Polish Refugees Surviving Global Politics (Vol. 14, No. 4)

At the time of Thanksgiving we think of things we are thankful for. Let's start from a positive lesson and some advice...

A Starchild’s Lesson

I found the Philosopher’s Stone. 

Transmogrification.

Fear into Love. The lead of sorrow

into the pure gold of childlike laughter. 

There is no other alchemy, but this.

“Shine”— said the Voice.

“Be fruitful”—Someone wrote

in the Great Book for all ages. 

Even if half true, it is true enough.

Listen. Do not stray from your path. 

You know what lies ahead —

past a frozen meadow of snowdrops and sasanki, 

white and violet, glowing with innocence

 in a forest clearing —

past peach orchards, misty with blizzards

of falling petals —past lakes of blooming lotus, 

patiently stretching from mud to the Sun — 

past golden fields of rye, ready for harvest,

to make bread for the journey—

Open the parasol of ancient wisdom above you — 

for shelter, as you walk into the embrace of your destiny

and shine — shine — shine —

NOTE: Sasanka, plural sasanki is a Polish name of a spring wildflower called Pulsatilla or Pasqueflower from genus Anemone.

(c) Maja Trochimczyk, published in "Crystal Fire: Poems of Joy and Wisdom" (2022)

Cemetery in Trzebieszow, May 2023

Polish survivors of WWII and their families have lots of reasons for gratitude. Many of these reasons were suppressed in the media in the 50 years after the war ended, when Polish People's Republic was a Soviet satellite state and actively concealed proof of Soviet crimes against Poles and Poland.  So... let me recall some family facts....

Poland first fought with the Soviet Union in 1920 when Soviets invaded the newly reborn Second Polish Republic after 123 years of partitions (when the country was split between Russia, Prussia and Austria, the latter the most tolerant). Poland was recreated in WWI Peace Treaty of 1918, signed on 11 November, Poland's Independence Day - the patriot, pianist and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski was the signatory. He later became Poland's Prime Minister. In 1920, the Soviet troops went all the way to Warsaw on their way to conquer Europe, but "A Miracle on the Vistula" took place, while all citizens fought back and the Red Army was defeated and sent back.  I talked about Paderewski and Poland's Independence here:

https://chopinwithcherries.blogspot.com/2018/10/paderewski-100-years-of-polands.html

My grandfather Stanislaw Wajszczuk fought in WWI. During the revolution in Russia, he was a  conscript to the White Army and participated in battles in St. Petersburg; he saw blood flowing down the streets, unspeakable atrocities. Then, his brigade was sent to the Western front to fight against German troops. He was caught by Germans and imprisoned in Dachau, until he escaped with help from a prison commander's daughter. Two decades later, his brother, Feliks Wajszczuk, a Catholic priest, was imprisoned also by Germans and also in Dachau (1940-1945); subject to medical experiments on lung capacity, he barely survived. 

In 1917, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski started forming his Legions to liberate Poland. No longer a German Prisoner of War, my Grandpa joined the Legions and fought with them to liberate Poland.  Thus, I can say that mine is a "Pilsudczyk" family. I did not know about this for decades, just that my Mom taught me to sing the Legionnaires' songs, and that she had a portrait of Marshal Pilsudski on her living room wall. Knowing these facts as a student in the Polish People's Republic was dangerous for the family; I could have disclosed it accidentally at school...

Father Feliks (Felix) Wajszczuk's letters to his mother Jozefa from Dachau Concentration Camp. Prisoner Number 22732,  HIs cousin Father Karol Leonard Wajszczuk (Karl, 1887-1942) died in Dachau, Prisoner Number 22572

Fast forward to 1939, my Grandpa was in Baranowicze (now in Belarus), working for the Polish railroads and the radio station. By that time, he was already married, with two children. When Soviets struck a secret deal with Nazi Germany and invaded Poland on 17 September 1939 he went into hiding. Another former Polish soldier, Uncle Glinski was shot in the street by NKVD, his widow, Ciocia Tonia (Antonina) was arrested the next day with two sons and deported to Siberia, where one son died. I talked about some of these stories here: 

https://chopinwithcherries.blogspot.com/2021/01/portraits-of-survivors-babcia-prababcia.html

In total, over 1 million Poles were deported by Soviets to Siberia or Kazakhstan. While parents often perished, orphaned children survived. Deportations of Poles from then-Polish lands of modern Ukraine and Belarus (it was all part of Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth since 1364)  started already in 1937. These were not random acts of terror, but a full scale pre-planned campaign of ethnic cleansing removing Polish residents from formerly Polish lands, some incorporated into the Russia in 1918, the rest taken over by Soviet Union after 1945. (In the Ukraine about 200,000 Poles were murdered by UPA Ukrainian Nationalists during WWII; I know children of survivors, living here in California). My mother's aunt and uncle were among the Polish deportee orphans in Siberia, their parents perished of hunger and disease.

Grandfather Stanislaw Wajszczuk and Grandmother Maria Anna Wajszczuk, nee Wasiuk

But my grandparents were lucky. They were not deported. In 1939, my grandparents and mother made it through the border from Soviet-occupied Baranowicze to German-occupied Poland. Their destination was my Grandpa's ancestral village where they lived out the rest of the war. 20 people slept in a two-bedroom house, this ordeal lasted for 4 years, food was scarce. During the illegal border crossing, a German soldier took all their valuables - gold coins and jewelry and gave them a receipt. My Aunt Barbara framed it later, since post-war Germany refused to honor it and return what was stolen. Maybe the receipt was fake and the soldier pocketed the gains. Who knows... In any case, the Soviets did not pay reparations either - and they owed a lot, for the lost house, as well as estates of other members of extended family... 

https://chopinwithcherries.blogspot.com/2022/09/remembering-polish-war-anniversaries.html

The house of survivors in Trzebieszow

After the British and Americans struck a deal with Stalin to take over Eastern Europe after WWII, a secret deal made in Teheran in 1943 and sealed in Yalta in 1945 (a deal that nobody knew about until  the takeovers started), Gen. Wladyslaw Anders was allowed to take out imprisoned soldiers from the Soviet camps, in order to form the Polish Second Corps. The soldiers were allowed to take their families with them, while orphaned children were allowed to leave as well, cared for by the Red Cross. Orphaned Irena (my mom's Aunt) went with the troops to Iran, where the refugees were divided and sent to other camps. Irena went with the Red Cross through Switzerland to Chicago, where she later married and had a family. About 220,000 people were saved by Gen. Anders.  They dispersed around the world.

