1950
26 May – in a letter to Tadeusz Kassern, a composer who was in New York at the time, Palester, embittered by his increasingly difficult financial situation caused by the fact that the PWM does not publish his works and minister Sokorski has not fulfilled his promise concerning performances of Palester’s music in Poland, asks for advice with regard to possible emigration to the USA.
25 August – Dziennik Polski, a Polish daily published abroad, informs its readers that Palester has decided to remain outside Poland: Roman Palester, a well-known Polish composer, has been branded in Poland a formalist and musican influenced by the West. Ordered to return to his country, Palester refused and remained in Paris. He is the first distinguished artist from behind the iron curtain to have chosen freedom'.
Palester rejects an offer of collaboration with the Kranichsteiner Institut in Darmstadt.
1951
26 May – in a letter to Tadeusz Kassern, a composer who was in New York at the time, Palester, embittered by his increasingly difficult financial situation caused by the fact that the PWM does not publish his works and minister Sokorski has not fulfilled his promise concerning performances of Palester’s music in Poland, asks for advice with regard to possible emigration to the USA.
25 August – Dziennik Polski, a Polish daily published abroad, informs its readers that Palester has decided to remain outside Poland: Roman Palester, a well-known Polish composer, has been branded in Poland a formalist and musican influenced by the West. Ordered to return to his country, Palester refused and remained in Paris. He is the first distinguished artist from behind the iron curtain to have chosen freedom'.
Palester rejects an offer of collaboration with the Kranichsteiner Institut in Darmstadt.
1952
In the spring of that year the Palesters move to Munich and begin working for the Polish section of the Radio Free Europe. Roman Palester becomes the head of the culture department and his wife Barbara – the head of the music department.
9 May – broadcast of the first programme from the Music Abolishes Borderscycle. Palester explains the unusual form of this programme-cum-concert. The cycle will become an extremely valuable form of promoting music that is either banned or performed very rarely in Poland. In addition, in his radio programmes Palester carries out a thorough critical analysis of the Polish government’s cultural policy.
Palester completes the work on Three Sonets to Orpheus and the first version of Symphony no. 4.
1953
Palester is a jury member during a composers’ competition in Oslo. He writesPassacaglia for orchestra.
4 December – during a Comment of the Day programme Palester presents an apt analysis of the cultural situation in Poland:
The great Frech painter Degas had this weakness – he liked wiriting poetry in his free time. It seemed to him that he was a better poet than a painter. Once he complained to the poet Mallarmé that he lacked “ideas” for his poems. To which Mallarmé replied that “poems are written not with ideas but with words”. I was remained of this anecdote in connection with the sad situation of music and composers in Poland at the moment. What is this path and where does it lead to – it is not difficult to guess. But the process of total subordination of Polish art to Soviet guidance, the process of destroying everything we have been proud of for many centuries, everything that has made Polish culture independent and great – this process is veiled, hidden behind rich statistics, reports on the successes of Polish artists abroad etc, etc. Anyone who reads those reports carefully will find enough evidence to be able to diagnose the current situation: decline of independent creative thought and limiting the role of art and music to politics only. We hold no national prejudice but it seems to us that the establishment of Polish-Chinese or Polish-Mongolian cultural relations – so triumphantly announced by the press – is not as important to Poles as the Warsaw press claims. In fact, “Polish-Mongolian” is an excellent term to describe the direction which the current Warsaw governors would like Polish culture to take.
1954
Palester begins to be affected by problems associated with the performances of his works at the ISCM Festivals, because it turns out that Festival entries should be submitted by national sections.
Palester’s new compositions include Preludes for piano, second version ofNocturne for orchestra and Adagio for orchestra which is an orchestral version of part III of String Quartet no. 3.
8 July – in a radio programme from the Culture Enslaved cycle Palester enters (for the second time) into a polemic with Andrzej Panufnik.
Wie, że jego wypowiedź jest niezgodna z prawdą, szkodliwa, nieuczciwa i idąca na rękę okupantowi – ale tu wchodzi w grę sprawa giętkiego karku. Tego rodzaju wypowiedzi przynoszą dużą i bezpośrednią korzyść osobistą. Panufnik naśladuje w tym Iwaszkiewicza, który przecież też na zachodzie udaje biednego, pokrzywdzonego liberała, a w Kraju podpisuje oburącz wszystkie możliwe kłamstwa.
So if Panufnik can easily lie in front of the microphone, accusing the West of having created today’s tragic division of the world, then our composer either believes that Polish radio listeners are extremely naïve or does not care whether he lies on air or not. That the former has to be discounted can be seen in the wonderful resistance against bolshevism that millions of Poles put up every day. Thus, only the latter remain. And that is the saddest thing. Do you think, Ladies and Gentlemen, that Panufnik does not know he is telling lies on air? Oh, he knows that very well. He knows that his statements are not true, that they are harmful, dishonest and endorse the occupying authorities – but this is a matter of a “flexible neck”. Such statements bring substantial and direct personal profits. In this, Panufnik follows Iwaszkiewicz, who in the West pretends to be a poor, persecuted liberal and in Poland endorses all possible lies.
