Polish city. Probably founded in the 8th century, it was the country's capital from the 11th century to 1596, and has remained a cultural and artistic centre. It passed to Austria at the third partition (1795), became part of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1809 and the Kraków Republic in 1815, and was again incorporated into Austria in 1846; in 1918 it was returned to Poland when that country was reconstituted. Its main cultural centres were the royal castle and cathedral on the Wawel hill, where coronations took place; the Jagiellonian University, founded in 1364; and the numerous churches, of which St Mary's (completed 1396) is the largest.
ZYGMUNT M. SZWEYKOWSKI (1), MIROSŁAW PERZ (2), TADEUSZ PRZYBYLSKI (3–7)
Kraków was an episcopal see from 1000 and the earliest liturgical music used was Benedictine chant. The Liber ordinalis or Pontificale of the Kraków bishops (11th and 12th centuries), the first rhymed Office Dies adest celebris by Wincenty z Kielc (mid-13th century) and other sources of the 13th and 14th centuries come from Kraków Cathedral and monasteries. Several 15th-century liturgical books have also survived, some with valuable illumination. There are few records of musical life at the court and in the city before the mid-14th century. The guild of musicians was granted its first royal privilege in 1549, but, as some statements of the edict show, it had existed on the strength of common law much earlier. The earliest examples of polyphonic music of Kraków date from the 14th century (Surrexit Christus hodie). Two substantial collections of polyphonic music and one of two-part pieces, all from about 1430, survive (in PL-Wn and Kj); they contain compositions by Ciconia, Zacharias, Grossin, Antonius de Civitate Austrie and some Polish composers, including Nicholaus de Radom, probably a royal musician. The collections were probably for the use of the royal chapel, which then consisted of a group of singing clerks and lay instrumentalists, some of whom were soloists (citharedae). More detailed information on its composition is available from the mid-16th century, when it had over 30 members (at least 12 singers, about six discantists and several groups of instrumentalists); in addition there was a separate group of 13 trumpeters. The vocal ensemble gradually took on a greater number of lay members. Composers active in the royal chapel in the 16th century include Heinrich Finck, Josquin Baston, Wacław z Szamotuł, Marcin Leopolita, Marcin Wartecki, Gomółka, Długoraj, Cato, Klabon, Marenzio and, among the eminent virtuosos, the lutenist Bakfark.
Kraków University, founded in 1364, flourished in the 15th century. Musical training was then based chiefly on Johannes de Muris's Musica speculativa and Boethius's De institutione musica. The first known Polish treatise on choral music was written by Szydłowita about 1414; several other anonymous treatises survive (in PL-Kj). In the early 16th century a number of compendiums of musical science originated in the circle of university scholars and lecturers (Sebastian z Felsztyna, Marcin Kromer and Jerzy Liban) and were all published in Kraków, some being reprinted several times; they were clearly influenced by Gaffurius and Ornithoparchus. In the 16th century some parish schools had high standards of music education, especially that of St Mary's, where Liban and Gawara worked. The Kraków printing houses of Jan Haller, Ungler, Wietor, Andrysowicz, Siebeneicher and Szarfenberg published liturgical compositions from 1505, theoretical treatises from 1514, and sacred and occasional polyphonic songs, the earliest surviving example of which dates from 1530. Among the most important publications were Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae by Wacław z Szamotuł (1553), Bakfark's lute tablature Harmoniarum musicarum (1565) and several monophonic hymnbooks.
A number of instrument workshops thrived in Kraków in the second half of the 16th century: Dobrucki and Groblicz made violins, Kejcher chiefly woodwind instruments. The names of many 15th-century Kraków organists are known, but the earliest sources of organ music date from the 16th century: the tablature from the monastery of the Holy Ghost (1548) and Jan z Lublina's tablature (1537–48). In addition to numerous anonymous compositions, they contain works of Janequin, Jacotin, Festa, Verdelot, Finck and Senfl, and Polish compositions or arrangements by Mikołaj z Chrzanowa and Mikołaj z Krakowa, as well as transcriptions of Polish dances. Strzeszkowski's lute tablature, written in the second half of the 16th century, presents a variety of songs and dances of the period.
At the end of the 16th century the political and economic situation of Kraków changed; between 1596 and 1609 the court moved to Warsaw, which became the capital, and privileges were limited. In 1596 Sigismund III reorganized the royal chapel to include a group of over 20 Italian singers and instrumentalists (the ensemble thus had about 38 members, excluding trumpeters); it was active in Kraków for short periods only, but nevertheless introduced new stylistic trends. In 1604 a collection of polychoral compositions written by members of the chapel, Melodiae sacrae, was printed, the last important Kraków publication of polyphonic music. Gorczyn's Tabulatura muzyki (1647) and Starowolski's Musices practicae erotemata (1650) are among the theoretical works published in Kraków in the 17th century. The traditional cultivation of leading stylistic trends was taken over by the 30-member vocal-instrumental cathedral chapel, founded in 1619 and augmented by singers from the cathedral school. The chapel was directed by a succession of fine composers: Orgas, Franciszek Lilius, Pękiel, Gorczycki and Maxylewicz. Their production characterizes the repertory of the chapel only indirectly, as no vocal–instrumental compositions earlier than the late 18th century survive in the cathedral archives.