≡ SHAMBHALA ≡

Do children who die on the way
carry bejeweled parasols in a Tibetan heaven?

Is Siberia too far from Shambhala
for the bedraggled orphans to enter through
its golden doorways, glistening with ten thousand
ornaments, treasures from a galaxy with ten billion suns?

Are they too sick and dirty to walk on a shining path
made for the birth of the Buddha — scented
with sandalwood, adorned with an unsurpassed
multitude of rarest gems.

When the Buddha was born, the Earth
moved six ways, the wise man said.

Did it move at least once to mark your passage?

When you rolled in pain and moaned
until the blessed moment of relief?
Gave up your last breath like a crystal question mark
in a frozen Siberian air? Convulsed
in a sudden burst of gunfire, a bullet straight
through your heart? Froze to death in a convoy?
Fainted on the floor of a railroad car?

There was no hooting of owls, they say,
when the great Shakyamuni Buddha
was born. Sweet sounding music floated 
through a myriad of flowering orchards,
filled with a rainbow of gemstone trees.

Did you hear an owl hoot when you died?

Oh, hungry child of gulags, the lost child
of Siberia — Did the Earth move?

Were there parasols, or owls?

(C) 2021 by Maja Trochimczyk, published in The Rainy Bread: New Poems from Exile (2021)

https://culture.pl/en/article/the-maharaja-who-saved-hundreds-of-polish-orphans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xAdW1gIN4E (interview with one of the orphans from India)

The 1000 children who went to India and were saved by the Maharajah, had an interesting teacher with them. Poland's most famous pop singer and movie star Hanka Ordonowna, who went to India as their teacher and counselor, and wrote a great book of horror stories told to her by the children survivors, starving, ill, and covered with lice when she met them. It was such a blessing for her and for the children to encounter a real saint, the Indian Maharajah, with such generosity and love. 

After a performance, Polish orphans with the Maharajah in India, Wikimedia Commmons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYkFiUsEQ8U - Ordonka sings "Love will forgive you everything..." 

Ordonka's greatest hit "Love will forgive you everything" was named Poland's no. 1 song 50 years after the war. Its composer Henryk Warszawski, known in California as Henry Vars, was a soldier in Anders' army, a Polish-Jewish musician who after surviving the war, established a film-composer career here. Its poet, Julian Tuwim, was also Polish-Jewish and survived the war in South America, he wrote some of the greatest poems of Polish language and was enticed to return to post-war Poland, but died in 1953 without publishing much except of Poland's most famous and beloved children's verse, I still know two of these poems by heart. I wrote a poem for Ordonka, in my "Rainy Bread" book, second expanded version:

https://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2021/04/new-e-book-edition-of-rainy-bread-poems.html

Hanna Ordonowna, Wikimedia commons

More poems from the second edition of the book are here:

https://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2021/10/trochimczyks-rainy-bread-more-poems.html

Poles in California had among them some survivors from Anders's Army orphans and soldiers, poet Kazimierz Cybulski among them. He went through Iran, though, and then was sent to Uganda where he was in a refugee camp for several years. After the war, over 120,000 soldiers went to England, where they lived in refugee camps closed only in the 1960s. Britain did not want them to live there, just to fight for them. They were gradually sent out to all parts of the British Empire. Many went to Canada and Australia, some were allowed to immigrate to the U.S.  I found Cybulski's obituary online, albeit in Polish, he was a Polish-language poet: https://www.zppno.org/aktualnosci/kazimierz-cybulski-nie-zyje/

I did not write about him, but I commemorated the deportations with a poem published in the expanded version of The Rainy Bread: New Poems from Exile (2021).

≡ OF TRAINS AND TEA ≡

I remember trains and horse-drawn wagons –
being all cooped up in a pile of blankets.
Was it so far? Were we going in circles?

Давайте, пойдем — Xорошо, хорошо

Yes, I remember the hypnotic noise
of train wheels on the railroad tracks.
Piercing, repetitive, permeating your body
and echoing in your brain. To the border,
two days waiting, then a different patter
of Russian, broader tracks.

It was dark and cold and I was afraid.

Yes, I was, too. I did not know where
we were going, what dark hut was destined
to be our home for who knows how many years.

The road there was so long.
Stopping and starting.
As if to never end.

The sad train whistle, the calls
of the guards, that’s what’s real now —
as they sit, sipping tea out of fine bone china
on the patio scented with orange blossoms
of the glorious California spring.

Мы готовы — давайте —
xорошо, хорошо —

(c) by Maja Trochimczyk, published in "The Rainy Bread: New Poems from Exile" 2021

Polish sky in May 2023

After the war ended, Poland was denied the right to participate in the Victory Parade in 1945. All stories of refugees and survivors were suppressed - like the stories during the war of trains of refugees and orphans going through the U.S. to Mexico, where in Santa Rosa camp over 3000 survivors lived. (trains had blacked out windows, and moved at night to not be seen by Americans, Stalin was the good guy for them then, on covers of magazines!). They continued write about what they remembered: here are some poems by Alexander Janta Polczynski, published in England:

https://chopinwithcherries.blogspot.com/2018/08/from-13-polish-psalms-by-alexander.html

Polish government in exile in London continued to be active, though not recognized by Allies until 1989 when it dissolved; these same Allies betrayed their agreements to defend Poland in 1939. Survivors had no home to return to. After 1944, when Polish People's Republic was formed by Soviets, a puppet government was installed. Polish People's Republic in its first ten years during the Stalinist regime of Boleslaw Bierut murdered and imprisoned thousands of survivors of the Home Army, and especially soldiers and leaders of the Second Polish Republic. 

