“I Am a Manufacturer of Impressions.”

The collection of statements by Zbigniew Bargielski (born in 1937) describing his own oeuvre consists of texts in various forms. These include: the composer’s commentaries on his works printed in concert programmes accompanying the world premieres of his compositions; short notes in the scores; occasional reviews of compositions; the rare interviews where an open discussion of problems related to his music inspired the composer to comment; and the composer’s personal notes from different periods of his artistic activity. Valuable reference material also includes speeches by Zbigniew Bargielski recorded on audio and video devices, e.g. event documentation. Zbigniew Bargielski’s self-commentaries deal with various aspects of musical language: structure, morphology, syntax, phonology, expression and meaning - the latter mentioned specifically in the context of the artist-audience relationship. Additionally, self-reflection includes the definition of aesthetic preferences and the composer’s artistic “worldview” which determines the choice of ideas and the means of their musical implementation. Moreover, Bargielski considers the possibility of a “transmission” - via musical gestures - of the sphere of his own experiences. In his notes from the recent months, he attempts to describe the transformations of his own musical language, which is of special importance considering the almost sixty-year-long period of his artistic work.