Another group of musicians to flourish in Kraków in the 17th century was the Capella Rorantistarum, a group of nine priest-musicians who sang daily services in the chapel built for the cathedral by the last Jagellons. Its name is thought to derive from the introit Rorate coeli and from the Rorata (dawn masses sung during Advent) with which the choir was associated (see Rorate chants). It was founded in 1540 by Sigismund I to sing polyphony daily ‘perpetuis futuris temporibus’, and was active from 1543 to the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The Capella excluded boys and originally confined its membership to Poles, though foreigners, notably Italians, were admitted from the early 17th century. Its repertory embraced works by leading Polish composers of the 16th and 17th centuries as well as by composers from the Netherlands, France, Italy and Spain, particularly those resident in Poland. Many transcriptions were made for the ensemble of equal men's voices (e.g. Josquin's Missa ‘Mater Patris’). The choir's directors included Mikołaj z Poznania (1543–57), Borek (1557–74) and Orgas (1628–9). Throughout its existence the Capella played an important part in continuing in Poland the a cappella tradition based on 16th-century polyphony.
Of Kraków's remaining ensembles, the Jesuit chapel (founded 1637) was of great importance in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was organized as an institution of music education, developing into a focal point of the city's music in the early 18th century, when it was attended by young musicians from the chapels of rich landowners. It had about 50 members (including pupils) and performed in the city's churches as well as at private secular functions. Its repertory included many Polish compositions, some by its members; the most outstanding of these was Jacek Szczurowski, who entered the Jesuit order in 1735. An ensemble of seven instrumentalists, recruited from members of the musicians' guild, was available after 1630 at St Mary's. Until the mid-18th century the main state celebrations, such as coronations and royal funerals, took place in Wawel Castle. On such occasions the city organized festivities that featured music by local chapels, including that performed by the chapels of magnates (e.g. Lubomirski's); in the castle itself, however, the Warsaw royal chapel was predominant. No information about the repertory of the private chapels survives.
As the city was destroyed by the Seven Years War (1757–64), Kraków's musical life was reduced during the 1760s and 70s to activity in a few church chapels – the Rorantists, the cathedral, St Mary's, the Jesuits (until the suppression of the order in Poland in 1773) and the academy of the collegiate church of St Anna – and music-making in the homes of a few wealthy citizens. The association known as the Kazimierz Congregation of Musicians was founded and, reminiscent of the medieval guilds, channelled its energies into competitive battles with non-professional musicians. After 1800 matters improved; musical activity in Kraków was revived through the efforts of Wacław Sierakowski, a canon and parson at Wawel Cathedral, and Jacek Kluszewski (1761–1841), proprietor of the Kraków Theatre. Sierakowski organized public concerts in his home from 1781 to 1787 on the model of the fashionable concerts spirituels; cantatas by Italian composers, translated by Sierakowski himself, were performed. To support these concerts he founded a singing school (1781–7), attended by boys, most of whom subsequently became members of church chapels. The head of the school was F.K. Kratzer, cantor and later conductor at the Wawel Cathedral, and the first of a family of Wawel cantors. Two other cathedral musicians taught at the school, Jakub Gołąbek and F.M. Lang. In 1795 Sierakowski published the first volume of his work devoted to music education, Sztuka muzyki dla młodzieży kraiowey (‘The art of music for the country's youth’), and in 1796 two further volumes appeared. Containing the rudiments of music and instructions for the performance of church music, the work is a rich source of information on 18th-century Polish music. Other centres of music education included the Jesuit boarding schools (1638–1773), the music school attached to the collegiate church of St Anna (founded 1764) and the music school of Jósef Zygmuntowski (1773–81).
Kluszewski founded the first permanent public opera company in Kraków. Between 1787 and 1789, with the help of an Italian opera company and an orchestra of church and army musicians, comic operas by Paisiello, Piccinni, Salieri and others were performed in Italian; from 1789 to 1794 performances in Polish were given. From 1 January 1799 Kluszewski continued this work in new, purpose-built premises (now the Teatr Stary, or Old Theatre; see illustration). The years 1809–16 were a period of decline for the opera, after which it began to recover. Its most distinguished period of development came between 1820 and 1830, when the repertory included works by Rossini, Mozart and Weber. Among operas by Polish composers the most popular were those of Kurpiński and Elsner.
After the seizure of Kraków by Austria performances in Polish ceased, but they began again in 1805. When the Austrians left in 1809 Wojciech Bogusławski, the ‘father of Polish theatre’, brought his company to the city and gave many performances there, including a number of operas. During the 1790s a number of music teachers and instrument makers probably moved to Kraków from Vienna, Prague and Berne, and Kraków booksellers began to deal in music.
