Academic literature on the topic 'The Prague Conservatory'

Abstract The study represents the life and artistic career of today’s almost forgotten theatre director Milan Svoboda (1883 – 1948). It is based on the extensive Svoboda estate, located in the Theatre Department of the National Museum. It follows the artist from his amateur beginnings in Roudnice nad Labem, through his career as a pedagogue at the Prague Conservatory, theatre director at the Slovak National Theatre, guest director at the National Theatre in Prague, to his post-war effort to create high-quality stage art in the border villages abandoned by the Germans. Thanks to the substantial and rich material found in his estate, the study demonstrates the conflict of creative ideals and the desire to seek an aesthetic beauty in a world within a regimented state, grand political scheming, critics and “progressive” theatrical colleagues.

Problem statement. Conductor is considered to be one of the most prestigious occupation in musical field, so there has always been a certain interest to its history. But, despite a large amount of literature, there are no musicologist’s scientific works, with the systematized and generalized materials on training conducting staff in Ukraine in the 1920s – 1940s. This is partly due to a shortage of primary documents at a difficult historical period: most of them were destroyed by the employees of state institutions before being evacuated behind the lines during the Second World War; the other part was burned down during the hostilities; the third one was lost in the territories temporarily occupied by the fascists. The most important information was restored in the postwar years on the basis of personal documents of the musicians and memoirs of the contemporaries. The names of many other talented performers, who were not high ranked in the hierarchy of Ukraine musical culture, were forgotten. Research and publications analysis. Dealing with this article, the author relied on the research of three scientists. For example, the episode devoted to the history of the Kuban State Conservatory is based on the materials of the book by V. A. Frolkin, PhD in musicology, Professor of Piano Department of Krasnodar University of Culture and Arts. (Frolkin, 2006 : 70–89). The Kharkov period of Ya. Rosenstein’s activity is based on the article by E. M. Shchelkanovtseva, PhD in musicology, Department of Orchestral String Instrument of I. P. Kotlyarevsky Kharkov National University of Arts (Shchelkanovtseva, 1992 : 178–179), as well as the memoirs of conductor S. S. Feldman (Feldman, 2006). Ya. Rosenstein activities in T. G. Shevchenko Kiev Academic Opera and Ballet Theater of the Ukrainian SSR was described in research of Yu. A. Stanishevsky – Doctor in musicology, Professor. (Stanishevsky, 1981 : 533–534). The objective of this article is to create Ya. Rosenstein’s complete and non-biased biography, to analyze various aspects of his activity, and, as a result, to revive the name of a talented musician who was at the forefront of Ukraine musical pedagogy. This is the urgency and novelty of this study. Core material. Yakov A. Rosenstein (1887–1946) – a cello player, conductor, professor. In1907–1912 he studied at St. Petersburg Conservatory specializing in cello. Until February 1917, he had served as a cello player in the Royal orchestra of the Imperial Mariinskyi Theater. During the Civil War, he moved to Yekaterinodar (Krasnodar), where in 1918–1919 he was a director of Russian Musical Society Conservatory. October 1, 1920 witnessed the opening of Kuban State Conservatory. The university was funded from the budget of the People’s Commissariat for Education, so the training of all students was free. Ya. Rosenstein taught the cello class. But at the end of 1921, the Kuban Conservatory was deprived of state funding, and in summer of 1922 the university was reorganized into the Kuban Higher Technical School. (Frolkin, 2006 : 74–89). In autumn of 1923, Ya. Rosenstein moved to Kharkov, where he was a cello player in Russian State Opera orchestra. Later Ya. Rosenstein became a theater conductor. Also, he was engaged in pedagogical activity: in 1925 he became a dean of the instrumental faculty of Kharkov State Higher Music and Drama Courses, and in 1926 he became the head of the courses. According to E. M. Shchelkanovtseva, since 1927, Ya. Rosenstein had been teaching at the Music and Drama Institute (currently – I. P. Kotlyarevsky Kharkov National University of Arts) – Professor of cello class, chamber ensemble, orchestra class, conducting; in 1929 he became an Academic Director. (Shchelkanovtseva, 1992 : 179). Opera-symphonic conducting class at Kharkov Music and Drama Institute, which was opened in autumn of 1927, is a merit of Ya. Rosenstein. During 8 years, he had been training such conductors as: P. Ya. Balenko, M. P. Budyansky, I. I. Vymer, F. M. Dolgova, K. L. Doroshenko, D. L. Klebanov, B. T. Kozhevnikov, V. N. Nakhabin, V. S. Tolba and others. In 1926–1927, the Orchestra of Unemployed Musicians in Kharkov was transformed into the First State Symphony Orchestra of All-Ukrainian Radio Committee, which in autumn of 1929 was integrated with the Ukrainian Philharmonic. In 1929–1932 Ya. Rosenstein acted as a chief conductor. Then he was replaced by German Adler, a graduate of German Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Prague, and a world-famous conductor. In 1937, this musical group was the base for creation the State Symphony Orchestra of the Ukrainian SSR in Kiev (nowadays the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine). (Pluzhnikov, 2016 : 358). In 1935–1941 and 1944–1946 Ya. Rosenstein was a conductor of T. G. Shevchenko Kiev Academic Opera and Ballet Theater of the Ukrainian SSR. According to S. S. Feldman, there he brilliantly showed himself in the ballet performances “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty” by P. Tchaikovsky, “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” and “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” by B. Asafiev, “Lilaea” by K. Dankevich and “Raymonda” by A. Glazunov (Feldman, 2009 : 102). In summer of 1941 the War began, and the theater troupe was evacuated to Ufa. In 1942–1944 the United Ukrainian State Opera and Ballet Theater was created on the basis of the Kharkov and Kiev theaters in Irkutsk. More than 650,000 people visited 785 performances conducted by N. D. Pokrovsky, Ya. A. Rosenstein and V. S. Tolba in Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk and other cities! In June 1944, the theater troupe returned to Kyiv, and in 1946 Ya. Rosenstein died. He was buried at Baykove cemetery in Kyiv. Conclusion. The creative personality of Ya. A. Rosenstein, a cello player, conductor, teacher, one of the organizers of the First State Symphony Orchestra in Ukraine and the creators of the Kharkov school of orchestra conducting, deserves more attention on behalf of the scientists, musicians and all non-indifferent people. There is hope that Ya. A. Rosenstein’s memory will not be forgotten, and the name of this talented and noble person will take its rightful place in the annals of Ukraine and Russian musical culture.

Attempting to investigate works of music through frank examination of possible influences is a delicate thing, sometimes maybe dangerous - as has been suggested by Jonathan Cross in his book, The Stravinsky Legacy. While the originality of a composer may appear to be threatened with such types of critique, for musicologists it is important to draw upon a deeper appreciation for how a composer searched for his/her own creative voice. The music of Ljubica Maric (1909-2003), one of the most important Serbian composers of the 20th century, has been chosen to demonstrate how composers need different influences during different phases of their maturation and how they deeply integrate them in order to create an individual utterance. Ljubica Maric first studied composition with Josip Slavenski at the Belgrade Music School (1925-29), and continued her studies with Josef Suk at the Master School of the Prague Conservatory (1929-32) where she obtained her diploma. Finally, she took Alois H?ba?s course in quarter-tone music at the same institution from 1936 to 1937. The works she composed during the 1930?s were characterized by a radical will to break ties with traditional, mainly romantic music, so she chose to be influenced by the free atonal pre-dodecaphonic works of Arnold Schoenberg. Following World War II, she introduced some changes of expression that were more in keeping with links from the past. Her music became tonally stabilized, and thematic-motivational developments were rediscovered, resulting in an expression that became milder. But the changes need not necessarily be linked exclusively to the post-war climate of socialist realism. Rather, the previous style may have met up with some type of impasse - the sort that confounds or ultimately transforms an artist. For Ljubica Maric, however, it appears she was never truly satisfied with her first post-war works (1945-1950). What is certain is that she composed nothing during the several years that preceded her first masterpiece, the cantata The Songs of Space (1956). It is however worth examining whether or not they were really "dry years". It is certain that for Ljubica Maric, they were fresh discoveries of Serbian traditional singing, both folk and church, poetic and artistic treasures of the Middle Ages - but she also revived earlier experiences (from the pre-war decade) that she had rejected at the time, mainly the music of Stravinsky, Bart?k and Slavenski. Although those influences can be detected in the score of The Songs of Space, the work has a strong individual imprint, an identity of its own. In the works that followed, The Passacaglia for orchestra and in several compositions belonging to the cycle Musica octoicha (Octoicha 1, The Byzantine Concerto, Ostinato super thema octoicha, The Threshold of Dreams) original traits of Ljubica Maric?s poetics became even more pronounced. The last works that she produced (in the 1980?s and 1990?s) are all for instrumental soloists or chamber ensembles. They continue with, and refine the main characteristics of the earlier ones. Ljubica Maric?s evolvement thus presents a search for originality of expression that was reached only after a process of selective assimilation and creative transformation of tradition had been fulfilled - but not until any "anxiety of influences" had been abandoned. It has been shown that Ljubica Maric, like other artists needed to be ready to be influenced, in order to absorb such influences in a creative way.

