. 1 and No. 2, Warsaw (1968, 1970), Fête galante e pastorale, Graz (1974), Rivière souterraine, Metz (1987).

III. Music made from other music

At a certain moment Krauze felt that unitary form can absorb any sound material, not only that which is specially composed for it. This can be folk music, music written by other composers, anonymous music, music from the past, etc. While continuing to create unitary form he began to utilize extraneous sound material. Sometimes he used musical quotations, at other times he transformed quotations and composed original music which was similar to previously existing music. However his interest in musical quotations existed only to the extent in which they were useful for creating unitary form. This formula was worked out in such compositions as: Folk Music (1972), Aus aller Welt stammende (1973), Idyll (1974), Soundscape (1975), Suite de danses et de chansons (1977).

Aus aller Welt Stammende, III, "Sinfonia Varsovia" String Ensemble

IV. Music of the return to the roots

In the late 1970s Zygmunt Krauze decided to abandon the rules of unitary form and yield to intuitive expression. Constant mood changes and great emotional load are characteristic features of his music of that time. The form of a work consists of series of segments. Each segment is homogenous. The impact of the unitary form can be noticed in those segments, which create the form. The composer has tried this solution out in such works as: Piano Concerto No. 1 (1976) and Piano Concerto No. 2 (1996), Symphonie parisienne (1986), Violin Concerto (1980), Piano Quintet (1993), Adieu (2001).

Piano Quintet, The Silesian String Quartet, Zygmunt Krauze - piano

V. Music for stage

The 1980s Mr. Krauze spent in Paris, where he worked with theatre director Jorge Lavelli. Thanks to this collaboration Mr. Krauze has created music for theatre plays for Comédie-Française and Theatre National de la Colline: Macbett (E. Ionesco), Le Public (F. G. Lorca), Réveille-toi Philadelphie! (F. Billetdoux), Opérette (W. Gombrowicz), Polyeucte (P. Corneille).

Krauze: Musiques pour Lavelli, Macbett

VI. Opera

In the 80s the stage became one of Mr. Krauze's greatest fascinations and that prompted him to write three operas: The Star (1981), Balthasar (2001) and Yvonne Princess of Burgundy. These operas were produced by theaters in the following cities: Mannheim, Paris, Lille, Hamburg, Warsaw and Wroclaw. The librettos for these operas are based on theater plays of three great Polish writers: Helmut Kajzar, Stanislaw Wyspianski and Witold Gombrowicz. Their musical expression comes directly from the words.

Yvonne Princess of Burgundy, rehersal at Lutoslawski Concert Studio, Warsaw, 17th November 2004

VII. Piano

The piano was for Krauze his foundation and point of departure. He studied piano performance thoroughly and made his debut as an excellent pianist, fully aware of the tradition in which his art was rooted. This awareness can already be clearly sensed in his early pieces. Later the piano became one of the many instruments in his armoury, albeit always situated in the very center. The patrons of Krauze's piano music are Debussy and Ravel, as well as Satie. The composer seems to have a special affinity for French piano aesthetics, with an ancestry traced to the harpsichord and Chopin.

Refrain, M. Matsunaga - piano, Yokohama ISCM Music Days

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The form of a musical piece is for me of first and most essential interest. Two competing and contradictory tendencies in music, the tendency to homogeneous form and the tendency to form with contrasts, are phenomena of great importance.

In my music I require calm and organization. Its sound is intended to have sufficiently individual form so that it can be differentiated from the multitude of other music and other sounds. The performed piece extracts a definitely structured segment of time from the chaos of people's activities and from the chaos of sounds surrounding people.

These tendencies are fulfilled in my music through a structure devoid of contrasts, i. e. as homogenous as possible. All changes and movements necessary to maintain the continuation of the music are not contrasting; they do not bring in new elements.

Whatever the listener discovers in the first few seconds of the performance of the piece will last till the end. The beginning of the composition immediately exposes the whole scale of sounds so that nothing alien, nothing new will appear. There will be no surprises.

I prefer that the listener hear separate details and fragments of music rather than be attacked by sequences of attractions, changes and surprises. This music is unobtrusive. It does not attack the listener, who is placed in an active role; he listens only to those details or fragments of music which are congenial to him. He chooses the fragments himself because perception of the music is easy; he knows what he may encounter. He is also aware that if any fragment disappears it will certainly recur.