Meanwhile, deportations from former Polish lands took the rest of 3-4.5 million of Polish inhabitants from what is now Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine to former German lands of Silesia and Pomerania that were given to Poland in the Stalin-Churchill-Roosevelt deal. These lands were emptied of German residents. I know a German music historian Martina Homma who was kicked out of Gdansk, her family had 24 hours to leave, and settled in Cologne.  This "you have 24 hours to pack" was a mantra of new rulers everywhere...A California poet Dorothy Skiles was just 2 when Soviets went through Berlin and raped every woman, while men in her family died in Wehrmacht on the Eastern front. She gave copies of my poems about war experiences of my extended family to her sons and grandsons, offspring of German Wehrmacht soldiers. We should all know and learn from the past. 

Polish Diaspora in the world. Dark red: over 10 million, red, over 1 million, dark pink: over 100 thounsand, light pink: over 10 thousand. Wikimedia Commons.

The Polish refugee camps everywhere were clean, tidy, well organized and taken care of. Poles immediately formed Polish schools, each little barrack had a veggie garden and a flower garden, there were social groups, dance groups, theater groups, choirs, and such. Churches as well, they were mostly Catholics in these camps. I want to publish Hanka Ordonowna  memoirs in English translation, amazing stories. Alas, she died in Beirut, was too sick after the gulag camps in Siberia and never fully recovered.

Eugeniusz Bodo, actor, Wikimedia commons.

Another famous actor Eugeniusz Bodo died in the Soviet gulag. But an amazing painter Julian Stanczak survived, though lost the use of his right hand, paralyzed after beating in the camp. He became a painter instead of a cellist that he wanted to be. He learned to draw with left hand in a camp in Uganda, then came to the U.S. He was a very well known Op-Art painter in the mid-West. Died in 2017. 

Eugeniusz Bodo, prisoner in Soviet gulag, Wikimedia commons

War is a beast, so we should be all against all wars, and favor peace, and help others. In recent wars, Poles took in refugees from the Ukraine, I sent money to a friend who took in a mother with daughter to his small apartment, where he lived with his wife and baby. His grandfather was also kicked out of the Ukraine, maybe that woman was an offspring of the perpetrators? Who knows, she or her child were not guilty, and the best way to stop wars is by forgiveness and generosity. 

Julian Stanczak in 2013 with one of his paintings, Wikimedia Commons

If everyone did as they should, and followed the example of the "Good Maharajah" the world would have been so much better. But then, the survivors and refugees should have behaved like Poles did in those camps, work, be grateful, and build a new, peaceful world. Stanczak,  Cybulski, Vars, and other immigrants to America have done it in the New World. They successfully created new identities for themselves and contributed to the culture of their new country. 

Now, that so many global agencies and corporations seek to destroy "nation-states" and erase or cancel the multitude of distinct identities - linguistic and cultural - of nations around the world, it is even more important to remember and support cultural diversity of these nations. In my case, it means remembering the achievements, resilience, and honor of the Polish nation. 

Polish Americans have two Independence Days to celebrate, two languages to learn, two national anthems to sing. Not 195 Independence Days of all the world's countries. Not all 160+ languages, cultures, and traditions of all the world's residents. It is impossible to open borders and accept as equal all the different nationalities without creating for them a standard and a model to accept. Here, the language is English, the Independence Day is on 4 July, the Pledge of Allegiance defines "one nation" - that all the newcomers belong to. All the Displaced Persons of Stanczak's generation or Solidarity-era emigres of my generation, are free in the U.S. to learn Polish and study Polish history and culture. All are free in our "land of the free" where we do not forget our roots, while becoming Americans of double identities. 

More on Poland's Independence and patriotism of Poles:

https://chopinwithcherries.blogspot.com/2023/02/reflections-on-national-survival-and.html

I think it would be best to finish this story with a positive poem that fits the theme of Thanksgiving: 

LIKE GRAPES ON A VINE

   —we grow and grow. 

Nourished by gold light 

and sapphire water, 

we become sweeter as we age. 

Last traces of bitterness 

and resentment dissolve

 into forgiveness.

 

Yes, it was a long road.

Yes, it was hard.

But we are here.

Grapes on the vine.

 

I’m kind to myself, kind to others, 

kind to the world. I listen.

 

All grains of sand on the beach, 

all dancing droplets in the ocean,

the salty mist on my lips – sing 

the song of creation. Such a joy to be. 

Present. Attentive—

to the sparkling pathway 

of sunlight leading beyond the horizon— 

to the relentless rhythm of the waves 

crushing all worry into smithereens.

 

Out flows my pain.

Out goes my sorrow.

In flows my peace.

In comes my gladness.

 

Like the ripening grapes on the vine 

we become sweeter as we age.

(c) Maja Trochimczyk, published in "Crystal Fire: Poems of Joy and Wisdom" anthology in 2022

What is Music? An Essay Just Because... (Vol. 14, No. 3)

Bell at Mission San Juan Capistrano, photo by Maja Trochimczyk

What is music? Depends on who, depends on where. When the composer and violinist Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) went to India in 1956 with the government delegation of the Polish People's Republic to perform Karol Szymanowski's beautiful violin works, the audience expressed some disapproval after particularly beautiful phrases, much to the concern of the performers. [1] It turned out after the concert that the listeners had a grudge against the musicians, because they did not repeat to them, in new variants, such beautiful and lavishly praised phrases, melodies, motifs... 

Karol Szymanowski, The Spring of Arethusa from Myths Op. 30, played by Mark Andre Hamelin and Lara St. John: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k55EIS4nlJs

Here, the European concept of a "musical work" with the dimensions of a sculpture fixed in sound and time as if in stone, which the philosopher and art phenomenologist Roman Ingarden described in detail, collided with the Indian concept of improvised music, always different, flowing like waves, accelerating and slowing down with the flow of "lived time," thus able to extend a moment, and allow the listeners to enjoy its charm... Recall Rainer Maria Rilke's (1875-1926) poem "To Music," where a European musical work, a marble sculpture made of sound and time (excerpt):

"Music: / the breath of the statues. / 

Maybe: /silence of images./ 

You speech, where speech ceases. / /

Time that you stand upright / 

in the way of disappearing hearts. / Feelings to whom? / /

Oh, you feelings / transformation into what? /

 Into an audible landscape? / You foreign land: music."

