As Serocki became aware of a crisis of form in the music of his time, he developed his own proposal for a solution to the problem, using “sound structures” with distinct sound characteristics. Importantly, the way they were presented and combined within a specific musical work was based on the principle of similarity and contrast, i.e. referred to the basic laws of human auditory perception. That Serocki saw the form from a psychological perspective can be seen in what he himself said about it. In a lecture entitled Chance der offenen Form, prepared for a 1976 composition masterclass at the Musikakademie in Basel, he said, for example, that “form in music facilitates the musical percpetion of [...] figures of time (‘Zeitgestalten’)”. Consequently, he assumed that

• the form is more than a formal pattern;
• the form is psychological-subjective and hence intentional;
• the form as perception is not only psychological-subjective, but also is understood through organised figures of time (Zeitgestalten);
• the Zeitgestalten, called structures, may become a form only when they can be perceived aurally, though there are structures which do not fulfil this condition (e.g. serial structures).

In Serocki’s works these “structures” or “figures of time” were not combined in accordance with any single, universal pattern. The composer tested various solutions, the most important among which seems to be a “segmental” approach and a closed form (with a definite shape) or an open form. This is particularly about a form which he called polysemous (“mehrdeutigen Form"), i.e. one that can exist in many performing versions. Thus Serocki joined an intense discussion going on in the 1960s in the European avant-garde circles, during which important and inspiring proposals were put forward by, for example, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez or György Ligeti.

Serocki was occupied especially with the working of chance in a musical composition. Having generally rejected all solutions that questioned the responsibility of the composer for the work in its entirety, he focused on those that introduced an element of indeterminacy with regard to the performing side. The musicians were left with deciding on the order of performing some elements or on their selection. For Serocki, the most important problem seemed to be the preservation of the identity of a musical work, i.e. composing the structures in such a way that they would be able to adapt to any of the possible (and provided for by the composer) complete forms.

When giving practical advice to the participants in the above mentioned masterclass, he talked about the following problems in this context:

• Shaping of individual elements of the form;
• Relations between the various formal elements with regard to the form of the entire work (in “polysemous works” also relations between larger segments);
• Tangibility of the complete form with the preservation of its polysemous nature.

Thus, he continued, each element of the form should have three significant properties:

• It must make up a closed, independent structure;
• Each such structure must have its own, distinct musical character;
• Each such structure must – within the concept of the entire work – be composed in a way that would make it possible to connect it at the beginning and at the end to other structures; thus, if some other structure (or structures) is delivered before or after it, it can produce a unit of musical progression that can be part of the formal continuum.

These were by no means purely theoretical speculations. Serocki used them successfully in several of his own works, beginning with A piacere for piano, composed already in late 1962 and early 1963. In this case for the first time he left it to the performer to decide on the order of the basic “structures” of the piece, writing them out in three segments – “parts” – which differed in terms of expression. As Tadeusz A. Zieliński suggests, in this work Serocki managed to achieve a coherent musical progression “to a much lesser extent than in his later, open-form works”. It would be difficult not to agree with this statement, given the fact that Arrangements for 1-4 recorders (1976) and Ad libitum (written in 1973-77) take up the problem of the multi-version form in connection with solving many other technical and expression-related problems.

The first of these composition is characterised not only by freedom in arranging the various segments over time (there are seventeen of them), but also by variability of the performer line-up, which offers fifteen different variants. In addition, the composer allows for the various versions of the piece being performed during one concert or even being performed simultaneously in several rooms of one building, with the listeners moving from one room to another, which is, in fact, another proposal associated with the spatiality of music. At the same time, the composer’s idea is so precise that it does not allow any questioning of the coherence of the entire work as well as its identity.

Ad libitum crowns Serocki’s experiments with the open form. The starting order – five parts (“works” as he called them, which suggest an ideological affinity with Arnold Schoenberg’s 5 Orchesterstücke) made of 5-8 “segments” – makes it possible to compose them in a way that ultimately comes down to choosing a specific dramatic effect for the whole work and its emotional meaning. The selected and combined elements differ substantially in terms of tempo, dynamics, colour and expression. The integrity of both pieces is safeguarded by Serocki’s mastery of composition, his efforts to ensure a sense and artistic value for each possible arrangement, but, at the same time, it is directly influenced by the performer – creative interpreter of the composer’s concept.

***

We must undoubtedly agree with Tadeusz A Zieliński, who regards Serocki as “the most authentic and consistent innovator in Polish music since Szymanowski”. His achievements with regard to the form of musical works, colour-related sonic inventiveness and – last but not least– musical notation are undoubtedly of unique and lasting significance. The composer’s oeuvre chimes with the Aristotelian paradigm of musical beauty – which lies in the form, in the way in which the material of a composition is organised. Yet this attitude does not result – as it was the case with many works of the musical avant-garde – in abstract speculations, but, to use Zieliński’s expression, in “colourful frescoes” and “poetic fantasies”, in music that sounds real and is accessible to the listeners.

In formulating his bold vision of a modern musical language, Serocki proposed solutions dictated not only by “the mind”, but primarily by “the ear and the heart”. Sonic beauty, drama and emotions carried by Serocki’s music are timeless; they build a bridge over the world of modernist -isms and postmodernist simplifications towards the most lasting values. The composer never forgot that he wrote his works not for himself but for the listeners and that these works should be “completely convincing as music”. When we also realise how important it was for him to restore “proper relations” between the composer and the performers, it is hard to believe that after Serocki’s death his oeuvre did not take its rightful place – commensurate with its artistic value and perception-related attractiveness – in the musical space, concert halls and recordings. Let us hope that its time will eventually come...

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• Tadeusz A. Zieliński, O twórczości Kazimierza Serockiego [On Kazimierz Serocki’s Oeuvre], Kraków 1985.
• Kazimierz Serocki, Chance der offenen Form [manuscript of a lecture, Basel 1976], Warsaw, University of Warsaw Library.
• Kazimierz Serocki, Komponisten-Selbsportrait [Self-Portrait of a Composer] [typescript of a lecture, Essen 1965], University of Warsaw Library.

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