However, when Panufnik will soon find himself in the West as a refugee from Poland, Palester will receive him very warmly.
1955
9 March – Palester comments on the inaugural concert at the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall (recently renamed National Philharmonic) rebuilt from the ravages of war.
All in all, it was a serious concert that would encourage me to fully endorse the revived philharmonic, were it not for the fact that its repertoire will have to conform to the requirements of the government’s cultural policy. That philharmonic will not be fully “Polish”, despite its grand new name, as long as the communists have power in Warsaw. For a vast part of truly Polish music will not have access to it and will still be banned. That is why this part of Polish music has to seek refuge abroad for the time being. But the moment of freedom has to come one day. And then it will be time to call the philharmonic “national”.
7 October – Palester, Andrzej Panufnik and Antoni Szałowki receive the first Musical Prize of the Polish Guard Units attached to American Forces in Europe.
Palester writes Concertino per clavicembalo e dieci strumenti su temi di vecchie danze polacche and Variazioni per orchestra.
1956
Palester is a jury member during a composers’ competition in Stockholm.
No new work by Palester will be composed that year. Despite the fact that Palester has reserved the afternoons for composing, his intense work at the radio is beginning to have an adverse effect on his work as a composer.
Palester closely follows the changes in Poland: beginning of the political “thaw” and the establishment of a contemporary music festival – Warsaw Autumn.
We have no intention yet to write today synthetically and generally about the Warsaw festival. When it comes to its objectives and doubts which these objectives raised – we have talked about them already. Therefore, there is no need for us to reiterate all our artistic reservations. It is better to deal with impressions and reflections provoked by particular works. When in comes to non-Polish music, generally speaking: European music, not only did the festival bring no revelations, but its programme was simply a compilation of randomly chosen pieces from the last few decades. […] On the other hand, the Polish programme was undoubtedly put together very thoughfully and with a clear general objective in mind. Musicians in Poland will occassionally bandy about the enigmatic slogan of “Polish style” in music and they have not been doing it in vain. This issue is very close to our hearts, though we – the exiles – can talk more freely about it as we have no political servitudes and no ministry – fortunately – from which we could get money for commissions and artistic propaganda in exchange for lofty slogans. There is no doubt that a style cannot be “ordered” or commissioned. It seems to us that today we are further than ever from this sought-after “Polish style” in music. And this is not because of all those destructive years of socialist realism. No. Our times simply do not favour such a development.
1957
Following the political changes in Poland Palester’s works are performed in his homeland: 11 June – performance of Passacaglia in Cracow; 14-16 June in Bydgoszcz and 27 and 28 September in Cracow – performances of theVistula cantata.
1 November – Palester’s Requiem is performed in Warsaw under Bohdan Wodiczko’s baton. The performance is very well received. Bohdan Pociej wrote that not since Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater had we had a more distinguished work from this genre. Unfortunately, Palester’s works soon disappeared again from Polish concert halls.
Palester also establishes contact with the PWM Editions.
1958
28 May – during a Culture News programme Palester comments on the performances of the National Philharmonic in Brussels. This time his comments contain a large dose of optimism:
The orchestra and chorus of the National Philharmonic can develop very beautifully. They have all the means to become well-known all over the world in the next few years. Because they have the energy and enthusiasm. And this is the most important element. But to reach that international level, the level of acclaimed ensembles sought-after by agents, they need panache and broad horizons. With regard to both artistic and organisational matters. All these artists are poorly paid, come up against a lack of understanding of their most basis needs, have no flats and no possibility to develop by getting to know the latest literature for each instrument. They live in conditions that make their each artistic effort doubly valuable. It is only in the light of these numerous everyday sacrifices and other difficulties that we can truly assess the results of their work. We hope that following their success in Brussels something will finally change for the better when it comes to the working conditions for these orchestra musicians. They truly deserve it, because it was they, they and the soloists, they all together achieved the biggest success. As regards the aristic results of concert masters, pianists, violinists and sigers – we will talk about them in the next programme. For each of them truly deserves to be discussed seprarately and at length.
2 October – Palester’s Symphony no. 4 is peformed at the 2nd Warsaw Aututmn Festival. The next performance of Palester’s music at the Warsaw Autumn will not come until 1977.
Palester writes two works for chamber orchestra: Piccolo concerto and Study 58.
1959
13 July – Palester’s radio programme from the Window to the West cycle devoted to the rebuilding of Teatr Wielki [Grand Theatre] in Warsaw. Palester was always deeply concerned about opera – in the same year he began working on his own attempt at this genre – that is why he wanted to share with the listeners his concerns about the opera company, more prone to giving in to political influence than the Philharmonic.
22 November – publication of Bogusław Schaeffer’s article on Palester devoted to an analysis of the Polish composer’s sound language.
Palester writes String Trio no. 2 and completes the work on Music for 2 pianos and orchestra and the second version of Violin Concerto.