Already in the first verse, the proximity of the dynamic and fluid music to the stone sculpture is striking. Here, time has stopped on the border of abstract feelings, transferred to the plane of universally audible soundscapes. Let us recall that in the Western European tradition of "serious" music, composers recorded their musical visions as precisely as possible in scores, full of signs, not only rhythmic and melic, but also expressive, dramatic, timbral... and even the location of musicians in space, as in Persephassa (1969 ) by Iannis Xenakis, where the drummers enveloped the audience in a liquid magma of percussive tremolos and glissandi.[2]

Iannis Xenakis: Persephassa for Six Percussionists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osw8Cr58cXs

The musical vision recorded in such a precise way, divided into voices, was then interpreted by musicians who passed on traditions about performance practice and interpretation conventions to each other for generations. [3] The notation allowed the musicians some room for originality and individualism, but there was no possibility of introducing variations and repeating favorite phrases ...as  expected in Szymanowski's The Spring of Aretusa heard in India ...

The Western tendency to record and permanently record one perfect version of a "musical work" eventually led to its evolution to record, in the form of analog or digital recordings, works perfectly fixed for eternity. It started with classical music, but this departure from the co-creation of "live" and "improvisational" music was perfected especially by popular music, composed once and for all in one recording, which could no longer be interpreted or changed in any way. The voices of the performers, the details of additional sounds "sampled" and digitally processed - merged into one, unchanging whole of the once and for all fixed artefact.

 Five pianists play the Chopin Berceuse in D-flat Major, Op. 57 (Michelangeli, Rubinstein, Moravec, Ashkenazy, Pollini)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGXXLaO0Ke4

One could only listen to such recordings passively - becoming recipients of a one-meaning and one-way message. The multipolarity of the "aesthetic experience" linking the composer with the performer and the listener, as postulated by Roman Ingarden, has disappeared.[4]  Such petrified music could neither be interpreted nor co-created. Although we must be grateful for preserving the great voices of Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) and Patsy Cline (1931-1963) for history. The greatest of these recorded tracks are integrated LPs of rock bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, or Queen with the memorable Bohemian Rhapsody... captured in perfection of unique voices and sonic details for an eternal keepsake. Unfortunately, recently, at a few "classical" concerts, I heard transcriptions of this Rhapsody for solo cello or harp, poorly evoking distant echoes of Freddy Mercury's extraordinary voice. This is how "serious" musicians become "frivolous" in the pursuit of fame and audience.

Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (original video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ

This brings to mind Roland Barthes' famous reflection on "the grain of the voice" ("le grain de la voix") from 1972, although understood and interpreted in many ways, in each version talking about the role of an individual, unique embodiment of the voice, which color and roughness adds more and more meanings to the fixed text. As Anne Kauppala stated in 2020, [5] here the concepts of connotation and denotation, geno-singing and pheno-singing, and multi-layered semiotic word-conceptual games collide - let me just add that they lead readers and researchers to intellectual spheres very distant from the physical embodiment of the voice, sound, music...

As Anna Szlagowska wrote in the article "Modernist dialogue between poetry and music in the works of Rilke", the poet believed in the theory of correspondence of arts, which had been described earlier by Baudelaire or E.T.A. Hoffman. [6] The correspondence of the arts was only one dimension of understanding the whole world as a unity, a harmonious cosmos-universe, which is indivisible and always divine, without the possibility of separating the spheres of the sacred and the profane. In such a sphere, where God is everywhere, everything is Divine, or to be precise, there is nothing that is not God - as Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) proved in his monumental treatise on mathematics, logic, theology and philosophy, hidden under the title Ethics (1677, Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata).

Music is the Cosmos and the Cosmos is music. So we return to the music of the spheres and cosmic harmony. Music is even where it is not heard... because, as Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) calculated in Harmonica Mundi (1616), all planets and the sun, moving in their orbits and circling in space, are elements of cosmic and harmonious music. "Musica Universalis" is known to us as the music of the spheres. [https://www.sensorystudies.org/picture-gallery/spheres_image/]

As observed by Kepler, an excellent astronomer and astrologer, supporter and promoter of the heliocentric Copernican theory, the entire solar system is a gigantic choir that has been singing beautiful chords since its inception, in which the Sun and Jupiter are basses, Mars is a tenor, Venus and Earth are altos, and Mercury is a soprano, resonating in perfect harmony from the beginning of creation... Thus, musical vocal polyphony - says Kepler - this unique invention of Western culture - is an ideal reflection of such cosmic harmony, shortening eternity to an hour... Let's listen to the Palestrina Mass, the Offertories or the Magnificat of Mikołaj Zieleński.

Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli, by Tallis Scholars:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRfF7W4El60

Mikolaj Zielenski, Viderunt Omnes:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIaXGt-Xvj8

Mikolaj Zielenski, Magnificat for three choirs, played with instruments:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paT4ReAHimE

Such music, as Rilke wrote, is "another side of the air, / pure, vast, / no longer inhabitable." Although Kepler's calculations were not accurate and oversimplified the shape of the orbits, velocities and the pitches of the planets he postulated, it is worth recalling his theory at a time when the world's music disintegrated into thousands of dialects and languages, like humanity in the Tower of Babel. At the same time, European music lost its heavenly harmony of Renaissance and Baroque polyphony - after the introduction of more and more instruments, tuned more and more "evenly." In the chromatic division of the octave into 12 equal semitones, pure and beautiful fifths and fourths were lost, thirds became out of tune... And so, step by step, from Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (fugues and preludes composed from 1722), we moved further and further away from the pure harmony of resonating strings or columns of air, studied since the time of Pythagoras. Today you can listen to such beautifully tuned voices at a capella concerts of early music and even "barbershop" concerts of women's choirs in the "Sweet Adeline" style popular among American women - where 120 women aged 20 to 70 sing with great joy beautifully even, saturated and harmonized chord arrangements of songs from the swing era, "Fly me to the moon..."

