The Department of Musicology conducts research in the field of music history from the Middle Ages to the present day, as well as ethnomusicology. While the focus is on the Polish musical tradition, issues related to the music of other countries and regions are also addressed. In particular, the Department specialises in in-depth source research, editorial work and documentation, developed in international cooperation. The Music History Section publishes the quarterly magazine Muzyka, the Monumenta Musicae in Polonia series, the Catalogue of Music Sources in Poland, and the Polish Music Abroad series. Alongside individual projects, the Ethnomusicology Section publishes the Polska Pieśń i Muzyka Ludowa (Polish Folk Song and Music) series. The department organises seminars with foreign guests and regular conferences, including the Symposium of Music Historians of the Second Half of the 18th and 19th Centuries.
The Department is headed by Paweł Gancarczyk, Associate Professor.
- Music History Section – Catalogue of Music Sources
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The Catalogue of Music Sources in Poland was established as a result of the Notae Musicae Artis project (funded by the Polish Ministry of Higher Education, Committee for Scientific Research, grant no 1 P 105 015 04). The Catalogue’s goal is to gather information on musical sources preserved in Poland, as well as sources related to the history of Polish music preserved in foreign repositories. These objectives are pursued through archival and source research, the creation of catalogues and databases, the organization of conferences, and the preparation of scholarly publications. The Catalogue focuses primarily on liturgical-musical sources (including post-Tridentine), sources on music theory, and musical iconography.
Currently, the Catalogue is conducting studies in the following areas:
- Cistercian plainchant manuscripts (up to ca. 1600)
- Dominican plainchant manuscripts
- Polish plainchant manuscripts and prints form the 17th and 18th centuries
- Musical notation in Polish plainchant sources (up to ca. 1600)
- Music-theoretical manuscripts and prints from the 13th to the 16th century
- Musical iconography
- History of liturgy, especially its political significance
- Manuscript cultures and theologies of the political in the Early and High Middle Ages
- preparation of an online platform enabling the automation of cataloging liturgical sources (Ritus+ project)
Researchers from the Catalogue collaborate with the Manuscripta.pl project team (Institute of the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences) and with the Archive of the Polish Province of the Dominican Order in Kraków, as well as with the research teams Usuarium (Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, ELTE), and eCLLA+ (University of Regensburg in cooperation with the Henry Bradshaw Society, London).
Ongoing Projects
- Cantus Planus in Polonia is a database dedicated to plainchant sources preserved in Polish libraries and archives. Each manuscript is entered with a general description and is successively indexed. The database is integrated into the Cantus Index Network.
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Liturgica Poloniae. A Descriptive Catalogue of Polish Liturgical Manuscripts, copied until ca. 1300. The project aims to meticulously catalogue approximately 110 liturgical manuscripts copied until ca. 1300, currently held in Polish and foreign repositories.
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Early Music in Central Europe: Collaborative Research, Migrating Sources, Transregional Connections (project funded by the Visegrad Fund; Strategic Grant: 22310209; 2023-2026). The project brings together four research teams to explore key areas of early-music studies (with a focus on liturgical monody). Four workshops organized across the V4 countries foster the exchange of knowledge, research methods, and scholarly perspectives.
- Musical and Liturgical Traditions in Medieval Poland and Hungary – bilateral project between Insttute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute for Musicology in Budapest (2024-2026) that enables research collaboration, archive queries, participation in the lectures and conferences and planning further collaborative projects.
- Musical-theoretical and teaching traditions in Europe in the 14th-16th centuries – an individual project carried out within an informal cooperation with musicologists from Great Britain and the United States. Current works focus on the reception of Boethius’s treatise De institutione musica. European source materials from the 9th—16th centuries constitutes a large context for analysing and interpreting Polish texts. collected as part of the project provide a broad context for the analysis and interpretation of Polish texts.