As Kraków became more settled after the political disorganization of the period up to 1815, there was renewed activity in the intellectual and artistic life of the city. As a result of the Vienna Congress, Kraków and the surrounding area attained the status of an independent state, the Kraków Republic. Modern concert life began with the founding of the Society of Friends of Music in 1817, headed by Sebastian Sierakowski, Wacław's brother. The society, with about 400 members, included nearly all the city's musicians and amateur players. It had its own choir (conducted by the outstanding Wawel organist Wincenty Gorączkiewicz, who popularized the music of Palestrina, in particular) and a symphony orchestra of 30 players (directed by K. Nowakiewicz, the organist of St Mary's); unlike anywhere else in Poland, it organized symphony concerts at least once a month. The years 1819–24 saw the greatest development in the society and its activities, after which it gradually declined until its formal dissolution in 1844. Viennese Classical works were predominant at its concerts, and choral singing was important; the repertory included polyphonic masterpieces and works of Haydn and Mozart. The society also sponsored concerts by visiting virtuosos such as Catalani. Liszt (1843) and Lipiński gave concerts in Kraków independent of the society.
The orchestra of the National Guard was founded in 1811 as a janissary band of percussion and wind instruments. In 1820 the orchestra of the Militia of the Free Town of Kraków was formed, modelled on the Austrian military orchestra, introduced to the city when the Austrian army invaded the town in 1796; it entertained at occasional tattoos and religious and national ceremonies. The theatre continued under the ownership of Kluszewski, and during the period 1820–30 almost all the operas in the contemporary repertory were presented. Besides L'italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia and La gazza ladra, Kraków audiences saw Die Zauberflöte and Der Freischütz; Polish operas performed included almost all those of Elsner; the operas of Kurpiński gained great popularity.
Music teaching was private for both amateurs and professionals, and music teachers with various qualifications were often recruited from church chapels and from theatre and military orchestras. Professionals were educated at the music school at St Anna’s, which was under the patronage of the Society of Friends of Music from 1818 to 1841. From 1838 Franciszek Mirecki directed a private school of dramatic singing, which became the municipal School of Singing and Music in 1841; it was the first state music school in Kraków and was important for the development of secular music there. The needs of sacred music were catered for by the School of Polyphonic Chant on the Wawel from 1821 to 1824.
After the suppression of the Kraków Revolution by the Austrian army (1846) Kraków was annexed to Austria, and the musical life of the city came to a standstill, not only as the result of political developments but also because of the deaths of leading musicians, such as Gorączkiewicz and Mirecki. Musical life did not revive until the 1860s, when Stanisław Duniecki, Kazimierz Hofmann and Antoni Vopalka (1837–79) were active. Duniecki was conductor of the theatre, where he presented many operettas and operas, including the first of many performances in Kraków of Moniuszko's Halka (1866), at which the composer was present. Duniecki was succeeded at the theatre by Hofmann, who was also active from 1858 to 1878 as a teacher, pianist and impresario.
As a result of Kraków's greater autonomy, various scientific, cultural and artistic societies developed from 1866. In that year the Muza (Muse) amateur music society was founded, the ideological heir to the former Society of Friends of Music. The society had a male-voice and a mixed choir, which were sometimes accompanied by a military orchestra formed from Austrian units stationed in the town. From 1870 to 1875 Vopalka was artistic director of the society, which gave over 50 concerts in its first ten years, and from 1867 supported a school of music directed by Vopalka at which Hofmann taught the piano and theory. Later the society's importance in the city's cultural life declined. A German choral society, the Liedertafel, existed from 1860 to 1871.
In 1876 the declining Muza society was transformed by a group of enthusiasts into Kraków Music Society, which still exists. From 1876 to 1918 it was responsible for almost all musical activity in Kraków and ran the only music school at the time, later the Conservatory of Music. Its first artistic director was a singer from the Opera at Lwów, Stanisław Niedzielski. During the 1880s the society had about 400 members, and soloists from the School of Music appeared. In 1886 Wiktor Barabasz (1885–1928) was appointed artistic director, a post he held until 1909; he reorganized the society's choirs, which took part in all Kraków's festivals, and through his endeavours an amateur symphony orchestra was founded in 1888. A cycle of historic concerts that he organized with this orchestra was so popular that each had to be repeated. On Barabasz's initiative the society organized popular concerts in 1903 and 1904. From 1909 to 1914 the artistic director of the society was Feliks Nowowiejski, who gave fine symphony concerts, although the choir was neglected. During World War I the society's concerts ceased, and all its income was devoted to the upkeep of the conservatory. In that period the cultural life of Kraków was maintained only by 19 exhibition days given by pupils of the conservatory.
Besides the society's concerts, there were those of Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, both in her home and in public. In 1908 a concert agency was founded by Teofil Trzciński and amateur concerts began to decline in favour of systematically managed concert enterprises. The undertaking did much to acquaint Kraków with the new music of western Europe and Poland, and brought the best foreign soloists and ensembles to the town. In a fine concert guide Trzciński informed the public of contemporary developments abroad.