There are no recordings that can mimic that experience, so let's listen to Frank Sinatra singing Fly Me to the Moon, instead, "the grain in the voice..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEcqHA7dbwM

Before we swing to the moon, let's remember when the attack on music as the harmony of the Cosmos, and the harmony of man in the Cosmos, led to the global crisis of "serious" music and its disintegration, and dethronement in favor of digitally and mass-produced entertainment. Since I have little space for my reflections, let me simplify this story to three elements:

 a) replacing the natural, "pure" harmony with a chromatic tuning, in which all keys sound equally impure, but you can have great fun with the transitions from key to key; 

b) replacing beautiful, deeply resonating consonances resounding in space and in the bodies of musicians and listeners with a dense mass of rapidly changing and increasingly sharper dissonances; 

c) replacing participation in the creation of the human Cosmos in the Cosmos of the universe by jointly performing and singing harmonious music, passive listening to other people's recordings, in isolating the private space of headphones, the space of the "head."

from: http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Atoms-and-waves.html

From Wikimedia Commons: By Hyacinth, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27409040

During its evolution towards Schoenberg's dodecaphony, recognized by Theodore Adorno and other German aestheticians as the apogee and teleological goal of the development of European music, relentlessly striving towards its peak, classical music moved further and further away from its roots in modality and tonality. Its foundation of remembering throughout the work about the "center" or base in the form of a tonic, affirmed by departures and returns, dissonances and their resolutions. The “decentralized” dodecaphony was created during the First World War and triumphed throughout the world of Western culture – the culture of choirs and symphony orchestras, string quartets and piano recitals – after the Second World War. Not by accident, but on purpose to reflect the tragedy and chaos of both anti-human, murderous wars in its inherently chaotic and anti-humanist format. 

Chart showing distance of equal temperament notes from their natural, "pythagorean" equivalents, up -higher, down - lover, and red circles notes that are the same  - only octaves. From: https://www.miltonline.com/2015/07/12/harmonic-series-vs-12-tone-equal-temperament/

We remember the experiments of Boulez and Stockhausen, we remember the shock of Warsaw Autumn Festivals' dissonances - Penderecki, early Górecki, Szalonek. However, already in the 1970s of the last century, composers got tired of tormenting the audience and musicians so much - Górecki wrote the Third Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, Aarvo Part - the Passion, American minimalists returned to the basics of rhythm and repetition. Away from dissonances that make your ears hurt. Fortunately, composers like John Tavener (1943-2013), Morten Lauridsen (born 1943) or Eric Whiteacre (born 1950) started to write consonant music that can be sung again... Or played with joy, like the surreal music of Hanna Kulenty (born 1961).

Second Movement from Gorecki's Third Symphony, by Dawn Upshaw and London Sinfonietta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVlSGSVjjw&list=RDBVVlSGSVjjw&start_radio=1

Unfortunately, the avant-garde and experimental artists of the 1950s and 1970s went further - after rejecting tonality and consonance as the basis of musical matter, they also rejected the very concept of a "musical work", stating how John Cage in his conceptual and extremely destructive vicious circle (circulus in probando), created from a misunderstanding of Buddhism that music is anything that a musician does, while a musician is someone who produces music! So everything is music, and thus, nothing is music. Reductio ad absurdum. Instead of becoming the avant-garde of the musical army, this stray, self-important and deluded movement ended up on the sidelines of history, nurtured in the greenhouses of academic composition departments by lovers of chaos and originality at all costs.

It is good that the fashion for Cage and his imitators did not last too long and composers returned to writing music suitable for both playing and listening. Only that this episode of composers' wandering astray into dodecophanic dissonances and absurd happenings caused the audience to move away from classical European music. It was no longer so respected, because it was far too serious about itself, too aggressive for the mind, exhaustive for the mind, and numbing for the heart. It became almost completely devoid of a sense of humor. Nature abhors emptiness, so contemporary compositions written only for competition with academic colleagues were replaced by dance and film music. Today, popular music triumphs even in concert halls, where orchestras enthusiastically play John Williams's film scores while Renee Fleming (with a microphone! O, horror of horrors!) sings pop songs by Korngold or Cohen, equating them with art songs by Faure or Debussy.

Wanda Landowska in Lwow in 1937, By  Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny - Archiwum Ilustracji - Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe, , Sygnatura: 1-K-6618-2, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42557613

Let's be glad that the trend of early music has survived: since Wanda Landowska started playing baroque pieces on the harpsichord instead of the piano, more and more musicians seek solace in the world of "real" music from their beloved and idealized eras. The styles of their interpretations change over the years, bearing witness that their world is not free from fashion and sheep following in a daze behind the leader... It doesn't matter too much, for as long as they play and sing, "their" music will live in a constantly renewed tradition. It's good that the classical composers of the 18th and 19th centuries still have their admirers - although they managed to "untune" the harmony of Pythagorean consonances, they replaced them with the sublimation of emotions into art! They built kaleidoscopes and feasts of feelings with fascinating harmony, melody, rhythm... 

That's why the whole world loves Chopin! Really! I have been writing about him for 13 years on the poetry and music blog Chopin with Cherries; I edited two books, followed its reception among composers, in film, and on the Internet.[7] Strange! The music of a 30-year-old tuberculosis, bitter exile without relatives and home warmth in Paris - despite having a French father, Polish homeland enchanted him for life - delights millions! It awakens the carefully dormant sphere of emotions among rushed, alienated people from China and Korea; it appeals to both Americas, and of course triumphs in the Slavic sphere. (The flow in the opposite direction is limited: I don't know many sincere admirers of the classical Chinese opera, for instance, though taiko drumming from Japan has many followers...)

Lang Lang plays Chopin's Prelude in D-flat Major, Op. 28, No. 15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2d2spnXyLA (slower than most!)

