Mezzanine Exhibition. Margins of the creation process. From the archives of Zygmunt Krauze
Music scores have an undeniable charm in themselves. The problem is that only "scholars of notes", i.e. people professionally involved in music, can understand them. While looking - they can hear. They see everything: the simplicity or sophistication of the means used by the composer. They perceive their interrelationships, evaluate the scale of difficulty in the performance of individual parts and - talent....
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And what about the "profane" who can't even tell the difference between half and quarter notes? Contrary to appearances, they also can derive pleasure from simply looking at staves written in all sorts of characters. Or not. In contemporary music, a score can take the form of a diagram, something that looks like a mathematical equation or an abstract sketch, resembling Wladyslaw Strzeminski's drawings included in the cycles War against Homes or Western Belarus. Sometimes it is simply a description, an instruction intended for the performers: "Place stone no. 1 on the marked strings and set it into a continuous vibrating motion."
The fact is, however, that it is only by music notation (or by other means) that one realizes how complex phenomenon music is and what a great art it is to compose - combining rhythm, sound, length, tempo, tone and distributing all this among instruments or voices.
Zygmunt Krauze’s Creative Archive is precisely such a collection, thanks to which both professionals and amateurs can learn the secrets of the composer's workshop. The collection of more than a hundred scores, as well as sketches and notes to them, allows a close look at the process of creating music filled with explorations, deletions, outlined and abandoned ideas, almost finished fragments and - in the final stage - finished compositions.
The archive was placed at the Muzem Sztuki, Lodz not by accident. Back in the early 1960s, Zygmunt Krauze found inspiration in the unistic painting of Władysław Strzemiński, and developed his ideas in compositions involving sound and space, combining music with specially designed architecture. Museum visitors saw (and listened to) them at two shows organized by Krauze in 1988 and 2007 entitled Underground River. Spatial Music (in collaboration with Wieslaw Nowak and Jan Muniak, who created the "architectural structure") and Air. Spatial and Musical Composition.
Zygmunt Krauze's Creative Archive has been placed at the Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz thanks to funding provided by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the state budget reserve in 2023. In addition to the scores, it contains more than 350 letters the composer received from Nadia Boulanger, John Cage, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Wojciech Kilar, Witold Lutosławski, Michel Nyman, Bogusław Schaeffer, Tomasz Sikorski, among others.
Maciej Cholewiński.
The exhibition can be viewed daily, except Mondays and weekends, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and on Thursdays from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm.
Admission is 1 zloty.
A ticket to the temporary exhibition at ms1 also entitles the visitor to view the presentation.