Petar Konjovic (Curug, May 5, 1883 - Belgrade, October 1, 1970) stands out among Serbian composers as an author of instrumental and vocal compositions. Studies at the Prague Conservatory (1904-1906) acquainted Konjovic with Czech music, Wagner's opus, and the Russian national-romantic school, which contributed to the evolution of his talent for both music and stage, enabling him to express his ideas more explicitly in operatic works. It was in the Prague that the second opera - Prince of Zeta - was conceived, with new musical vividness and dramatic appeal (first version composed 1906-1926, the second and final 1929-1939), followed by Kostana (1928), Peasants (1951) and Fatherland (1960). Konjovic's mature operas are characterized by his masterful handling of form, both in close-ups and in detail, as well as his deeply individual assimilation of musical folklore into his work. The Prince of Zeta is not to be understood as a folk opera, but some main themes are directly derived from folk music, precisely from the Montenegrin folk songs quoted in the Mokranjac's Ninth Garland and treated in Konjovic's post-romantic, almost expressionistic way, interwoven with some Italianate leitmotifs, so as to present the opera's two worlds, Montenegrin and Venetian. In the process of forming Konjovic's operatic style, with vocal parts based mainly on the principle of declamation, the opera Prince of Zeta (first performed in Belgrade, 1929, conducted by Lovro von Matacic) proved to be a work of great impact. Hardly anyone grasped then the wide sweep of inspiration which allowed the composer to set and to solve several important problems connected with music drama, essential also in his subsequent stage works. First of all, Konjovic had to handle in his own way the verbal drama the prototype of his opera, Maxim Crnojevic by the Serbian poet Laza Kostic (1841-1910). Permission came from the playwright in the first decade of the 1900, Prince of Zeta being partly set musically, but from then on with new interventions in the poet's text. Being a highly skilled writer, poet musicologist and essayist (he wrote four books and a great number of articles on music and the theatre, and translated opera librettos of Wagner and Moussorgsky), Konjovic felt free to introduce some daring alterations to the literary works he used for his music dramas. So it was with the play Maxim Crnojevic, premiered in Novi Sad in 1870 (printed in the same place in 1846 and 1866). On the other hand, the young poet Kostic (he was in his early twenties when he wrote Maxim Crnojevic) had the prototype for his play in the folkpoem The Marriage of Maxim Crnojevic, turning a naturalistic folk-story into a Hellenic-Shakespearian drama of friendship and love, full of chivalrous deeds and emotions. The once handsome Maxim, his face ruined by heavy disease, can no longer make his marriage with the doge's daughter Angelica (with whom he was already acquainted). The nobles of Montenegro particularly Ivo Crnojevic, who in the meanwhile, proud of his son, boasted in Venice, conspire a doublecrossing plot (with another man, Milos resembling Maxim as bridegroom) which works in the folk-poem, in some ways in drama, but not in the opera, with the story changed by Konjovic. The difference between drama and folk poetry is essential: in Montenegro Maxim murders Milos for the doge's daughter's dowry, on their way back. In the play, too, the tragic event takes place in Montenegro: on the way home Maxim kills Milos, thinking Milos is going to keep the beautiful Angelica for himself (the agreement was that he will hand over the bride to Maxim immediately after the wedding in Venice), then commits suicide realizing his fatal mistake. The girl, deeply disappointed leaves Montenegro. In the opera Maxim reveals the truth to Angelica in Venice, before she is to be wedded with Milos, and stabs himself. She chooses death also, drinking poison - a dramatically and musically very capturing finale in the style of Romeo and Juliet! In some recently performed versions of the opera (1989) the director (Dejan Miladinovic) and conductor (Oskar Danon) returned to the playwright's original denouement, avoiding the Shakespearian end of Konjovic (although in the spirit of Kostic who was also appreciated as a skillful translator of Shakespeare into Serbian language). In the opera Prince of Zeta Konjovic focuses on Ivo Crnojevic, making his role dominant to that of Maxim. The unhappy father, the tragic Hellenic figure, is with his son Maxim the main historical personality in both opera and drama. Zeta forms part of present-day Montenegro but was independent for a short period, then came under Byzantium, and eventually Rashka-Serbia. After the fall of last remnants of the Serbian vassal state in 1439, Zeta was partly independent protected by Venetians under the ruler Ivo Crnojevic, before the Turks grasped Montenegro. Serbian drama, which is usually trochaic, took an iambic course in Kostic's play. The composer preserved the poet's iambs, following the musically accented flexions of spoken language, which remains the main feature of his style. The impressive vocal parts, especially those of Ivo Crnojevic, starting from the Prologue and the first act, are supported by the dynamic and highly symphonized orchestra. For effective choral music the monks' ensemble in the second act (in the final version) and the dramatic Venetian carnival scene with the stylized Montenegrin folk-dances should be noted in both versions. With Prince of Zeta the author definitely made a distinguished name as a composer in Serbian culture, with a strong influence on younger generations of Serbian musicians.

The current study examined the severity of playing-related pain (PRP) problems among music students at the Prague State Conservatoire, as well as the various treatment methods used by these students and how they approach and deal with these phenomena while studying. In total, 180 instrumental students participated and completed a paper questionnaire. Of these, 88.9% reported that they had experienced PRP at least once in their lives, with 12.6% experiencing pain every time they play. The onset of PRP seemed to coincide with the transition period on entry to the conservatoire and was associated with the increase in hours of practice. Specific body regions associated with playing each particular instrument were most frequently affected, with females being more susceptible than males to the development of PRP. An alarming 35% of the affected students tended not to seek help at all, whereas those who did tended to seek advice first from their instrument tutor and second from medical doctors. Most students who visited doctors reported that medical treatments only partially helped them to overcome PRP problems. The most frequent treatment methods used were resting, gel or creams, and physical exercises. Students believed that inappropriate posture played a key role in the development of their PRP problems. Finally, students indicated a willingness to be aware of and educated about PRP issues during their studies. Further exploration of PRP problems among student musicians is warranted. Better understanding of differing attitudes toward, use of, and efficiency of various treatment methods after the occurrence of PRPs will provide additional insight for prevention and treatment.