What has already died and is still dying is the tradition of amateur music-making in choirs and at home; where everyone has their own headphones and their own player - or LP, CD, MP3, iPhone ... and you don't even sing Christmas carols together anymore ... Jolanta T. Pekacz postulated in 2002 that in musicology studies more attention should be paid to various forms of presence music in everyday life.[8] Why? It is occasional, religious, solemn, festive and dance music that builds our world in sounds. If it is harmonious and beautiful, it reflects the beauty of the Cosmos as in a mirror. "As above, so below," claim the followers of hermetic and esoteric sects. Some even believe that the human voice has a unique relationship with the Cosmos: once beautifully sung, a lovely melody carrying a kind Word echoes through the entire universe. Om mani padme hum... Hallelujah! Plato already said that beauty is good, is truth. Indeed...

Om Mani Padme Hum by Dajit Virk and instruments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-U88AHbElw

New research in the area of psychology of music shows that group singing has multiple positive health, psychological and social effects on its participants.[9] Research into choirs and other forms of collective singing has been conducted for several decades and has focused on the potential health and wellness benefits, particularly for amateur singers.[10] Experimental, quantitative and qualitative research studies show a range of bio-psycho-social and well-being benefits for singers. In one project, the "range of emotional and endocrine responses to singing or listening to choral music" was investigated, proving that active participation in choral singing resulted in "significant increases in positive and decreased negative emotional states." Singing strengthens the specific immunity of the body as well as leads to an increase in positive emotions.[11]

Alleluia Sancte Michael, by Gregorian Chant Academy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPYsNY46l60

The first scholarly research books about positive psychological states were written by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the theory of concentration during creation or intensive work, i.e. the "flow" (1975-1998).[12] The perspective of the “positive psychology” by Martin Seligman (2011) [13] used in vocal music studies identifies the elements of positive well-being, i.e. one aspect of hedonic well-being (positive emotions and joy) and four aspects of eudaimonic well-being (involvement in action, building and maintaining relationships, deriving meaning from action and a sense of achievement, success).[14] Singing together builds up all these elements. 

 Hildegard von Bingen: O ignis spiritus paracliti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MI5JgWOOr0

Researchers found that “singing in a group has a better effect on the well-being of participants than singing alone” (Stewart & Lonsdale, 2016).[15] In addition, choral singing improves the "sense of competence and social connection" and the "potential for positive well-being."[16] Ruud (2012) identified four dimensions or categories of quality of life that benefit from active participation in choral singing: vitality (emotional life, aesthetic sensitivity, pleasures), agency (sense of mastery and empowerment, social recognition), affiliation (network, capital social) and meaning (continuity of tradition, transcendental values, hope). In conclusion, "current scientific evidence suggests that singing in a choir or group has a number of health and wellness benefits."[17]

What is music? A measure of harmony? The cosmic glue holding the planets in their orbits? It is a cure for loneliness, alienation, blues. The key to emotions, the secret of the heart. The energy of the sun, light and joy. The glow of infinity.

NOTES

Written in June 2023 in Polish, for the journal Metafory Wspolczesnosci. Added links to music 

[1] Grażyna Bacewicz, Znak szczególny, Kraków: PWM, 1970.

[2] Maria Anna Harley, "Spatial Sound Movement in the Instrumental Music of Iannis Xenakis." Interface. Journal of New Music Research 23/3 (1994): 291-314; Maja Trochimczyk, "From Circles to Nets: on the Signification of Spatial Sound Imagery in New Music." Computer Music Journal 25/4 (2001): 37-54.

[3]  Maria Anna Harley, Space and Spatialization in Contemporary Music: History and Analysis, Ideas and Implementations. Montreal, McGill University, School of Music, 1994; Maria Anna Harley, "At Home with Phenomenology: Roman Ingarden's Work of Music Revisited." . International Journal of Musicology 6 (1997): 9-24. Reprinted, as Maja Trochimczyk (after name change), in After Chopin: Essays in Polish Music (Los Angeles: Polish Music Center, 2000), 91-110.

[4] Małgorzata A. Szyszkowska, “Reconsidering Ingarden's Contribution to European Aesthetics: Aesthetic Experience and the Concept of Encounter,” 2018. 

[5] Anne Kauppala, “Barthes’s ‘The Grain of the Voice’ revisited” w The Routledge Handbook of Music Signification (New York: Routledge, 2020);  Jonathan Dunsby, “Roland Barthes and the Grain of Panzéra's Voice” Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 134/1 (2009), 113-132.

[6] Anna Szlagowska, „Modernistyczny dialog poezji z muzyką w twórczości Rilkego,"Muzykalia IV – Zeszyt niemiecki 1, portal De Musica, 2019; http://demusica.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/szlagowska_pl_muzykalia_4_1.pdf. 

[7]  Frederic Chopin - A Research and Information Guide, co-authored with William Smialek.  New Jork, Routledge, 2015; After Chopin: Studies in Polish Music. Los Angeles: Polish Music Center at USC, 2000; "Chopin i 'polska rasa': O nacjonalizmie i recepcji Chopina," revised chapter from The Age of Chopin (Indiana University Press, 2004); tlum. Magdalena Dziadek, Opcje 4 (2006). "Chopin and Women Composers: Collaborations, Imitations, Inspirations."  Polish Review 45/1 (2000): 29-52.

[8] Jolanta T. Pekacz, Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 1772-1914. University of Rochester Press, 2002.

[9] Psychological studies cited below were reviewed when I worked on a paper  "Patriotyzm w salonie: tradycje  śpiewu domowego w rodzinie Marii Szymanowskiej" Studia Chopinowskie, Nr. 1-2, 2022:  4-40.  Gunter Kreutz, Stephan Bongard, Sonja Rohrmann, Dorothee Grebe, Hans Günther Bastian, Volker Hodapp,  “Does Singing Provide Health Benefits?” in R. Kopiez, A. C. Lehmann, I. Wolther & C. Wolf (eds.) Proceedings of the 5th Triennial ESCOM Conference 8-13 Sept. 2003, Hanover U. of Music and Drama, Germany; 

[10] Genevieve A. Dingle, Stephen Clift, Saoirse Finn, i in., “An Agenda for Best Practice Research on Group Singing, Health, and Well-Being,” in Music and Science 2 (2019), 1-15; Rachel Heydon, Daisy Fancourt, Annabel J. Cohen, “Singing and Wellbeing: Harnessing the Power of Singing,” in: The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing (Nowy Jork: Routledge, 2020), 1-13.