Kraków Music Society, founded in 1876, also took over the School of Music from the Muza society. The best musicians of Kraków were engaged as teachers and the number of instrumental classes increased. A new stage in the history of the school began when the eminent composer and teacher Władysław Żeleński settled in Kraków permanently in July 1881; he appeared as a pianist and conductor, organized diverse concerts, wrote music reviews and was active above all as a composer and teacher. The period up to 1914 was the ‘Żeleński era’; for 40 years he held the post of director of the School of Music, which through his endeavours was renamed the Conservatory of the Music Society in Kraków in 1888. From 1891 to 1895 the composer Jan Gall taught solo singing and theory at the conservatory. In addition to the conservatory, a music institute was founded in 1908 by the pianist Klara Czop-Umlaufowa and the violinist Stanisław Giebułtowski, and was active until 1918.
In 1911 a seminar on music history and theory was initiated at the Jagiellonian University, the first of its kind in Poland; it later became the Musicology Institute and for many years was directed by its founder, Zdzisław Jachimecki. Two bookshops were particularly important: S.A. Krzyżanowski's was established in 1870, and included a concert bureau which sponsored Paderewski's concerts; that of Antoni Piwarski and Teodor Gieszczykiewicz was founded in 1897 and played an important role in the early 20th century, publishing works by many Polish composers.
One of the most notable instrument makers in Kraków was the luthier K. Häussler (workshop founded in 1832), who was succeeded in 1870 by his nephew and pupil, Gustaw. The latter's violins, modelled on those of Stradivarius, were highly prized. There were also piano makers of high repute, such as Z. Raba (from 1880) and J. Drozdowski (from 1884). In this period Kraków was also able to support several good organ builders: I. Ziernicki, S. Niepielski, B. Głowacki, I. Wojciechowski and A. Sapalski, author of the first Polish book on organ building (published in Kraków in 1880).
After World War I concert life was kept alive by various local ensembles, mainly choral. The most important of these were the mixed chorus of the Music Society and Conservatory, and the Academy's male-voice choir. In 1919 the mixed chorus of the Oratorio Society was created, as well as the male-voice choir known as Echo. In the same year the orchestra of the Musicians' Union was founded. Of groups affiliated to the Union of Church Choirs the most outstanding were the choir of St Cecilia (1923 to the present), associated with the Franciscan church, and the choirs of Missionary Priests. Among the orchestras, besides that of the Musicians’ Union, were the symphony orchestra and wind band of the conservatory, the wind band of the Union of Train Drivers, the orchestra comprising employees from the health authority (1925–34) and the small orchestra of the Union of Polish Teachers. Concerts were usually given in one of the four concert halls.
The vitality of concert life depended on general economic conditions, and became evident in the second half of the 1920s and in the 1930s. Recitals and chamber concerts dominated, but there was no lack of symphony concerts, particularly in the years 1925–9. Many were organized by the Music Society under the able artistic direction of Bolesław Wallek-Walewski. There were also frequent performances by the orchestra and choir of the conservatory, which towards the end of the 1920s had 39 teachers and 700 students. It was the most important of the four (from 1929 five) music schools.
In 1931, the orchestra of the Musicians' Union closed down, for financial reasons; consequently, the Music Society founded the Kraków PO (1934–7). Then Eugeniusz Bujański, director of the Kraków Concert Office (established in 1908), founded the Kraków SO, recruiting members mainly from the opera ensemble. Between the wars many great soloists and conductors took part in symphonic and choral concerts, among them Artur Rubinstein, Ada Sari, Jan Kiepura, I. Dubiska, Eugenia Umińska, Hermann Abendroth, Walerian Bierdiajew and Grzegorz Fitelberg. At the end of this period a number of events of national and international significance took place, such as the National Congress of Church Music in 1931 and the Religious Music Week in 1938, both organized by the Union of Church Choirs. During the period 1935–9 the Wawel became the venue for several festivals of Polish art. Concerts from these festivals were broadcast throughout Europe by Kraków Radio, which played an important role in the musical life of the city from 1927.
In 1931 the Kraków Opera Society was reactivated and a permanent group was established under the direction of Wallek-Walewski (previously, there had been summer seasons given by visiting opera companies from Lwów, Warsaw and Katowice). This Kraków Opera gave 32 productions in the years up to 1939, and at a high artistic level.
Another feature of musical life in the 1920s was the presence of several composers who had studied with Żeleński and Nowowiejski, including Wallek-Walewski, Stanisław Lipski (author of lyrical piano pieces and atmospheric songs) and K. Garbusiński (known for his church music). They maintained the conservative style of their masters, while newer European trends were introduced by the composer and teacher Bernadino Rizzi (an Italian of the Franciscan order), who was active in the city from 1922 to 1932. In 1931 a group of his pupils (Jan Ekier, Włodzimierz Poźniak and F. Skołyszewski), together with other young composers and musicians, founded the Association of Young Musicians to organize concerts in which they could include their own works. After World War II Artur Malawski was to become the most distinguished of this younger generation.