The article deals with the impact of disputes of leaders of the USSR over the visit of US President R. Nixon to the fall of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine P. Shelest. The article was published in the ‘Washington Post’ by D. Anderson, which based on the CIA's secret materials contained information about the conflict between L. Brezhnev and P. Shelest regarding R. Nixon's visit and the support of General Secretary by V. Shcherbytsky, are analyzing. P. Shelest's position in the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee on the politics of Détente, R. Nixon's visit and his assessment of the foreign policy of L. Brezhnev is revealed. The positions of other members of the Politburo have been covered. The reasons and circumstances of the increasing influence of L. Brezhnev on the foreign policy of the USSR and the defeat of the supporters of the hard course and the class approach were found out. The role of the international factor in ending the political career of P. Shelest and ascending to the top of the political Olympus of the USSR V. Shcherbytsky was investigated. As a result of the study, it became known that P. Shelest was an conservator in the foreign policy of the USSR, demanded the suppression of the “Prague Spring”, was skeptical of the Détente and attempts of L. Brezhnev to establish personal contacts with Western leaders. The brutal bombing of North Vietnam and the death of Soviet citizens were a good reason for P. Shelest and N. Podgorny to endure R. Nixon's visit. P. Shelest's removal was due to internal reasons: his independence position, desire for economic autonomy, insufficiently decisive struggle with dissidents, complaints of other Ukrainian leaders. However, the sudden replacement of the leader of the republic on the eve of the arrival of the President of the United States in Kiev may have been caused by P. Shelest's position regarding Détente and visit of R. Nixon.

IntroductionCoffee, as a stimulant, and the spaces in which it is has been consumed, have long played a vital role in fostering communication, creativity, and sociality. This article explores the interrelationship of café space, communication, creativity, and materialism. In developing these themes, this article is structured in two parts. The first looks back to the coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to give a historical context to the contemporary role of the café as a key site of creativity through its facilitation of social interaction, communication and information exchange. The second explores the continuation of the link between cafés, communication and creativity, through an instance from the mid-twentieth century where this process becomes individualised and is tied more intrinsically to the material surroundings of the café itself. From this, we argue that in order to understand the connection between café space and creativity, it is valuable to consider the rich polymorphic material and aesthetic composition of cafés. The Social Life of Coffee: London’s Coffee Houses While the social consumption of coffee has a long history, here we restrict our focus to a discussion of the London coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was during the seventeenth century that the vogue of these coffee houses reached its zenith when they operated as a vibrant site of mercantile activity, as well as cultural and political exchange (Cowan; Lillywhite; Ellis). Many of these coffee houses were situated close to the places where politicians, merchants, and other significant people congregated and did business, near government buildings such as Parliament, as well as courts, ports and other travel route hubs (Lillywhite 17). A great deal of information was shared within these spaces and, as a result, the coffee house became a key venue for communication, especially the reading and distribution of print and scribal publications (Cowan 85). At this time, “no coffee house worth its name” would be without a ready selection of newspapers for its patrons (Cowan 173). By working to twenty-four hour diurnal cycles and heightening the sense of repetition and regularity, coffee houses also played a crucial role in routinising news as a form of daily consumption alongside other forms of habitual consumption (including that of coffee drinking). In Cowan’s words, “restoration coffee houses soon became known as places ‘dasht with diurnals and books of news’” (172). Among these was the short-lived but nonetheless infamous social gossip publication, The Tatler (1709-10), which was strongly associated with the London coffee houses and, despite its short publication life, offers great insight into the social life and scandals of the time. The coffee house became, in short, “the primary social space in which ‘news’ was both produced and consumed” (Cowan 172). The proprietors of coffee houses were quick to exploit this situation by dealing in “news mongering” and developing their own news publications to supplement their incomes (172). They sometimes printed news, commentary and gossip that other publishers were not willing to print. However, as their reputation as news providers grew, so did the pressure on coffee houses to meet the high cost of continually acquiring or producing journals (Cowan 173; Ellis 185-206). In addition to the provision of news, coffee houses were vital sites for other forms of communication. For example, coffee houses were key venues where “one might deposit and receive one’s mail” (Cowan 175), and the Penny Post used coffeehouses as vital pick-up and delivery centres (Lillywhite 17). As Cowan explains, “Many correspondents [including Jonathan Swift] used a coffeehouse as a convenient place to write their letters as well as to send them” (176). This service was apparently provided gratis for regular patrons, but coffee house owners were less happy to provide this for their more infrequent customers (Cowan 176). London’s coffee houses functioned, in short, as notable sites of sociality that bundled together drinking coffee with news provision and postal and other services to attract customers (Cowan; Ellis). Key to the success of the London coffee house of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the figure of the virtuoso habitué (Cowan 105)—an urbane individual of the middle or upper classes who was skilled in social intercourse, skills that were honed through participation in the highly ritualised and refined forms of interpersonal communication, such as