Documentation of source materials muzycznych [in Polish]
Research Team: Prof. Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba (Head of the Research Unit), Dr Irina Chachulska, Dr Dominika Grabiec, Dr Paweł Figurski
Contact: Tel.: +48 22 50 48 238
- Music History Section – Monumenta Musicae in Polonia
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The series “Monumenta Musicae in Polonia” was founded in 1951 by Józef M. Chomiński, who served as its first editor-in-chief. From 1972 to 2004 the series was led by Jerzy Morawski, and since 2005 it has been managed by Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarmińska. “Monumenta Musicae in Polonia” publishes musical works and theoretical works on music in the form of critical editions, as well as the most valuable musical sources in facsimile editions. The series encompasses works created in Poland or associated with it, dating from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century. The “Monumenta Musicae in Polonia” team not only conducts editorial work, but also initiates research on early music and music editing.
See: Monumenta Musicae in Polonia – Editorial Series
Editorial Staff: Editor-in-chief: Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarmińska, Assistant Professor, Assistant editor: Jakub Chachulski, PhD, Katarzyna Korpanty, PhD, Julia Palacz, MA
- Music History Section – Polish Music Abroad
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The aim of the team is to conduct research on the work and activities of Polish composers active outside Poland in the 20th and 21st centuries. Among the composers who have received particular attention are Zygmunt Mycielski, Roman Palester, Andrzej Panufnik, Karol Rathaus and Ludomir Michał Rogowski. The team is also interested in foreign centres promoting Polish musical culture, with particular emphasis on Europe and North America.
An international project is being implemented in the years 2025–2027 Polish and Lithuanian Music in Global Perspective: Migration, Diasporic Identities and Homeland (project leader: dr hab. Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska, prof. IS PAN).
The team organises regular conferences and initiates and edits subsequent volumes of the book series „Muzyka Polska za Granicą” [Polish Music Abroad].
Conferences from the series POLISH MUSIC ABROAD
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PARIS AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE MUSICAL CULTURE OF THE 20TH-CENTURY CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE. The 6th International Conference of the ‘Polish Music Abroad’ Conference Series. Warsaw, 16–18.09.2026. CALL FOR PAPERS
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Z muzyką w świat! Sto lat polskiej sekcji Międzynarodowego Towarzystwa Muzyki Współczesnej [With music into the world! One hundred years of the Polish section of the International Society for Contemporary Music]. Warsaw, 20.09.2024. PROGRAMME
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Warsaw Autumn Festival – its role and significance for the musical life of the countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain (and after its fall). ONLINE, 16–17.09.2021. Scientific Conference organised by the Department of Musicology of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Composers' Union. PROGRAMME
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„American dream”. Polscy twórcy za oceanem [The American dream. Polish artists overseas]. Warsaw, 15-16.10.2019. PROGRAMME
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Kompozytorzy polscy a Paryż (1918−1939) [Polish composers and Paris (1918–1939)]. Warsaw, 16.05.2018. PROGRAMME
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Twórcy – źródła – archiwa [Authors – sources – archives]. Warsaw, 25-26.01.2017. PROGRAMME
Other conferences:
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Zygmunt Mycielski: człowiek, myśl, muzyka [Zygmunt Mycielski: man, thought, music]. Interdisciplinary Scientific Conference organised by the Department of Musicology of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Musicologists Section of the Polish Composers' Union. Warsaw, 8 May 2017. PROGRAMME
Interdisciplinary seminars entitled „Migracje artystyczne w XIX, XX i XXI wieku” [Artistic Migration in the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries], open to all, are held ONLINE on the last Tuesday of each month at 1 p.m.