Musicology also developed. The principal teachers at the Jagiellonian University were Jachimecki, J. Reiss (from 1922) and W. Poźniak (from 1930); they were also active as music critics. The book and publishing trades were still concentrated in the hands of two firms, those of S.A. Krzyżanowski and Piwarski-Gieszczykiewicz, while the house of Gebethner & Wolff acted as an outlet for a large range of music from Poland and abroad. Of 14 piano warehouses that had previously operated, only two remained in business.
The occupying Nazi administration of 1940–44 imposed a new opera company of German artists performing for a German public (Poles were not allowed admission) and established its own Philharmonic Society, which gave separate concerts for Germans and for Poles. Polish musicians who played in these concerts did so with the approval of the Polish underground government. From 1942, in the Old Theatre, there were performances of operetta in Polish, as well as other light musical productions. But these were boycotted by the vast majority of Poles as being improper during a period of national tragedy, and participation in them was regarded at the time (and after the war) as collaboration with the enemy. All music schools were closed down, and radio receivers were confiscated from the Polish population. Under these conditions there grew up a clandestine network of music teaching, and Poles gathered in private houses to listen to solo and chamber music, including the music of Chopin, which was officially banned on pain of imprisonment in the concentration camps.
After liberation in January 1945 Kraków became the centre of musical life in the country, particularly because Warsaw lay destroyed. However, after the reconstruction of Warsaw in the 1950s a considerable number of musicians moved to the capital. Nevertheless, Kraków remained the second creative centre in the country. Prominent postwar Kraków composers include Wiechowicz, Malawski, Penderecki, Bogusław Schäffer, Moszumańska-Nazar, Krzysztof Meyer and Stachowski. On 3 February 1945 the Kraków Philharmonic was inaugurated as the first music institution in liberated Poland; in 1962 it became the Karol Szymanowski Philharmonic. Zygmunt Latoszewski became its director followed by such excellent conductors as Bierdiajew, Skrowaczewski, Rowicki, Markowski, Czyż and Katlewicz. The Kraków PO reached a high artistic standard; it gave the premičres of many works by Penderecki and others. The Philharmonic's other ensembles include mixed and boys' choirs, a string quartet and the Capella Cracoviensis. The Philharmonic gives about 700 concerts each season, including a number in schools, and is responsible for organizing such established cycles of concerts and festivals as the Kraków Spring Festival (from 1962), the Wawel Evenings (from 1966), the international Organ Music Days (also from 1966), the organ recitals at the Benedictine abbey in Tyniec, and the Jan Kiepura Festival of Arias and Songs in Krynica (from 1967). From 1963 a music-lovers' club functioned in connection with the Philharmonic, leading a lively campaign to popularize music.
The orchestra and choir of Polish radio and television in Kraków was founded in 1948 and directed by Jerzy Gert until 1968, when he was succeeded by Krzysztof Missona. Polish music of all periods features in its repertory, and the orchestra's main task is recording for the central tape library of Polish radio, producing a complete history of Polish music in sound. Other performing groups include the Capella (founded in 1970 to play a repertory ranging from medieval to contemporary music), the Fiori Musicali (founded in 1978 for Baroque music) and MW2, a modern-music ensemble founded in 1962 by Adam Kaczyński.
The first postwar period for the Kraków Opera, under the direction of Bierdiajew, was shortlived and ended in 1948. The company was re-established in 1954, and in 1958 it merged with the operetta troupe to form the City Music Theatre. From 1962 to 1968 Kazimierz Kord was responsible for the transformation of the company's fortunes, raising it from a provincial level to one of the best musical theatres in the country. Its stature was maintained by his successors: Robert Satanowski, K. Missona and Ewa Michnik (1980–95), whose special contribution was to establish a separate stage for the performance of Baroque opera, where Monteverdi and Domenico Scarlatti have been performed.
Kraków's music schools were given an entirely different system of administration in 1945, as were those all over Poland. The schools were nationalized and then reclassified as lower, middle or higher. The aim was to achieve a deeper level of musical education, whereby instrumentalists and singers would also study theory and history. The field of music teaching, as a specialism, was also expanded. As a result of these reforms, Kraków was provided with three state lower schools (two from 1945, with a third added in 1958) and two middle schools, in addition to eight music centres providing elementary tuition for children. From the 1970s onwards, Catholic schools provided organ tuition for future church musicians.
The state higher school was initially known as the State Conservatory of Music (from 1945), then as the State Higher School of Music (from 1946) and eventually renamed in 1979 the Academy of Music. 2320 students graduated in the period up to 1988, including many who have become well known in Poland and abroad. Kraków's circle of composers is particularly strong, and maintains close contacts with the academy. The academy's composition teachers from 1945 included Artur Malawski and Wiechowicz; the younger generation includes Zbigniew Bujarski, Krzysztof Meyer, Moszumańska-Nazar, Penderecki, Bogusław Schäffer, Andrzej Stachowski, T. Machl and Adam Walaciński. Another active composer, although not among those teaching at the academy, is Juliusz Łuciuk.
