Research Library of the Polish Composers' Union
Texts in the present issue of Musicology Today address various aspects and problems in the history of music that confront the younger generation of researchers with particular force today.
Ryszard Daniel Golianek takes up the long-debated and never definitively resolved problem of periodising music history, with particular attention to the place accorded to the eras of Romanticism and Classicism in European historiography (Unity of the Classical–Romantic Era? On the Weaknesses of a Certain Paradigm in Music History). Agnieszka Draus raises the question of memory as a factor in co-creating the history of music, musical institutions and musicians (Memory as a Tool for Updating History: The Case of the Kraków School of Composition). Aleksandra Patalas traces the all-too-common phenomenon of mythologisation in music history through the example of Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki (c. 1665/1667–1734), a Polish Baroque composer, priest and chapel master at Wawel Cathedral. The author seeks the origins of this process in the unrecorded, orally expressed opinions of members of the Rorantists’ ensemble (The Origins of the Gorczycki Myth). The interplay of myth, fairy tale and reality in the historical interpretation of the operas of the Mighty Handful is examined by Jacek Szerszenowicz in his article Myth, Fairy Tale and History: An Archaeology of the National Spirit in the Operas of ‘The Five’ (‘The Mighty Handful’). Jolanta Bujas-Poniatowska discusses the importance and role of local testimonies in reconstructing the activities of individuals and local institutions (Erazm Parys, Józef Sikorski, and Church Music in the Polish Lands in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century). Texts by Marta Szoka (Avant-Garde, Modernism, Postmodernity—or the ‘Semanticist’s Despair’ of Teaching the History of Twentieth-Century Music) and Tomasz Kienik (Teaching Music History in Higher Education: Problems, Methods, and Challenges) address the teaching of music history, especially its basic terminology and methodology, in secondary and higher music education.
The articles collected in this issue of Musicology Today are based on papers presented at the 54th Musicological Conference of the Polish Composers’ Union. Its theme was linked to the association’s centenary, celebrated in 2025.
From Editorial by Prof. Sławomira Żerańska-Kominek, the Editor-in-chief
Musicology Today
Volume 23 (2026): Issue 1 (October 2026)
Music, Memory, History
Ryszard Daniel Golianek
Unity of the Classical–Romantic Era?: On the Weaknesses of a Certain Paradigm in Music History
Jacek Szerszenowicz
Myth, Fairy Tale and History: An Archaeology of the National Spirit in the Operas of ‘The Five’ (‘The Mighty Handful’)
Aleksandra Patalas
The Origins of the Gorczycki Myth
Jolanta Bujas-Poniatowska Erazm Parys, Józef Sikorski, and Church Music in the Polish Lands in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
Agnieszka Draus
Memory as a Tool for Updating History: The Case of the Kraków School of Composition
Tomasz Kienik
Teaching Music History in Higher Education: Problems, Methods, and Challenges
„Musicology Today” is published on digital platform Paradigm Publishing Services
De Gruyter Brill, Inc.
This publication was supported by the Book Institute under its ‘Other Traditions’ publishing programme. It was co-funded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under targeted grant no. 3/DF-VII/2026.