visiting the stately homes of that time. In contrast to such private visits, the coffee house provided a less formalised and more spontaneous space of sociality, but where established social skills were distinctly advantageous. A striking example of the figure of the virtuoso habitué is the philosopher, architect and scientist Robert Hooke (1635-1703). Hooke, by all accounts, used the opportunities provided by his regular visits to coffee houses “to draw on the knowledge of a wide variety of individuals, from servants and skilled laborers to aristocrats, as well as to share and display novel scientific instruments” (Cowan 105) in order to explore and develop his virtuoso interests. The coffee house also served Hooke as a place to debate philosophy with cliques of “like-minded virtuosi” and thus formed the “premier locale” through which he could “fulfil his own view of himself as a virtuoso, as a man of business, [and] as a man at the centre of intellectual life in the city” (Cowan 105-06). For Hooke, the coffee house was a space for serious work, and he was known to complain when “little philosophical work” was accomplished (105-06). Sociality operates in this example as a form of creative performance, demonstrating individual skill, and is tied to other forms of creative output. Patronage of a coffee house involved hearing and passing on gossip as news, but also entailed skill in philosophical debate and other intellectual pursuits. It should also be noted that the complex role of the coffee house as a locus of communication, sociality, and creativity was repeated elsewhere. During the 1600s in Egypt (and elsewhere in the Middle East), for example, coffee houses served as sites of intensive literary activity as well as the locations for discussions of art, sciences and literature, not to mention also of gambling and drug use (Hattox 101). While the popularity of coffee houses had declined in London by the 1800s, café culture was flowering elsewhere in mainland Europe. In the late 1870s in Paris, Edgar Degas and Edward Manet documented the rich café life of the city in their drawings and paintings (Ellis 216). Meanwhile, in Vienna, “the kaffeehaus offered another evocative model of urban and artistic modernity” (Ellis 217; see also Bollerey 44-81). Serving wine and dinners as well as coffee and pastries, the kaffeehaus was, like cafés elsewhere in Europe, a mecca for writers, artists and intellectuals. The Café Royal in London survived into the twentieth century, mainly through the patronage of European expatriates and local intellectuals such as Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, T. S. Elliot, and Henri Bergson (Ellis 220). This pattern of patronage within specific and more isolated cafés was repeated in famous gatherings of literary identities elsewhere in Europe throughout the twentieth century. From this historical perspective, a picture emerges of how the social functions of the coffee house and its successors, the espresso bar and modern café, have shifted over the course of their histories (Bollerey 44-81). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the coffee house was an important location for vibrant social interaction and the consumption and distribution of various forms of communication such as gossip, news, and letters. However, in the years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the café was more commonly a site for more restricted social interaction between discrete groups. Studies of cafés and creativity during this era focus on cafés as “factories of literature, inciters to art, and breeding places for new ideas” (Fitch, The Grand 18). Central in these accounts are bohemian artists, their associated social circles, and their preferred cafés de bohème (for detailed discussion, see Wilson; Fitch, Paris Café; Brooker; Grafe and Bollerey 4-41). As much of this literature on café culture details, by the early twentieth century, cafés emerge as places that enable individuals to carve out a space for sociality and creativity which was not possible elsewhere in the modern metropolis. Writing on the modern metropolis, Simmel suggests that the concentration of people and things in cities “stimulate[s] the nervous system of the individual” to such an extent that it prompts a kind of self-preservation that he terms a “blasé attitude” (415). This is a form of “reserve”, he writes, which “grants to the individual a [certain] kind and an amount of personal freedom” that was hitherto unknown (416). Cafés arguably form a key site in feeding this dynamic insofar as they facilitate self-protectionism—Fitch’s “pool of privacy” (The Grand 22)—and, at the same time, produce a sense of individual freedom in Simmel’s sense of the term. That is to say, from the early-to-mid twentieth century, cafés have become complex settings in terms of the relationships they enable or constrain between living in public, privacy, intimacy, and cultural practice. (See Haine for a detailed discussion of how this plays out in relation to working class engagement with Paris cafés, and Wilson as well as White on other cultural contexts, such as Japan.) Threaded throughout this history is a clear celebration of the individual artist as a kind of virtuoso habitué of the contemporary café. Café Jama Michalika The following historical moment, drawn from a powerful point in the mid-twentieth century, illustrates this last stage in the evolution of the relationship between café space, communication, and creativity. This particular historical moment concerns the renowned Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki, who is most well-known for his avant-garde piece Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), his Polymorphia (1961), and St Luke Passion (1963-66), all of which entailed new compositional and notation techniques. Poland, along with other European countries devastated by the Second World War, underwent significant rebuilding after the war, also investing heavily in the arts, musical education, new concert halls, and conservatoria (Monastra). In the immediate post-war period, Poland and Polish culture was under the strong ideological influence exerted by the Soviet Union. However, as Thomas notes, within a year of Stalin’s death in 1953, “there were flickering signs of moderation in Polish culture” (83). With respect to musical creativity, a key turning point was the Warsaw Autumn Music Festival of 1956. “The driving force” behind the first festival (which was to become an annual