Among the oppositionists
Biography

Among the oppositionists

On 4 July 1955, during a general assembly of the Polish Composers’ Union, Zygmunt Mycielski said: 

I have to say emphatically that we are, unfortunately, living in a world that is closed off and – practically speaking – isolated from the artistic life around us. Even the quite numerous official trips, congresses or conventions – to which a few, usually the same, artists and virtuosos go – will not help here. This is not genuine artistic contact. Artistic contact happens through concert life, concert programs, which must feature the highest achievement of world music, easy access to publications, exchange of soloists and conductors, trips organised for young people, who can hardly be expected to turn into expert critics and practitioners in their profession, if they are separated from what happens in the Soviet Union, in people’s democracies, in Western countries. We are becoming a backwater, in which we cannot imagine how or what is played and produced there. [...] This state of affairs and the ignorance – growing with each passing year – of what goes on elsewhere in our field is more than dangerous. (Z. Mycielski, “Twórczość muzyczna dziesięciolecia (z referatu na Walnym Zjeździe ZKP, 4 VII 1955)”, in idem, "Ucieczki z pięciolinii", Warsaw 1957).

These were courageous words. They heralded a political thaw, for the year 1956 brought a major breakthrough. In October, after a stormy discussion, the Eighth Plenum of the Polish United Workers’ Party’s Central Committee handed power to Władysław Gomułka, who announced a new political course. At the same time the National Philharmonic Hall was hosting concerts of the International Festival of Contemporary Music, which, under the name “Warsaw Autumn”, would become a window on the world for Polish music. Zygmunt Mycielski was involved in these events, recording his fears and hopes in his diaries as well as in musical notes he wrote from 1955 for Przegląd Kulturalny.

In 1957 Mycielski travelled to the West – to France and Switzerland – for the first time since 1949.

He visited friends he had not seen for a long time and enjoyed an atmosphere of freedom. His reflections on his trip were included in “Five letters from the West” published in Przegląd Kulturalny. Soon after his return, in the autumn of 1957, he became involved in the creation of the literary magazine Europa, which became a symbol of the thaw period efforts to establish a Polish periodical that drew on European traditions. The publication of the magazine was in the end stopped by censors. Although basically from the very beginning Mycielski did not believe in the success of the venture, he did not cease to fight for a place for Polish culture in Europe. 

In the first few years after the breakthrough of October 1956 he composed little, devoting his time mainly to journalism. 
Zygmunt Mycielski's 60th birthday in the editorial office of Ruch Muzyczny, 1967

Europa collapsed, but in 1957 Ruch Muzyczny was revived. Mycielski joined its editorial board and attentively followed the changes taking place in the world of music. Until 1960 he also wrote regularly for Przegląd Kulturalny. He resigned only after the problems with his reports from Israel, where he went in late 1959. The first three reports were published in the first three issues of Przegląd Kulturalny in 1960. Mycielski had to fight for the next report (it was eventually published in issue no. 6), but the censors did not consent to further publications. Irritated, Mycielski soon stopped sending his articles to Przegląd. From that moment he focused on Ruch Muzyczny, which in any case was published in Warsaw under his leadership from 1960. Mycielski would remain the journal’s editor-in-chief until 1968. 

Censorship became more strict again in 1960. Mycielski felt it first as the editor-in-chief of Ruch Muzyczny.

In a letter to Tadeusz Ochlewski of 30 January 1960 he wrote, referring to the difficulties with preparing the first magazine under his editorship for publication:

[...] censorship is now really impossible and I don’t know how this will go on, if they continue to behave like this (Polish Composers Archive, University Library in Warsaw).

Soon after that censorship again affected him as the author of the notes from Israel sent to Przegląd Kulturalny and then also the author of the volume Znaki zapytania, a collection of his writings published in Przegląd Kulturalny in the thaw years of 1955–1958 and prepared for publication by Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne. The book was ready, but the censors stopped its release. In the end, instead of the planned Znaki zapytania [Question Marks] in 1961 PWM published the much more modest, abbreviated and differently put together Notatki o muzyce i muzykach [Notes on Music and Musicians].