The Jagiellonian University is one of only three state universities in Poland with a department of musicology, which at Kraków was directed until 1953 by its founder, Jachimecki. The fields of staff research were initially focussed on 19th-century music and ethnomusicology, but went on to embrace music of all periods. A special emphasis is placed on the history of Polish music and its relationship to the music of other countries. In 1973 the department inaugurated a special research centre and archive devoted to the life and music of Paderewski; this centre is preparing a collected edition of his works.
Since 1945 Kraków has been the home of Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (Polish Music Publishers, PWM), which until 1988 had a virtual monopoly in Poland for publishing music and books on music. PWM was directed for most of this time by its founder, Tadeusz Ochlewski, and did not restrict its activities to publishing. It directly employed many musicologists, and also provided a focus for collaborative work by musicologists from all over Poland. It initiated research leading to academic publications (including a series of critical editions of early Polish music, collected editions of the most significant 19th-century Polish composers, and an encyclopedia on music). After 1988, as a result of the profound economic transformation of Poland as a whole, and growing competition (even in Kraków itself), PWM withdrew from these wider activities.
An ancient tradition is preserved in the hourly sounding of the Hejnał mariacki (‘St Mary's Bugle-Call’) from the higher tower of St Mary's. The triadic trumpet melody is thought to date from the 14th century, and its sudden cessation in mid-phrase supposedly commemorates a Tartar invasion in which the trumpeter was killed.
A society devoted to the performance of contemporary music, Muzyka Centrum, was established in Kraków in 1977, and since 1991 has participated in the European Conference of Contemporary Music Promoters. In 1990 Kraków's musical community initiated the formation of a national organization, the Polish Society for Early Music (based in Kraków), as a forum for performers and those interested in the field. They promote performance on original instruments in authentic style, initiate the publication of early music and organize an annual festival of early music. Contemporary music has had its own festival since 1988, Music Days of Kraków Composers.
A. Chybiński: Materiały do dziejów królewskiej kapeli rorantystów na Wawelu i: 1540–1624 [Material for the history of the chapel royal of Rorantists in Wawel] (Kraków, 1910)
A. Chybiński: ‘Materiały do dziejów królewskiej kapeli rorantystów na Wawelu, ii: 1624–94’, Przegląd muzyczny, iv/14–19 (1911)
Z. Jachimecki: ‘Kilka niekompletnych kompozycji polskich z XVI wieku’ [Some incomplete Polish compositions of the 16th century], KM, i (1911–13)
Z. Jachimecki: Tabulatura organowa z biblioteki klasztoru Św. Ducha w Krakowie z roku 1548 [The organ tablature of 1548 from the library of the monastery of the Holy Ghost, Kraków] (Kraków, 1913)
A. Chybiński: ‘Z dziejów muzyki krakowskiej’ [From the history of music in Kraków], KM, ii (1913–14), 24–62, 91
W. Gieburowski: Die ‘Musica Magistri Szdlovitye’ … und seine Stellung in der Choraltheorie des Mittelalters (Poznań, 1915)
Z. Jachimecki: Muzyka na dworze króla Władysława Jagiełły, 1424–1430 [Music at the court of Władysława Jagiełło, 1424–30] (Kraków, 1916)
J.W. Reiss: Książki o muzyce od XV do XVII wieku w Bibljotece Jagiellońskiej [Books on music from the 15th to 17th centuries in the Jagiellonian Library] (Kraków, 1924–38)
A. Chybiński: ‘Nowe materyały do dziejów królewskiej kapeli rorantystów w Kaplicy Zygmuntowskiej na Wawelu’ [New material for the history of the Chapel Royal of Rorantists active in the Sigismund Chapel on Wawel Hill], Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Oswalda Balzera (Lwów, 1925), 133–51
A. Chybiński: ‘Przyczynki do historii krakowskiej kultury muzycznej w XVII i XVIII wieku’ [Contribution towards the history of Kraków musical culture in the 17th and 18th centuries], Wiadomości muzyczne, i (1925), 133–47, 179–86, 218–24, 246–50; ii (1926), 2–7