[11]  Jane W. Davidson, Sandra Garrido, “Singing and Psychological Needs”, in The Oxford Handbook of Singing, 2015.

[12]  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1975);  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1990); Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (Basic Books, 1998).

[13] Martin Seligman, Flourish: A new understanding of happiness and well-being – and how to achieve them (London, UK: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2011)

[14]  A. Lamont,  M. Murray, R. Hale, & K. Wright-Bevans,  “Singing in later life: The anatomy of a community choir”, Psychology of Music 46 (2018) 424–439; Eiluned Pearce, Jacques Launay, Pádraig MacCarron, “Tuning in to others: Exploring relational and collective bonding in singing and non-singing groups over time”, Psychology of Music 45/4 (2017). 

[15]  N.A.J. Stewart  & A. J. Lonsdale, “It’s better together: The psychological benefits of singing in a choir,” Psychology of Music 44 (2016): 1240–1254.

[16]  Elizabeth Brown i in., “Singing Your Troubles Away: The Experience of Singing from a Psychological Standpoint—Contributions From a Heuristic Research”, The Humanistic Psychologist 43/4 (2015): 395-408.

[17]  Dingle, et al. 2019, op. cit., 10.   Pearce, E., Launay, J., & Dunbar, R. I. M. The ice-breaker effect: Singing mediates fast social bonding, Royal Society Open Science  2 (2015); M.L. Gick, “Singing, health and well-being: A health psychologist’s review”, Psychomusicology: Music, Mind and Brain 21/1-2 (2011): 176–207.

On Kocyan and Sadej, or the Charisma of Musicians and the Magic of Live Music (Vol. 14, No. 2)

After two years of capricious and arbitrary bans on live performances, that caused huge damage to the cultural lives of many countries, destroyed cultural institutions and hurt artists' careers, in the fall of 2022, we were finally able to organize and attend live theatrical performances with live classical music. I will not dwell on reasons for the lockdowns of whole societies and countries, for which the idea was imported from China along with the virus that purportedly caused these lockdowns (see book by Michael Sanger on this topic). 

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder"... so after an extended period of relying on Zoom for substitute in-person meetings and on video recordings of theater and concerts, as well as films for cultural experiences, we could realize that the magic of live performance with live music is completely irreplaceable and any substitute is a failed simulacrum.  As in "bad coin replaces good coin" law of monetary circulation first defined by Nicholas Copernicus, who also stopped the Sun and moved the Earth, in detailed observations that ushered in the heliocentric view of our cosmic neighborhood: the "bad coin" of recordings replaced the "good coin" of live performances.  

My readers can guess here that I much prefer live classical music concerts to recordings. I must admit that I do rely on recordings during my long drives on California freeways; these are much better than listening to the radio, for I decide what I want to hear and how many times. I do get stuck on some Chopin etudes (as recently The Aeolian Harp, Op. 25 No. 1);  I spent a good six months with a collection of Chopin nocturnes... and enjoyed my time with Anonymous Four' the Sacred Harp CD, Rachmaninoff's Second (not Third) Piano Concerto, Bulat Okudzava, Rachel & Vilray, and Dominika Swiatek singing poems by Zbigniew Herbert... not necessarily in that order... But if I want to completely focus on an artwork, a piece of music, I have to hear and see it live. 

On March 18, 2023, in a midst of a very busy Polish events season in California, I attended a Recital by mezzosoprano Katarzyna Sadej accompanied by Wojciech Kocyan, extraordinary pianist, professor at Loyola Marymount University. I had previously organized a concert for Sadej for the Modjeska Club - a celebration of 100 years of Poland's regained independence through important songs marking each decade, event or era.  The recital took place in a private mansion in Beverly Hills, with an audience of 100, and accompaniment of Basia Bochenek. The magical voice filled the salon to the brim, resonated in each heart. I called it then "the voice of the century" - so rich, flexible, sonorous, and so well used by musically endowed and beautiful singer. 

If we lived in a different era, where the color of skin, eyes and hair did not decide who got the main roles in the big opera houses, and if we did not have the forced shutdown of all joy-bringing activities, such as going to the beach, or a concert due to some machinations of social engineers bringing in their nefarious plans for humanity under the guise of health care - SADEJ would be a household name in the classical music world, and her portraits would be on covers of all classical music magazines. With luscious, extra long blond hair, blue eyes, classic regularity of features, and perfect model's figure (her father was a judo trainer), Sadej looks like a Goddess of Music... But we live in the reality of this world, so we have to collect our gems of delight where we find them, not on the grand opera stages, but in college recital halls... 

The recital of Kocyan and Sadej was a jewel of music-making, and a worthy addition to my collection of the best concerts ever.  Hearing Messiaen's Turangalila in Avignon in 1987 was one such event; Xenakis's Persephassa for six percussionists surrounding the audience with mobile clouds of sounds, glissando, tremolo, a primordial force - heard in Warsaw, was another; Ivo Pogorelic's Chopin at the second stage of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw from which he was promptly kicked out, but only after the whole audience listened to his piano pianissimo with bated breath - was yet another moment of musical magic. At Loyola Marymount's Recital Hall I came for an unforgettable experience, due to the quality of music selected for the program and the incredibly beautiful renditions of these classic songs. 

