Conference Agenda

Greater Poland is a region of Poland renowned for its singing traditions for over 150 years. Singing societies began to emerge around the mid-19th century, not only in Poznań but also in smaller urban centers of the Grand Duchy of Posen. From the very beginning, their activities were guided by patriotic ideals—initially linked to independence sentiments and anti-Germanization efforts, and later to the shaping of Polish statehood. Some ensembles continue to operate to this day. The development of choral and singing traditions was accompanied by an increased production of works composed and arranged for vocal ensembles, as well as a flourishing publishing movement. The demand for choral works was met by directors of choirs such as Bolesław Dembiński as composer, and Kazimierz Barwicki, one of the most active publishers of choral music in the first half of the 20th century. Choral traditions were continued by such Poznań composers as Andrzej Koszewski and Stanisław Bolesław Poradowski.

University Library in Poznań keeps a rich collection of both autographs of the aforementioned composers and printed music related to the activity of choirs in the region. In this paper, I would like to present an overview of this collection. The final part of the paper will be devoted to discussing the collection of the St. Cecilia Singing Society in Połajewo, donated to the University Library in Poznań by the local Cultural Center, which will serve as a starting point for a discussion on the state of preservation of the heritage associated with the Greater Poland Singing Movement.

This paper will present three autograph manuscripts by Greek composers in the Oliver Neighbour collection at the British Library (BL): the Concertino for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1935) and Little Suite for Strings (1942) by Nikos Skalkottas (1904–1949), and the song Mín klaís [Don’t Cry] (1911) by Manolis Kalomiris (1883–1962).

The collection is named after its former owner, the musicologist and music librarian Oliver Neighbour (1923–2015). It includes over 200 autograph manuscripts by composers who are either not represented elsewhere in the BL’s collections or complement existing collections. The manuscripts by Skalkottas and Kalomiris are good examples of the former, while the Skalkottas ones also reflect Neighbour’s personal interest in the music of Arnold Schoenberg and his circle.

The paper will discuss aspects of the manuscripts’ transmission history and provide a brief introduction to the historical and socio-political context in which the works were created. It will examine Skalkottas’s atonal and dodecaphonic compositions in terms of the composer’s efforts to make atonal music more accessible in Greece. It will also discuss Kalomiris’s setting of a poem by the eminent Greek poet Kostis Palamas from his collection Oi pentasýllavi [The Pentasyllables] (1910). The song will be situated within the framework of Kalomiris’s ‘manifesto’ for Greek national music and his staunch Demoticist stance in the controversial language reform debates of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The manuscripts will be presented within the wider context of Greek music collections at the BL, acquired through legal deposit, purchase, and e-resource subscriptions.