A. Chybiński: Muzycy włoscy w kapelach katedralnych krakowskich 1619–57 [Italian musicians in the Kraków cathedral chapels, 1619–57], i (Poznań, 1927)
A. Chybiński: ‘Trzy przyczynki do historii muzyki w Krakowie w pierwszej połowie XVII wieku’ [Three essays on the history of music in Kraków in the early 17th century], Prace polonistyczne ofiarowane Janowi Łosiowi (Warsaw, 1927), 94–113
J.W. Reiss: Muzyka w Krakowie w XIX wieku [Music in Kraków in the 19th century] (Kraków, 1931)
J.W. Reiss: Jak Kraków walczył o operę [How Kraków fought over opera] (Kraków, 1934)
H. Gleason: ‘The Cracow Tablature of 1548’, BAMS, iii (1939), 14 only
A. Klose: ‘Die musikgeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Krakau und Schlesien im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert’, Deutsche Monatshefte in Polen, vi (1939), 166–73
J.W. Reiss: Almanach muzyczny Krakowa 1780–1914 (Kraków, 1939)
A. Chybiński: Słownik muzyków dawnej Polski [Dictionary of early Polish musicians] (Kraków, 1949)
M. Szczepańska: ‘Nieznana krakowska tabulatura lutniowa z drugiej połowy XVI stulecia’ [An unknown Kraków lute tablature from the second half of the 16th century], Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Prof. Adolfa Chybińskiego w 70-lecie urodzin (Kraków, 1950), 198–217
Z. Szulc: Słownik lutników polskich [Dictionary of Polish violin makers] (Poznań, 1953)
W. Bieńkowski: ‘Krakowska szkoła muzyczna w latach 1841–1873’ [Kraków music school 1841–73], Musikwissenschaftliche Studien, iii (1954)
A. Szweykowska: ‘Początki krakowskiej kapeli katedralnej’ [The beginnings of the Kraków cathedral chapel], Muzyka, iv/2 (1959), 12–21 [with Eng. summary]
J. Dobrzycki: Hejnał Krakowski [The Kraków bugle-call] (Kraków, 1961, 2/1983)
Z.M. Szweykowski: Preface to Muzyka w dawnym Krakowie [Music in old Kraków] (Kraków, 1964)
A. Sutkowski: ‘Kompozycje niechorałowe w graduale klasztoru św. Andrzeja w Krakowie (sygn.M 205/594)’ [Non-choral compositions in the gradual of St Andrzej's monastery in Kraków], Musica medii aevi, i (1965), 89–95
J. Gołos: ‘Muzykalia biblioteki klasztoru karmelitów na Piasku w Krakowie’ [Musical materials in the library of the Carmelite monastery at Piasek in Kraków], Muzyka, xii/3–4 (1966), 86–97
K. Witkowska-Chomińska: ‘Szkoła krakowska od końca XV do połowy XVI wieku’ [The Kraków school from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 16th], Muzyka, xi/2 (1966), 54–67
K. Mrowiec: ‘Niewykorzystane źródło do dziejów Kapeli Akademickiej w Krakowie’ [An unused source for the history of the Academic Chapel in Kraków], Muzyka, xii/2 (1967), 32–45
M. Perz: ‘Der niederländische Stil in Polen’, IMSCR X: Ljubljana 1967, 107–12
T. Przybylski: ‘Sztuka muzyki Wacława Sierakowskiego’ [The Art of Music by Wacław Sierakowski], Muzyka, xiii/2 (1968), 66–77
A. Szweykowska: ‘Przeobrażenia w kapeli królewskiej na przełomie XVI i XVII wieku’ [Changes in the royal chapel in the late 16th and 17th centuries], Muzyka, xiii/2 (1968), 3–21 [with Eng. summary]
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E. Głuszcz-Zwolińska: ‘Music in 16th Century Poland’, Poland: the Land of Copernicus, ed. B. Suchodolski (Wrocław, 1973), 193–204
K. Mrowiec: ‘Kolędy w osiemnastowiecznych rękopisach biblioteki klasztoru św. Andrzeja w Krakowie’ [Carols in 18th-century manuscripts from the library of St Andrzej's monastery in Kraków], Muzyka, xviii/3 (1973), 29–50
M. Perz, ed.: Sources of Polyphony up to c1500, AMP, xiii–xiv (1973–6)
T. Przybylski: Kultura muzyczna Krakowa na przełomie XVIII i XIX wieku [Kraków's musical culture at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries] (Kraków, 1974)
T. Maciejewski: ‘Inwentarz muzykaliów kapeli karmelickiej w Krakowie na Piasku z lat 1665–1684’ [The inventory of musical materials of the Carmelite monastery at Kraków from the years 1665–1684], Muzyka, xxi/2 (1976), 77–99
E. Głuszcz-Zwolińska: ‘Über die Untersuchungen zur Musikkultur der polnischen Renaissance im 16. Jahrhundert’, Musica slavica: Beiträge zur Musikgeschichte Osteuropas, ed. E. Arro (Wiesbaden, 1977)
M. Pamuła: ‘Tabulatura muzyki Jana Aleksandra Gorczyna’ [J.A. Gorczyn's Tabulatura muzyki], Muzyka, xxii/2 (1977), 65–78 [with Eng. summary]
