The Symphony and Symphonic Thinking in Polish Music since 1956 by Beata Bolesławska

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Symphony and Symphonic Thinking in Polish Music since 1956 by Beata Bolesławska Ryan Ross The Symphony and Symphonic Thinking in Polish Music since 1956. By Beata Bolesławska. New York: Routledge, 2019. [xvi, 250 p. ISBN 9781409464709 (hardcover), $124; also available as e-book, ISBN and price vary.] Music examples, index. The publication of a monograph devoted to any post-1950 symphonic music is a momentous occasion. Studies of this era's symphonies usually appear in smaller, article- or chapter-length publications. If such repertory receives attention in books, it is nearly always in the course of pursuing some other aim. Reasons for this become clear to anyone familiar with the literature. The sheer volume and variety of symphonies composed since 1950 can seem daunting to the surveyor. Furthermore, music historians and commentators have sometimes looked askance at parts of this repertory that do not align with their views of the genre. Persistent prejudices about what a symphony should be, and in some cases even if it should be, have continued to weigh heavily on the discourse. Momentous though it is, Beata Bolesławska's Symphony and Symphonic Thinking in Polish Music since 1956 is very much shaped by these issues. For [End Page 302] all its considerable merits, not to mention its circumscribed focus, this book nonetheless deepens the historiographical angst surrounding the genre in its most recent decades. This is because the author believes a symphony has certain structural obligations. For Bolesławska, in order for a work to truly be "symphonic," it should be a large-scale piece for orchestra with a clear line of development creating some kind of musical dramaturgy, starting with main idea(s) exposed at the beginning and through various transformations and certain [sic] amount of developmental work brought to the final stage. The piece may be goal-directed or recapitulative and has to carry some magnitude and weight of argument. Usually, the symphony refers in some way to the structure of sonata form. (p. 5) Furthermore, a symphony "should also include the principle of integration" (p. 6) and demonstrate structural dualism of some sort (p. 7, citing Christopher Ballantine, Twentieth Century Symphony [London: Dennis Dobson, 1983]). To be sure, Bolesławska is far from alone in these convictions. But they raise one conspicuous problem: works named "symphony" that dramatically challenge these ideals suffuse the repertory after 1950. The puzzling thing is that Bolesławska recognizes this situation, but it little impedes her value judgments. And so, across what is otherwise often a descriptive and well-sourced account of Polish symphonism since 1956, we are frequently told that a given work succeeds or fails based upon its fidelity to benchmarks that are decidedly intermittent in practice. One gets a better sense of how this tendency affects the book as it unfolds and by noting the different eras and repertories its chapters address. A brief opening chapter discusses "symphonic principles" (summarized in the quotes above) and identifies two broad types of twentieth-century symphonism: the classical variety of "sharp and strongly contrasted musical ideas, creating dualistic conflict as a basis for further development" (p. 9), and the romantic type that is "characterised by looser formal structures," "the continuous development of one or more main thematic ideas as a primary compositional procedure," and what Christopher Ballantine has dubbed "latent" or "immanent" dualism (Ballantine, 152). Bolesławska connects the latter type of symphonism with James A. Hepokoski's "rotational form" model (pp. 9–10). This is not a bad broader dichotomy brought to bear on large swaths of repertory, but it is clear throughout this volume that Bolesławska considers the first type of symphonism to be the purer one. The next chapter surveys Polish symphonism prior to 1956. Some such foundation is necessary, but the length of this section spans fifty pages (including endnotes), amounting to approximately 20 percent of the book (including the index). Beyond Bolesławska saying so in the preface (p. xv), here is our first indication that this volume began as the author's 2010 Cardiff Uni -versity doctoral thesis. (One other is the reference to the book as "this dissertation" on page 150, which is only...