This form without contrasts, in its essence, has neither a beginning nor an end. The piece can be interrupted at any moment an this will not change its basic traits. It may also last an arbitrary length of time.

This music relates to the possibility of a new mode of reception. In an ideal situation, music would be continually played. The listener would come at a convenient time and leave whenever he considered it appropriate. This could occur in different kinds of halls with specially designed architecture.

Zygmunt Krauze about Unistic Music

 

The oeuvre of Zygmunt Krauze constitutes a separate and highly individual field in Polish post-war music. It is to a large extent due to the influences of unistic theory in painting that the composer transferred to the area of music. In unistic works the sounds fill the pitch range evenly but at the same time irregularly. Also, the dimension of time consists of irregular durations, beyond pulse and rythm. In the 1960s Krauze composed a number of unistic works that differed in their mode of expression from both Polish and foreign music of the time. He replaced the principle of maximum changeability (post serialist) and climactic form (Polish School of Composition) with a form devoid of contrasts, possibly most homogenous... - as himself put it. (...) Even though unism is only one of many genres and techniques practiced by the composer, its influence on the characteristics of the entire compositional style of Zygmunt Krauze turns out to be predominant. (...)

The unistic system of composing music aims at the creation of textural monolith, combined of a limited number of simplest elements. As a result, we get music which main feature is permanence: stable, externally homogenous while at the same time shimmering with internal complexity that has been captured in unistic sound, potentially eternal.

Excerpt of the Summary from Krzystof Szwajgier's book: Sound Images of Unistic Music. Inspirations drawn from painting in the works of Zygmunt Krauze; translated by Natalia Szymaszek.

 

Minimalism, along with sonorism and aleatoric music, is one of the most important movements in the music of the second half of the 20th century. It began in the sixties in America, and soon became one of the most influential musical directions in Europe as well as in Japan. Polish minimalism was most fully expressed in the works of Tomasz Sikorski and Zygmunt Krauze whose music is described in two separate chapters. In another part of this work the author describes the relationship between minimalism and the music of Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki and Wojciech Kilar, although their musical style covers a broader esthetical area than the minimalistic approach. (...)

The aim of this work is to show that polish minimal music is truly original when compared with the music of the composers representing this direction in other countries. This originality results from the idiomatic group of stylistic features of which this music consists. Each of these composers created his own, original, recognizable musical style which is connected with different inspirations and relations. The work of Tomasz Sikorski, balancing between minimalism and sonorism, has philosophical and literary program elements. The individual style of Zygmunt Krauze is based on the relation with the unistic concept created by the Polish painter Wladyslaw Strzeminski. (...)

Minimalism in Polish music was presented in the context of American and world minimalistic movement as well as vanguard and forerunner tendencies in American music which created the base for the movement's development. In this book minimal music in Poland is described in order to present its most typical features as well as compare it with the minimalistic movement in America.

Foreword to Joanna Miklaszewska's book Minimalism in Polish Music.

 

Zygmunt Krauze is a man of distinct and significant stature in the history of new Polish music. A musician of unique talent and hence of original sound language, he adopts various composer techniques, ideas, rules, and expression formats, but primarily he adapts them. And although Krauze uses, absorbs, and derives, he neither imitates nor duplicates. Still he may be placed in different areas and trends of new music: static music, spatial music, instrumental theatre, inspiration by nature, folklore, or ludic activities, stereotypes demolition, playing with conventions, traditional forms and genres revitalization. There are pieces in Krauze's output, where issues of the craft are the composer's main concern, but also others that evidence a clear reference to non-musical, external reality and a relevance to history and real life.

The book's title singles out four internal impulses the drivers of Krauze's music and its creative determinants: intellect, fantasy, obligation and game. The author considers them crucial for this music, and since in various periods different element and driving force played predominant role, this fact prompted the selection of observation points and, consequently, the content arrangement into five chapters. Needles to say, this is not a disjunctive division. (...)

Excerpt of the Summary from Krystyna Tarnawska-Kaczorowska's book:
Zygmunt Krauze. Between Intellect, Fantasy, Obligation, and Game.

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