T. Maciejewski: ‘Działalność muzyczna bractwa szkaplerznego w kościele OO. karmelitów trzewiczkowych w Krakowie na Piasku’ [Musical activity of the Scapular confraternity in the Carmelite church in Kraków], Muzyka, xxiii/2 (1978), 59–71
K. Mrowiec: ‘Pieśni polskie ku czci św. Stanisława biskupa krakowskiego w kancjonałach i śpiewnikach kościelnych’, Summarium: sprawozdania Towarzystwa naukowego Katolickiego uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, vii (1978), 119–35
E. Cramer: ‘Polish Music in the Sixteenth Century and the Idea of the Golden Age’, Canadian Association of University Schools of Music, ix/2 (1979), 14–23
E. Witkowska-Zaremba: ‘Zasady muzyki w krakowskich traktatach chorałowych z pierwszej połowy XVI wieku’ [Musical rudiments in choral treatises of Kraków from the first part of the 16th century], Muzyka, xxiv/4 (1979), 65–9
C.E. Brewer: ‘“Musica Muris” w krakowskich rękopisach z XIV i XV wieku’ [14th and 15th century Kraków manuscripts on music by Johannes de Muris], Muzyka, xxv/3 (1980), 23–35 [with Eng. summary]
L. Hoffmann-Erbrecht: Henricus Finck, musicus excellentissimus (1445–1527) (Cologne, 1982)
E. Ostaszewska: ‘Decadenza della tradizione cracoviana del “cantus planus multiplex”’, Sodalium voces (Bologna, 1984), 31–7
E. Witkowska, ed.: Liban Jerzy: pisma o muzyce [Liban Jerzy: writings on music] (Kraków, 1984)
E. Witowska-Zaremba: ‘Pojęcie muzyki w krakowskich traktatach Musicae planae połowy XVI wieku’ [The concept of music in the early 16th-century treatises of Musicae planae], Muzyka, xxix/4 (1984), 3–22 [with Eng. summary]
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I. Pawlak: ‘Graduały piotrkowskie jako księgi liturgiczne przeznaczone dla diecezji polskich’ [Piotrków graduals as liturgical books intended for the Polish dioceses], Tradycje muzyczne katedry wawelskiej (Kraków, 1985), 68–80
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E. Dziębowska, ed.: Muzykologia krakowska, 1911–1986 (Kraków, 1987)
A. Reginek: ‘Melodie hymnów brewiarzowych w liturgicznych księgach przedtrydenckich diecezji krakowskiej’, Muzyka, xxxii/2 (1987), 93–7
E. Zwolińska: ‘Musica figurata in the Jagiellonian Mausoleum: some Remarks on the Polyphony of the Wawel Rorantists in the 16th c.’, Polish Art Studies, viii (1987), 145–50
Krakowska szkola kompozytorska: Kraków 1988
E. Głuszcz-Zwolińska: Muzyka nadworna ostatnich Jagiellonów [The court music of the last Jagiellonians] (Kraków, 1988)
D. Brough: Polish Seventeenth-Century Church Music, with Reference to the Influence of Historical, Political, and Social Conditions (New York, 1989)
M. Perz: ‘Na tropie “śpiewnika krakowskiego” c1470: rzecz o fragmencie nr 8a Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej (PL-Kj 8a)’ [On the trail of a ‘Krakówian songbook’ c1470: fragment 8a in PL-Kj], Muzyka, xxxiv/1 (1989), 3–35 [with Eng. summary]
Z.M. Szweykowski: ‘Muzyka w barokowym Krakowie (od Liliusa do Gorczyckiego)’ [Music in Baroque Kraków (from Lilius to Gorczycki)], Kraków sarmacki: Kraków 1989 (Kraków, 1992), 53–62
C.E. Brewer, ed.: Collectio cantilenarum seculi XV, ZHMP, xxx (1990) [with preface in Eng. and Pol.]
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M. Perz: ‘Wawelska przeszłość muzyczna: mity i domniemana rzeczywistość’ [Wawel's musical past: myth and conjecture], Muzyka, xxxv/4 (1990), 3–15 [with Eng. summary]
A. Reginek: ‘Repertuar hymnów diecezji krakowskiej’ [Repertory of hymns from the Kraków diocese], Musica medii aevi, viii (1991), 142–372
M. Perz: ‘Kontrafaktury ballad w rękopisie Krasińskich nr 52 (PL-Wn 8054)’ [Contrafacta of ballades in the Krasinscy manuscript no.52], Musyka, xxxvii/4 (1992), 89–111 [with Eng. summary]
E. Witkowska-Zaremba: Musica Muris i nurt spekulatywny w muzykologii średniowiecznej [Musica Muris and the speculative trend in medieval musicology] (Warsaw, 1992)
M. Perz: ‘The Structure of the Lost Manuscript from the National Library in Warsaw, no.378 (WarN 378)’, From Ciconia to Sweelinck: donum natalicum Willem Elders, ed. A. Clement and E. Jas (Amsterdam, 1994), 1–11
T. Przybylski: Z dziejów nauczania muzyki w Krakowie od średniowiecza do czasów współczesnych [The history of music education in Kraków from the middle ages to the present] (Kraków, 1994)
T.M. Czepiel: Music at the Royal Court and Chapel in Poland, c.1543–1600 (New York, 1996)