I came to hear Karol Szymanowski's Kurpie Songs, but there were only three on the program, selected from a set of 12 songs op. 58.  These original arrangements of folk songs and dialect texts are among the most important compositions of Polish 20th century. Of course, these were sung well, with proper inflection and gusto. After all, both musicians are Polish.  The Loyola Marymount University's website described them as follows: "Renowned Polish-Canadian-American mezzo-soprano Katarzyna Sadej's ... international, eclectic career spans concert, opera, film, chamber music, oratorio, recital and voice over. Her solo appearances include the National Arts Center Ottawa, L.A. Opera, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the National Theater in Taipei, to name a few. Sadej is joined at the piano by Dr. Wojciech Kocyan, world renowned pianist and Clinical Professor of Music at LMU. He is a laureate of several international piano competitions, including F. Busoni and Viotti, as well as a special prizes winner of the XI International Chopin Competition and the First Prize winner of the Paderewski Piano Competition." The concert was presented by the LMU Department of Music and the Paderewski Music Society where Prof. Kocyan serves as Artistic Director. 

The recital started from six Gypsy Songs op. 55 (Cigánské melodie) by Antonin Dvorak, one of which was also used as an encore ("Songs My Mother Taught Me"), of delightful and flexible melody that you'd hum long ago after the concert. Indeed, this is the most famous of all these songs, and it was transcribed for various instruments to become a lovely salon piece.  Sadej enriched this song with the intensity of her voice and sweetness of expression.  It was such a treat to hear it twice! 

Other songs from this set had more lively folksy rhythms, as appropriate to a set of poems by Czech poet Adolf Heyduk idealizing the nomadic life of the Gypsies. The songs were originally written for a male voice (tenor), but were entirely suitable for the mezzosoprano.  The only issue I had to struggle with during this part of the program was to see Kocyan as an accompanyist instead of a soloist. He had to subdue his formidable technique and talent, in order to play simple arrangements and let the singer shine. I expressed that regret after the concert, saying that the recital should have included at least two solo pieces from the period to show off Kocyan's talent, but he dismissed my concerns, stating that it was a Vocal Recital! 

The second part of the program started from the most famous set of Trois Chansons de Bilitis by Claude Debussy, to poems by Pierre Louÿs published in 1894 with a claim that they were ancient verse found in Greek ruins. In 1897, Debussy took three of these poems - The Flute of Pan, The Hair, and the Tomb of Naiades - and set them as a melancholy and expressive portrayal of deeply felt emotions. Sadej and Kocyan rose to the occasion in their interpretation of this often heard classic, creating an unforgettable musical gem. The resonance of Sadej voice permeated the recital hall, in an electrifying moment of musical magic. One has to revert to "purple prose" to describe moments such as this one. 

The next two love songs were by 20th century composers, American Tom Cipullo and Roman Ryterband, a Polish Jewish musician who became a citizen of Switzerland and Canada before settling in Palm Springs, California. They were both pretty, but after a month, I cannot recall them at all.  Nice, but not extraordinary! There is a reason these composers have not reached the levels of recognition of the grand masters. But minor masters are good to hear too... if only to let the masterpieces shine.

The recital concluded with three songs by another French composer, Henri Duparc, Chanson triste, I'invitation au voyage, La vie anterieure. I previously knew them only from a recording while studying music history - Jessye Norman sang Chanson triste with pianist Dalton Baldwin, with ethereal high notes. There are few more beautiful sounds in the world than those made by opera singer singing in a high register quietly, so the otherworldly voice spreads out and reaches, it seems, to the end of cosmos. Hard to experience this fully while listening to recordings. What a treat it was to hear this effect live, so beautifully rendered by Katarzyna Sadej! Her voice sounded richer, more saturated, more resonant than Norman's but then I listened to Norman only on recording, so I cannot tell. But definitely in the same class. . . 

Sadej beautifully rendered I'invitation au voyage, with its effortless leaps from low to high register. For a weak singer such alternations of pitch are a disaster, bridged with heavy portamento, and marked by drastic change of timbre. But a fantastic singer like Sadej or Norman can make these alternations and melodic shifts sound natural and inspired - evoking deep, dramatic emotions in a large arc of melody supported by incessant arpeggios of the pianist. Bravo!  

All classical music fans know the name of Jessye Norman. Let them also know the name of Katarzyna Sadej! She let her voice shine and resonate, and definitely touched the listeners' hearts. The last song, with its steady introduction and ultra-dramatic central part, provided a suitable conclusion to the recital. Oh, how I love this music... time for some more "purple prose." Or not. Better still, find another concert of Katarzyna Sadej and hear her live. I've met an opera fan with deep pockets that travelled around the world following his favorite singer for ultimate aesthetic experience. If I had deep pockets and more time, I'd definitely do the same... Here's the Dvorak's Gypsy Melody "Songs My Mother Taught Me" as an encore of the concert.

The collaboration of two master musicians was extraordinary as well, but it was to be expected. Next time, though I'd like to hear some more Debussy for solo piano by Kocyan... However, he is more and more interested in artistic collaborations, as he stated: "It was such a pleasure and an unforgettable experience to play with Katarzyna - that's why we are musicians, for those moments in life. On the other hand, I am more and more inclined to do mixed recitals, like the 19. c. kind: a few solo pieces, some arias, some songs , maybe some chamber music." So, if you are in the Los Angeles area, keep your eyes open for announcements of Kocyan's concerts! 

Special thanks to EWELINEB® fashion studio for dressing the singer for the performance in an elegant black and white gown.  The gown is from the special EWELINEB collection  inspired by the film Memoirs of a Geisha and Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini. The  a black embroidered dress with a white lace cape was called by a reviewer "the pièce de résistance" of the entire collection, that "is exotic, yet subtle, elegant and sublime." I borrowed all photos for this post from Ms. Sadej's Facebook page, where she wrote: "Thank you to the amazing pianist Wojciech Kocyan for this wonderful musical collaboration! Juan Antonio Espino I am so grateful for your fabulous photography of our event, and to  EWELINEB®   - Thank you for making me feel fabulous in these gorgeous gowns since 2018!!"

More information about Katarzyna Sadej, whose "Earth Singing Project" is an inspiring adventure outside of the concert hall, into stunning natural landscapes, is found on her website: https://katarzynasadej.com/. Let's hope to hear her often and see her star in operas and recitals worldwide. And let's hope that the misguided social engineers and insane, power-hungry officials that shut down our concert halls for over two years and denied us access to life-affirming beauty and healing inspiration, will never get a chance of destroying our lives again. 

And here I am with flowers...