The turn of the 1960s brought major changes in Polish music, where the avant-garde made itself at home thanks to the Warsaw Autumn.
Zygmunt Mycielski and Karol Stryja after the premiere of Symphony No. 2 at the Warsaw Autumnn 1962

While focusing on his journalism, Mycielski was also looking for new forms of musical expression. After years of experiments he created the so-called system of tables, which Iwona Lindstedt classifies as “a concept, independent of the classic doctrine [of dodecaphony – B.B.-L.], of mastering the chromatic universe” (I. Lindstedt,Dodekafonia i serializm w twórczości kompozytorów polskich XX wieku, Lublin 2001). It provided the composer with a new creative impulse. Its first manifestation was Symphony No. 2, completed in 1961 and awarded a prize that the Prince Rainier International Competition in Monaco. From that moment on the composer would precede almost all his works with the construction of tables with combinations of notes, which he then used to build the harmonic-melodic layer of each work. Soon he would write three more symphonies (1967, 1972, 1977), the song cycle Krągły rok to words by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1965–68), Preludes for String Quartet and Piano (1967), and finally Six Songs for Orchestra (1978) and Variations for Small String Orchestra (1979–80). Yet the true culmination of his achievements was to come in the last decade of his life. 

In the 1960s Mycielski would officially speak against the government’s policy increasingly frequently.
Letter from Zygmunt Mycielski to the Union of Polish Writers, 29 February 1968. Zygmunt Mycielski Archive, National Library

In 1962 he protested against the closure of the discussion club Klub Krzywego Koła [Crooked Circle Club] and two years later gave its support to the so-called Letter of 34, a letter, initiated by Antoni Słonimski, of intellectuals against censorship. In 1966 he criticised the preparations for the celebrations of the millennium of Poland’s statehood. In February 1968 he sent a letter to the Polish Writers’ Union against censorship (after the cancellation of the production of Mickiewicz’s Forefathers’ Eve directed by Kazimierz Dejmek). In the autumn he published his famous letter to Czech and Slovak musicians in the Paris Kultura. And although it is not true that it was Mycielski’s letter to Czechoslovak composers that cost him of the position of editor-in-chief of Ruch Muzyczny – he had already received a decision to that effect on 10 April 1968 – all these actions put him in a difficult situation indeed. In the spring of 1968 he was refused a passport and for the first time since 1962 he did not go to Monaco to take part in the work of the jury of the composers’ competition held there (he was invited to join the jury after his Symphony No. 2 won a prize). The situation was repeated in 1969. In addition, he was banned from publishing in the press. His name disappeared from Ruch Muzyczny and the article on Warsaw Autumn, ready to be published in Tygodnik Powszechny, was not approved for publication. Performances of Symphony No. 3, planned for February 1969 at the National Philharmonic, were cancelled. 

Letter from PWM confirming censorship interference, 16 September 1968. National Archive in Kraków

The composer’s name was removed from Mała encyklopedia muzyki [Small Encyclopaedia of Music], published in 1968 by Polskie Wydawnictwo Naukowe, and even from the catalogue of Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne. All these actions effectively prevented Mycielski not only from being present in the official musical life, but also from earning his living. As a result, on 3 November 1969 the composer decided to write a letter directly to Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz. He wrote in it:

I ask you, Prime Minister, to examine these directives or groundless initiatives, which make it impossible for me to work and live in a country of which I am a loyal citizen (Z. Mycielski, "Niby-dziennik", Warsaw 1998).

Although he did not receive a reply, he was given his passport and went to Monaco. 

This does not mean that Mycielski stopped criticising the government.

In 1971 he joined the protest against political pressure exerted on the State School of Music in Warsaw. In 1974 together with Zbigniew Herbert he prepared and signed the so-called Letter of the 15 demanding that Poles in the USSR be granted access to Polish culture and education. One year later he signed the Memorial 59 in protest against the planned changes in communist Poland’s Constitution. In 1978 he was among the founders of the clandestine Friends of Science Society and took part in the lectures and talks organised by it. In addition, he began collaborating with the underground magazine Zapis. It was at that time that he got to know Adam Michnik more closely. In the 1980s he wrote to the imprisoned Michnik, anxiously following the political developments in Poland. In 1981 he published strongly worded “Letters from Poland” in the Paris Kultura. As a result of all this Mycielski constantly fell into disfavour with the authorities. Yet when persistently asked by a journalist about the government’s persecution of him, he replied categorically:

Please, let’s stop talking about this! I have never felt a victim. Whatever happened to me was a logical result of my behaviour (“Polska – dzieckiem romantyzmu. Z Zygmuntem Mycielskim rozmawia Izabella Grzenkowicz”, Kultura [Warsaw] 1981 no. 43).

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