The composition of Episodes for strings and three percussion groups (1959) marked another qualitative change in Serocki’s oeuvre. The composer’s focus shifted from the problems of twelve-note organisation of pitches to timbre and its disposition in the sonic space, as well as to issues associated with musical notation. In this context Episodes constitute Serocki’s farewell of sorts to the twelve-note technique and pointillism, and at the same time – just like Musica concertante – an interesting polemic with the ideas promoted in the Darmstadt circle. This time the composer became interested in the question of spatial relations between “note groups” as a response to Stockhausen’s Gruppen , a work which Serocki had an opportunity to hear in 1958 in Darmstadt. In Episodes he proposed his own concept of spatial movement of sounds, movement generated as a result of a specific placement of instruments on stage. Instruments placed along straight lines (a row of violas and a row double basses), in a V-shape (two rows of cellos), a semicircle (violins) and points (three percussion groups at the sides and at the back) pass successive “sound shapes” to one another, creating an aural effect of sound movement.

Episodes – disposition of instruments

That spatial disposition of instruments became very important to Serocki can be seen in his notes (given as part of his legacy to the University of Warsaw Library) entitled A concert hall for electronic music and untypical placements of instrument groups. With regard to the traditional performer line-up, the composer gives two main indications:

1. The shape of the hall should result functionally from various placements of the ensemble, bearing in mind the general acoustic principles of even dispersion of sounds. The following variants should be taken into account:

• the orchestra or several instrument groups on a raised platform in the middle of the room. The audience surrounding the platform
• traditional layout – one platform as wide as possible, making it possible to generate clear directional effects from several groups
• several platforms surrounding the audience placed in the middle. Various possibilities of placing the entire audience or its part
• as indicated above + platform in the middle

2. Variability of acoustic conditions recommended. The starting point should be the optimum reverberation time for a given cubic capacity – variable adaptation should ensure changes of reverberation upwards and downwards from this value.

Text on concert hall

Though we do not know what happened to Serocki’s design, we do know that this problem remained close to the composer’s heart and in his later works he devoted a lot of attention to the shaping of the stage space. Many of his scores (so varied as Fantasmagoria, Continuum or Pianophonie) are accompanied by detailed graphic instructions (see examples) and comments concerning the placement of instruments. One of the most telling examples is the concept of Continuum. Its performers (six percussionists) are placed in a way that enables them to see each other and each of them with his own set of instruments is a separate source of sound. Although the basic version of the work is a stereophonic concept, the composer did allow performances on an ordinary concert platform (he must have realised that it would not be easy to find an appropriate concert hall). In any case, the desired effect consists in sensations of sounds and murmurs moving in space. Captured within a “continuum”, these sensations determine the essence of the form of the work.

Fantasmagoria – disposition of instrumen...

Continuum – disposition of instruments

Pianophonie – disposition of instruments

The concept of the spatial dimension of music presented in Episodes was also reflected in its score notation. It includes clearly visible, graphically emphasised effects of the expansion or narrowing of the total sound as well as the already mentioned “movement” of sounds and their groups from instrument to instrument. Nevertheless, the score is quite traditional and apart from graphic depictions of movement and changes in the tempo on a curve running between the lines, it does not contain any other unconventional notation measures. It was not until Segmenti for orchestra (1960–61) that Serocki ushered in a true revolution in this respect. The work symbolically opens the mature stage of his work.

After experimenting with dodecaphony and pointillism, Serocki, convinced that understanding should be restored between the composer and the musicians performing his works, proposed a new form of rhythmic notation, in which exact note and rest values were replaced by formulas that were easy to comprehend and perform. These were periodic, aperiodic or the fastest possible sequences of tones as well as those that referred to gradual deceleration or acceleration.

Segmenti for orchestra – explanatory not...

Thus musicians, instead of worrying about how to perform their parts, would know what they were doing and would never say to the composer that something cannot be performed.

– explained Serocki during his Essen lecture. In addition – he argued – his experience with the new notation system associated with performances of Segmenti had been satisfactory, with the usefulness of such solutions being confirmed in conversations with musicians.

The score of the work is completely devoid of any bar-lines, and the conductor only indicates the various entries and moments of synchronisation. The musicians perform their parts according to the graphic proportions and symbols visible in the score, within specific time sections (their total time in seconds is given).

The metre-rhythm novelties presented in Segmenti became a permanent feature of Serocki’s notation system and from that moment on appeared in virtually all his later works. They were accompanied by increasingly sophisticated symbols denoting specific performing actions, unconventional articulations and ways of preparing instruments. The most interesting of these include: in the case of wind instruments – striking the instrument aperture with an open hand and playing just the mouthpiece; the piano – playing the strings, glissandi on the black or the white keys and a great variety of clusters; string instruments – using various tools to generate sound (sticks, jazz brushes, metal rods, plectra and hot rods).

Obviously, the notation system must have influenced the musical substance of Serocki’s works, in which, from the times of Segmenti , there was no room for post-serialist numerical speculations. Musical progression was usually built through non-conventional sequences of specific sections, which were clearly differentiated internally (in terms of their rhythm, timbre, texture and expression). The composer usually referred to them as “segments”. A truly fascinating music was generated, music based primarily on timbre and sound, and just as logical and convincing as the old music, traditionally based on melody and harmony.

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• Kazimierz Serocki, Komponisten-Selbsportrait [Self-Portrait of a Composer] [typescript of a lecture, Essen 1965], University of Warsaw Library.
• Kazimierz Serocki, Sala koncertowa dla muzyki elektronowej i nietypowych ustawień zespołów instrumentalnych [A concert hall for electronic music and untypical placements of instrument groups] [undated manuscript], Warsaw, University of Warsaw Library.

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