And God Hid His Face”
Polish Compositions about the War and Violence
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Although Poland suffered from wars, genocide, and destruction in the 20th century like almost no other country, there were in the postwar era hardly any musical works in which the victims of totalitarian violence were remembered. The aesthetic dictates of Socialist Realism and ideological restrictions were responsible for this. Compositions by Witold Lutosławski and Andrzej Panufnik remain singular exceptions. After the thaw, the palate of musical forms of expression expanded. In the meantime, the memory of the Polish officers murdered in Katyn and the victims of the Holocaust have found compositional expression. After the shock of Jedwabne, Marta Ptaszyńska, Piotr Moss, and Krzysztof Knittel created remarkable works.
(Osteuropa 6/2008, pp. 327–340)