New Music for an Old Man
Feb 29, 2024 4:20 pm
The artist Marek Zulawski, translation & Polish-British culture
Hi,
Last week, it was announced that my grandfather Jerzy Żuławski would be getting some new music composed in honour of his 150th anniversary this year. There are also going to be some new fancy Polish editions of his famous science fiction trilogy.
The news was published in Polish so I thought I'd just translate that for this edition of the newsletter. I'll publish it on TranslatingMarek.com soon so that it's actually findable by search engines too.
If meanwhile you'd like to know what my father Marek had to say about his father, you can read a translation of something he wrote here.
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Musical-Literary Tribute to Jerzy Żuławski | On the 150th Anniversary of the Author of "On the Silver Globe"
Collage by Zupełnie Inna Opowieść
This year marks the 150th anniversary of Jerzy Żuławski – a Polish pioneer of science fiction, he was also a poet, playwright, philosopher and Legion soldier. In honour of this occasion, the Polish Science Fiction Foundation and Wydawnictwo IX are preparing a unique project.
Published between 1903 and 1911, Żuławski's so-called "Lunar Trilogy" – comprising the novels "On the Silver Globe", "The Conqueror" and "The Old Earth" – is considered a cornerstone of Polish science fiction. The book served as the basis for a famous film (also due to its dramatic history) by the writer's grandnephew Andrzej Żuławski, also called "On the Silver Globe."
The 150th birthday of the father of Polish science fiction will be celebrated by the Polish Science Fiction Foundation and Wydawnictwo IX through a special musical-literary project: an album titled "Commentarii Lunares: In Homage to Jerzy Żuławski" and a jubilee edition of his famous speculative trilogy.
"Commentarii Lunares" will consist of three pieces titled after each part of the trilogy. Each will be composed by a different composer: Norbert Palej – a pianist, conductor and professor of composition at the University of Toronto; Przemysław Rudź – an electronic music creator, sound engineer and author of popular science books on astronomy; and Roman Odoj – a guitarist and mathematician.
The selection of composers is not accidental: each has previously created music inspired by classic science fiction. Norbert Palej's composition "Return from the Stars" honoured the Stanisław Lem's centenary, Przemysław Rudź's 2010 album "Summa Technologiae" is an audio illustration of Lem's famous work, and Roman Odoj has recorded an album inspired by Lem's work called "Fiasco."
The compositions will reflect the individual styles of each composer, forming a musical kaleidoscope united by the shared theme of Jerzy Żuławski's most famous literary works.
The pieces will be preceded by quotes from Żuławski's books, read by Wojciech Gunia, himself a creator of speculative literature and recipient of the Jerzy Żuławski Award for his novel "Dom Motta" (Mott's House).
The publication's graphic design will be the work of Michał Karcz, a world-class and Hugo-nominated conceptual graphic designer. His works have adorned the covers of books by authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Ursula K. LeGuin, Arthur C. Clarke and Kim Stanley Robinson.
The album is scheduled to be released in the third quarter of 2024, around the author's birthday on July 14th.
The album will be complemented by a jubilee edition of the "Lunar Trilogy" published by Wydawnictwo IX in Kraków. These new editions will include expert introductions by Dr. Emmanuella Robak, a researcher of Jerzy Żuławski's work.
The project is being carried out under the auspices of the Polish Science Fiction Foundation, and its originator and co-ordinator is Łukasz Marek Fiema.
I think there may be other things happening connected to Jerzy this year. I will keep you updated, of course. If you'd like to know more about Jerzy, his Wikipedia page is pretty big, plus this article can explain why he's seen as so pivotal to the history of science fiction.
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Photos from Bydgoszcz
The new retrospective of Hanna and Jacek Żuławski's artwork opened last week in Bydgoszcz. It looks like it was pretty busy – my cousin Ewa who was in attendance said it was a wonderful event, and that the exhibition looks fabulous. Click the image below to see photos from the venue's Facebook page. There's also a video of the event here by Polnocna.tv in Polish.
Photo by Karolina Rybka for BWA Bydgoszcz
Keeping to the subject of Jacek Żuławski, one reader of last week's newsletter in which I translated a story about a near-fatal climb up Świnica by my father and his cousin told me that they'd been on that same mountain and that it wasn't a particularly difficult climb.
Yes, the Tatra Mountains today are quite navigable thanks to all the mountaineers who went up them and laid all the steps, roads, signs and chains we use today. But back in the 1920s, most of these comforts didn't exist. A lot of the trails were still unconquered and unmapped, and much of the range was high risk unless you absolutely knew what you were doing.
It was definitely a completely different experience to what you can see below, a scene which is amusingly common today on certain peaks:
Photo taken by me, July 2020
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That's all for this week. Many thanks for reading. I hope you're enjoying today's leap year date appropriately.
Adam
p.s. If anybody you know is looking for a Polish-to-English translator for family memoirs, please do put them in touch with me.
Adam Zulawski