In the Auschwitz Nazi camp, Zygmunt Mycielski's uncle, Father Włodzimierz Szembek, is murdered.
Mycielski composes Fiat voluntas tua for two violins and piano or organ. The work is performed by the camp musicians.
On 3 May the Allied troops liberate the Himmelmoor stalag, where Mycielski is held prisoner. British soldiers help the composer to get to Paris.
Mycielski spends the following few months in France. He composes Five Symphonic Sketches.
On 5 November he returns to Poland and stays with his mother in Kraków.
In December he begins collaborating with Ruch Muzyczny and becomes member of the editorial council of Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne – PWM Edition.
Mycielski becomes a member of the Polish Composers’ Union. In addition, he joins the editorial board of Ruch Muzyczny, where he will work until February 1948.
He composes the song cycle Ocalenie [Rescue] to words by Czesław Miłosz (completing it in 1948).
In August he writes to Antoni Szałowski:
[…] The only wise thing I’ve done is returning here – in any case, I’ve never hesitated, work is here and I knew it would be here already when I was crossing the border on 17 September 1939 and I knew to what Poland I would return [...] (2 August 1947, Manuscript Department, National Library).
Mycielski becomes Vice-President and Secretary General of the Polish Composers’ Union.
He spends the summer in Śledziejowice near Kraków. He composes Portrait of a Muse to words by Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński and completes Lamento di Tristano dedicated in memory of Karol Szymanowski.
During the 4th General Assembly of the Polish Composers’ Union in November Mycielski is elected President.
He composes Silesian Overture, which will be performed in Katowice on 1 January 1949.
In February he leaves for Paris as a representative of the Committee for the Celebrations of the Chopin Year.
In August, as the incumbent President of the Polish Composers’ Union, he opens the General Conference of Composers and Music Critics in Łagów Lubuski (5–8 August). His Silesian Overture, performed during the congress, is appreciated by minister Włodzimierz Sokorski.
In March Mycielski resigns as President of the Polish Composers’ Union. He does not want to endorse the government’s policy any longer. He notes in his diary:
I must write a letter to the Central Committee that I can no longer be President of the Composers’ Union, because I cannot represent a line that I cannot serve with conviction. So far we’ve had a cultural NEP. Now the revolution must go further. It’s hard for me to do it in music! (10 March 1950, "Dziennik 1950-1959", Warsaw 1999)
In March Mycielski is alloted a one-bedroom flat in Warsaw, ul. S. Czarnieckiego 88/6, Żoliborz district.
In September his Polish Symphony is performed at the concert inaugurating the 1st Polish Music Festival. In December the work (under the temporarily changed title Symphonic Pictures) earns Mycielski the 2nd prize at the Polish Music Festival in the symphonic works category.
On 21 October Maria Mycielska, the composer’s mother, dies in Kraków. A few days later Mycielski writes to Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz:
Born and brought up by her – I! Some much so, indeed! It seems that it was this element of Her that enabled me to keep my balance more or less. (25 October 1951, "Kamerton" 2014 no. 58)
Mycielski receives the State Music Prize, 3rd class, for Polish Symphony.
On 27 September he leaves to China with a five-week official cultural visit.
Mycielski receives the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. Other composers receiving the order include Grażyna Bacewicz and Witold Lutosławski.
He visits the GDR.
In January he receives the annual Polish Composers’ Union Prize for his “commitment to and energetic work for Polish music, for many years of dedicated organisational activity in successive positions in the Presidium of the Board”.
Mycielski begins writing Notatniki muzyczne [Musical Notebooks] for Przegląd Kulturalny.
His Silesian Overture wins a prize at the 2nd Polish Music Festival.
The first International Festival of Contemporary Music, later called Warsaw Autumn, is held in October. Its programme features Mycielski’s Polish Symphony.
Nadia Boulanger is an honorary guest of the festival and is made an honorary member of the Polish Composers’ Union.
October also sees Władysław Gomułka seizing power in the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party. A political thaw begins.
For the first time since 1949 Mycielski goes to France. He meets there Józef Czapski, Jerzy Giedroyc and Andrzej Panufnik, among others, and writes the famous Letters from the West.
His features earn him an award from Przegląd Kulturalny.
In the autumn he joins the editorial board of Europa, a literary magazine, the publication of which will in the end be stopped by censors.
Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy publishes a selection of Mycielski’s writings from before and after the war – Ucieczki z pięciolinii [Escapes from the Stave].
Mycielski is alloted a two-bedroom flat in ul. Rutkowskiego 10/31 (today ul. Chmielna). He occupies one bedroom, with the other bedroom being taken by his friend and lifetime companion Stanisław Kołodziejczyk. Both men will live there until their death.
Towards the end of December Mycielski leaves for England, where he stays until 19 February 1959. In London he meets Edward Raczyński. He also goes to Edinburgh to visit Jan Tarnowski of Dzików, a cousin and friend from his pre-war years.
Towards the end of October Mycielski goes to Rome by plane and from there, via Athens, to Israel by boat. After returning to Poland he writes reports for Przegląd Kulturalny.
In addition, he writes a play, Bogowie [Gods], which is published in the December issue of the Dialog magazine.
He is offered the position of editor-in-chief of Ruch Muzyczny, which is to be published from 1960 in Warsaw. He notes in his diary:
Today I went to visit the editorial board for the first time. The situation is not good. The first issue is ready, but, as usual, not in the form one would want. A journal develops its standing in its first year and it’s good when this happens. Here this should be achieved straight away. Is an attractive and popular music magazine possible? A magazine, a bag into which everything can be thrown? After all, a journal should fight for something, be severe and unpopular with some and supported by others. Otherwise it will be boring, the worst thing that can be said about a journal. (December 1959, "Z dziennika prywatnego", Zygmunt Mycielski Archive, National Library)
In February the first issue of the now Warsaw-based Ruch Muzyczny is published with Zygmunt Mycielski as its editor-in-chief.
In August Mycielski travels to Stratford, Canada, to take part in the International Conference of Composers.
Symphony No. 2 receives the highest prize awarded (mention speciale) in the symphonic works category at the Prince Rainier Competition in Monaco. The following year Mycielski will join the event’s jury.
Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne publishes Notatki o muzyce i muzykach [Notes on Music and Musicians], a censored volume of Mycielski’s writings published in Przegląd Kulturalny in the late 1950s.
Mycielski joins the jury of the International Composing Competition in Monaco. From then on he will travel to France and Monaco every spring, usually also visiting friends in England and Switzerland.
in September Symphony No. 2 is performed at the Warsaw Autumn Festival. The work gets a cool reception. The symphony is described as “mathematically calculated, cold, brainy” (T. A. Zieliński, “O polskiej muzyce na festiwalu dobrze i źle”, Ruch Muzyczny 1962 no. 22).