event), was Polish “composers’ overwhelming sense of cultural isolation and their wish to break the provincial nature of Polish music” at that time (Thomas 85). Penderecki was one of a younger generation of composers who participated in, and benefited from, these early festivals, making his first appearance in 1959 with his composition Strophes, and successive appearances with Dimensions of Time and Silence in 1960, and Threnody in 1961 (Thomas 90). Penderecki married in the 1950s and had a child in 1955. This, in combination with the fact that his wife was a pianist and needed to practice daily, restricted Penderecki’s ability to work in their small Krakow apartment. Nor could he find space at the music school which was free from the intrusion of the sound of other instruments. Instead, he frequented the café Jama Michalika off the central square of Krakow, where he worked most days between nine in the morning and noon, when he would leave as a pianist began to play. Penderecki states that because of the small space of the café table, he had to “invent [a] special kind of notation which allowed me to write the piece which was for 52 instruments, like Threnody, on one small piece of paper” (Krzysztof Penderecki, 2000). In this, Penderecki created a completely new set of notation symbols, which assisted him in graphically representing tone clustering (Robinson 6) while, in his score for Polymorphia, he implemented “novel graphic notation, comparable with medical temperature charts, or oscillograms” (Schwinger 29) to represent in the most compact way possible the dense layering of sounds and vocal elements that is developed in this particular piece. This historical account is valuable because it contributes to discussions on individual creativity that both depends on, and occurs within, the material space of the café. This relationship is explored in Walter Benjamin’s essay “Polyclinic”, where he develops an extended analogy between the writer and the café and the surgeon and his instruments. As Cohen summarises, “Benjamin constructs the field of writerly operation both in medical terms and as a space dear to Parisian intellectuals, as an operating table that is also the marble-topped table of a café” (179). At this time, the space of the café itself thus becomes a vital site for individual cultural production, putting the artist in touch with the social life of the city, as many accounts of writers and artists in the cafés of Paris, Prague, Vienna, and elsewhere in Europe attest. “The attraction of the café for the writer”, Fitch argues, “is that seeming tension between the intimate circle of privacy in a comfortable room, on the one hand, and the flow of (perhaps usable) information all around on the other” (The Grand 11). Penderecki talks about searching for a sound while composing in café Jama Michalika and, hearing the noise of a passing tram, subsequently incorporated it into his famous composition, Threnody (Krzysztof Penderecki, 2000). There is an indirect connection here with the attractions of the seventeenth century coffee houses in London, where news writers drew much of their gossip and news from the talk within the coffee houses. However, the shift is to a more isolated, individualistic habitué. Nonetheless, the aesthetic composition of the café space remains essential to the creative productivity described by Penderecki. A concept that can be used to describe this method of composition is contained within one of Penderecki’s best-known pieces, Polymorphia (1961). The term “polymorphia” refers not to the form of the music itself (which is actually quite conventionally structured) but rather to the multiple blending of sounds. Schwinger defines polymorphia as “many formedness […] which applies not […] to the form of the piece, but to the broadly deployed scale of sound, [the] exchange and simultaneous penetration of sound and noise, the contrast and interflow of soft and hard sounds” (131). This description also reflects the rich material context of the café space as Penderecki describes its role in shaping (both enabling and constraining) his creative output. Creativity, Technology, Materialism The materiality of the café—including the table itself for Penderecki—is crucial in understanding the relationship between the forms of creative output and the material conditions of the spaces that enable them. In Penderecki’s case, to understand the origins of the score and even his innovative forms of musical notation as artefacts of communication, we need to understand the material conditions under which they were created. As a fixture of twentieth and twenty-first century urban environments, the café mediates the private within the public in a way that offers the contemporary virtuoso habitué a rich, polymorphic sensory experience. In a discussion of the indivisibility of sensation and its resistance to language, writer Anna Gibbs describes these rich experiential qualities: sitting by the window in a café watching the busy streetscape with the warmth of the morning sun on my back, I smell the delicious aroma of coffee and simultaneously feel its warmth in my mouth, taste it, and can tell the choice of bean as I listen idly to the chatter in the café around me and all these things blend into my experience of “being in the café” (201). Gibbs’s point is that the world of the café is highly synaesthetic and infused with sensual interconnections. The din of the café with its white noise of conversation and overlaying sounds of often carefully chosen music illustrates the extension of taste beyond the flavour of the coffee on the palate. In this way, the café space provides the infrastructure for a type of creative output that, in Gibbs’s case, facilitates her explanation of expression and affect. The individualised virtuoso habitué, as characterised by Penderecki’s work within café Jama Michalika, simply describes one (celebrated) form of the material conditions of communication and creativity. An essential factor in creative cultural output is contained in the ways in which material conditions such as these come to be organised. As Elizabeth Grosz expresses it: Art is the regulation and organisation of its materials—paint, canvas, concrete, steel, marble, words, sounds, bodily movements, indeed any materials—according to self-imposed constraints, the creation of forms through which these materials come to generate and intensify sensation and thus directly impact living bodies, organs, nervous systems (4). Materialist and medium-oriented theories of media and communication have emphasised the impact of physical constraints and enablers on the forms produced. McLuhan, for example, famously argued that the typewriter brought writing, speech, and publication into closer association, one effect of which was the tighter regulation of spelling and grammar, a pressure toward precision and uniformity that saw a jump in the sales of dictionaries (279). In the poetry of E. E. Cummings, McLuhan sees the typewriter as enabling a patterned layout of text that functions as “a musical score for choral speech” (278). In the same way, the café in Penderecki’s recollections both constrains his ability to compose freely (a creative activity that normally requires ample flat surface), but also facilitates the invention of a new language for composition, one able to accommodate the small space of the café table. Recent studies that have sought to materialise language and communication point to its physicality and the embodied forms through which communication occurs. As Packer and Crofts Wiley explain, “infrastructure, space, technology, and the body become the focus, a move that situates communication and culture within a physical, corporeal landscape” (3). The confined and often crowded space of the café and its individual tables shape the form of productive output in Penderecki’s case. Targeting these material constraints and enablers in her discussion of art, creativity and territoriality, Grosz describes the “architectural force of framing” as liberating “the qualities of objects or events that come to constitute the substance, the matter, of the art-work” (11). More broadly, the design features of the café, the form and layout of the tables and the space made available for individual habitation, the din of the social encounters, and even the stimulating influences on the body of the coffee served there, can be seen to act as enablers of communication and creativity. Conclusion The historical examples examined above indicate a material link between cafés and communication. They also suggest a relationship between materialism and creativity, as well as the roots of the romantic association—or mythos—of cafés as a key source of cultural life as they offer a “shared place of composition” and an “environment for creative work” (Fitch, The Grand 11). We have detailed one example pertaining to European coffee consumption, cafés and creativity. While we believe Penderecki’s case is valuable in terms of what it can tell us about forms of communication and creativity, clearly other cultural and historical contexts may reveal additional insights—as may be found in the cases of Middle Eastern cafés (Hattox) or the North American diner (Hurley), and in contemporary developments such as the café as a source of free WiFi and the commodification associated with global coffee chains. Penderecki’s example, we suggest, also sheds light on a longer history of creativity and cultural production that intersects with contemporary work practices in city spaces as well as conceptualisations of the individual’s place within complex urban spaces. References Benjamin, Walter. “Polyclinic” in “One-Way Street.” One-Way Street and Other Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter. London: Verso, 1998: 88-9. Bollerey, Franziska. “Setting the Stage for Modernity: The Cosmos of the Coffee House.” Cafés and Bars: The Architecture of Public Display. Eds. Christoph Grafe and Franziska Bollerey. New York: Routledge, 2007. 44-81. Brooker, Peter. Bohemia in London: The Social Scene of Early Modernism. Houndmills, Hamps.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Cohen, Margaret. Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995. Cowan, Brian. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven: Yale UP, 2005. Ellis, Markman. The Coffee House: A Cultural History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2004. Fitch, Noël Riley. Paris Café: The Sélect Crowd. Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, 2007. -----. The Grand Literary Cafés of Europe. London: New Holland Publishers (UK), 2006. Gibbs, Anna. “After Affect: Sympathy, Synchrony, and Mimetic Communication.” The Affect Theory Reader. Eds. Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Siegworth. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. 186-205. Grafe, Christoph, and Franziska Bollerey. “Introduction: Cafés and Bars—Places for Sociability.” Cafés and Bars: The Architecture of Public Display. Eds. Christoph Grafe and Franziska Bollerey. New York: Routledge, 2007. 4-41. Grosz, Elizabeth. Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth. New York: Columbia UP, 2008. Haine, W. Scott. The World of the Paris Café. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Hattox, Ralph S. Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1985. Hurley, Andrew. Diners, Bowling Alleys and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in the Postwar Consumer Culture. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Krzysztof Penderecki. Dir. Andreas Missler-Morell. Spektrum TV production and Telewizja Polska S.A. Oddzial W Krakowie for RM Associates and ZDF in cooperation with ARTE, 2000. Lillywhite, Bryant. London Coffee Houses: A Reference Book of Coffee Houses of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1963. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Abacus, 1974. Monastra, Peggy. “Krzysztof Penderecki’s Polymorphia and Fluorescence.” Moldenhauer Archives, [US] Library of Congress. 12 Jan. 2012 ‹http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/moldenhauer/2428143.pdf› Packer, Jeremy, and Stephen B. Crofts Wiley. “Introduction: The Materiality of Communication.” Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility and Networks. New York, Routledge, 2012. 3-16. Robinson, R. Krzysztof Penderecki: A Guide to His Works. Princeton, NJ: Prestige Publications, 1983. Schwinger, Wolfram. Krzysztof Penderecki: His Life and Work. Encounters, Biography and Musical Commentary. London: Schott, 1979. Simmel, Georg. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Ed. and trans. Kurt H. Wolff. Glencoe, IL: The Free P, 1960. Thomas, Adrian. Polish Music since Szymanowski. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. White, Merry I. Coffee Life in Japan. Berkeley: U of California P, 2012. Wilson, Elizabeth. “The Bohemianization of Mass Culture.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 2.1 (1999): 11-32.

