UNKNOWN MONOGRAPHS BY JÓZEF MICHAL CHOMINSKI ON THE SONGS OF EDWARD GRIEG (1936) AND THE TEACHING OF HARMONY (1947)

The article reports the results of a document search conducted after the death of Krystyna Wilkowska Chominska (the widow of Professor Józef M. Chominski) at their house in Falenica near Warsaw. The search revealed two unknown complete typewritten monographs. The first of them, entitled 'Zagadnienia konstruktywne w piesni solowej Edwarda Griega' (Construction Issues in the Solo Songs of Edward Grieg) (1936) is Chominski's doctoral thesis, written under the supervision of Professor Adolf Chybinski at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov. In its day it was the first mongraph devoted to Grieg's vocal-instrumental works. Chominski considers the melodics, the rhythmics of the melody, then the harmonic relationship including both the factors stabilising harmonic tonality and the undermining ones, and finally the structure of the composition, with the traditional division into forms with verses and recomposed ones. The second monograph is a theoretical treatise 'Podstawy harmoniki funkcyjnej. Kurs elementarny nauki harmonii' (The Fundamentals of Harmonics. An Elementary Course in Harmony) (1947). This work continues the tradition of Riemann's theory of functional harmony, and its theoretical-symbolic base draws on the nomenclature employed by Hermann Erpf (1927). The textbook starts with an exposition of less complex chords, and goes on to discuss multiple sounds of greater morphological complexity. However, the book does not simply teach how to construct chords, since in reality the particular chapters are devoted mainly to chords' functional potential.