1 Abstract The author of this work pays attention to Czech musical personality Jaroslav Kofroň who is known primarily as an educator and author of pedagogical literature: The textbook of harmony; The textbook of rhythm and intonation. The main objective is to bring the essential information about the artist's compositional activity that is not known, although it is very rich and deserves more attention. According to the information the works are identified with the year of their implementation and available materials that are stored in libraries or on the website. The partial aim is a comprehensive and acquaints the public with the whole range of Kofroň personality that we perceive as a performer, a conductor, a choirmaster and a painter. Main chapter provides an overview of the composer's instrumental formation that includes the creation of orchestral, brass, chamber music, solo concerts. A huge attention is focused on the creation of the song, which contains over 600 songs, edited or composed both for solo singing voices and choirs: male, female, children's and mixed. It also identified spiritual music, stage and production for children there. My work provides an analysis of song "Songs for the youngest" and the author's didactic notes Cycle pieces for horn and piano "Images", intended for children of...

The thesis focuses on virtuoso pianist, teacher, musical theoretician and composer Josef Jiránek (1855 - 1940). The thesis draws from Josef Jiránek's own estate, as well as resources kept at various archive institutions in Prague. It underlines Josef Jiránek's merit as regards the art of the piano and piano education in particular, while emphasizing Hugo Riemann's influence on his music-teaching as well as theoretical ideas. In the light of the Prague resources, Josef Jiránek may be viewed as a follower of the traditional interpretation legacy of Bedřich Smetana. Nonetheless, by further elaborating Smetana's legacy from a purely scientific perspective and with his analytical and rational approach to piano work, Josef Jiránek had indeed largely contributed to the development and evolution of piano education and piano reproduction art - regardless of the fact that his ideas and methods were later overcome. The objective of this thesis is to open a gateway that would attract greater attention of musicologists to Josef Jiránek, who has been on the periphery of their interest and whose true picture remains hidden under the label "Bedřich Smetana's pupil".

Thomas Indermühle studied with Heinz Holliger and Maurice Bourgue. He won prizes at the Prague International Competition (1974) and the ARD International Competition in Munich (1976) and has appeared as a soloist across Europe, the United States, and parts of Asia. He teaches oboe at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe and the Zurich Conservatory. In this chapter, Indermühle offers his advice on competitions, tone, reed making, teaching, and being a conductor and performer. He discusses ideal throat/mouth position, tools he uses when teaching, and the ideal use of air when performing on oboe. He further offers his thoughts on talent and starting people on the oboe. The chapter includes descriptions of some of his reed-alone exercises.

After obtaining first prize in oboe and chamber music at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, David Walter won international prizes in Ancona, Prague, Munich, Belgrade, and Geneva. He is a founding member (1980) of the Quintette Moragues. At twenty-nine years old, he was appointed the youngest-ever oboe and chamber music professor at the Paris Conservatoire. In this interview, he examines the relationship between being a conductor and being a performer. He talks about ensemble playing skills and those specific to chamber music. Walter discusses competitions, teaching, “schools” of oboe playing, and finding your own voice. He shares artists who inspire him, reminiscences on his career, and his activities outside of music.

How can digital media technologies, contemporary theories of creativity, and tradition combine to develop the aesthetics of computer-based art today and in the future? Through contextualised case-studies, this chapter investigates how games, information technologies, and traditional visual and storytelling arts combine to create rich, complex, and engaging moving-image based artworks with wide appeal. It examines how dramatist and interactive media artist Maureen Thomas and 3D media artist and conservator Marianne Selsjord deploy creative digital technologies to transpose, transform, and transcend pre-page arts and crafts for the digital era, making fresh work for new audiences. Researcher in digital aesthetics, creative cognition, and play behaviour Dr. Phillip Prager examines how such work is conducive to creative insight and worthwhile play, discussing its remediation of some of the aspirations and approaches of 20th-century avant-garde artists, revealing these as a potent source of conceptual riches for the digital media creators of today and tomorrow.