See: Polish Music Abroad - Editorial Series
Teatm: dr hab. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, prof. IS PAN (Team leader), dr hab. Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska prof. IS PAN
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- Music History Section – Editorial Office of the Quarterly “Muzyka”
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Kwartalnik „Muzyka” wydawany jest nieprzerwanie od 1956 roku i pozostaje wiodącym pismem muzykologicznym w Polsce. Publikuje teksty z zakresu historii muzyki od średniowiecza do współczesności, a także etnomuzykologii i muzykologii systematycznej. Główny punkt ciężkości poruszanej w nim problematyki stanowi polska tradycja muzyczna, w jej możliwie szerokim rozumieniu, oraz kultura krajów Europy Środkowej. Artykuły publikowane są w językach polskim lub angielskim i podlegają procedurze recenzyjnej. Wszystkie teksty począwszy od 2018 roku udostępniane są bezpłatnie na stronie internetowej czasopisma: https://czasopisma.ispan.pl/index.php/m/index. Członkowie zespołu redakcyjnego „Muzyki” oprócz pracy na rzecz kwartalnika, prowadzą własne badania nad historią muzyki od XV do XX wieku.
Zespół: dr hab. Paweł Gancarczyk prof. IS PAN (redaktor naczelny), dr Bartłomiej Gembicki, dr hab. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, prof. IS PAN, dr Małgorzata Sieradz, dr hab. Grzegorz Zieziula prof. IS PAN
- Music History Section – NCN project „Music and Crusading in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1453-1683”
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Music and Crusading in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1453-1683
While most people consider the crusades as a series of religious wars for the conquest of the Holy Land that happened between 1095 and 1291, today historians embrace a definition of crusading that also encompasseslater military endeavours happened in the late medieval and early modern period. In the years between the 1453 and 1683, the Ottoman Empire was considered the main crusading enemy and the crusading message was part of a wide effort of propaganda throughout Europe, which included also works of art. While historians and crusading scholars have considered how the crusading message was portrayed in the visual arts and literature, still the musical side has been substantially ignored. At the same time, musicologists have privileged researching music in the classical period of crusading, and did not take into consideration how historians interpreted the later movement.
The main goal of Music and Crusading is to provide the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary study that integrates crusading rhetoric into the musical culture of late medieval and early modern Europe. Focussingon the crusades against the Ottoman Empire, the project will detail how music negotiated idea about the Turks, celebrated military victories, promoted crusading message in different areas of society. Chronologically, the project will focus on the period between 1453, year of the Fall of Constantinople, and 1683, when the victory of the European camp at the Battle of Vienna, under the command of the Polish king Jan III Sobieski, turned the tide of the Ottoman territorial expansion in Europe.
The project will look at a broad geographic area, with particular attention for areas that are important in crusading history both for their proximity to the battlegrounds or for their importance in shaping crusading propaganda. Particular attention will be given to the Central European regions, such as those of present Czechia, Poland, and Hungary, that have been traditionally marginalized by crusading scholars as well as musicologists.
Zespół: dr Nicolò Ferrari (kierownik projektu)
- Ethnomusicology Section – Polish Folk Song and Music
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Prowadzone w Pracowni Etnomuzykologii badania dotyczą przede wszystkim tradycyjnych kultur muzycznych w Polsce – zarówno w ich historycznym, jak i współczesnym wymiarze. Studia regionalistyczne, prowadzone z udziałem współpracowników z innych ośrodków naukowych i z terenu, owocują serią monograficzną „Polska Pieśń i Muzyka Ludowa – Źródła i Materiały”, wydawaną od 1974 roku. Główny korpus źródeł dla tej serii stanowią nagrania archiwalne ze Zbiorów Fonograficznych IS PAN, sukcesywnie powiększane o nowe rejestracje muzyki tradycyjnej. Indywidualne zainteresowania badawcze rozwijane są w Pracowni w takich obszarach jak studia nad śpiewem tradycyjnym, ludową muzyczną kulturą religijną, wykonawstwem muzyki tradycyjnej oraz nią inspirowanej, tworzenie nowych koncepcji metodologicznych w badaniach etnomuzykologicznych. Ważne miejsce zajmuje współpraca – także w wymiarze międzynarodowym – z innymi instytucjami naukowymi i akademickimi, ośrodkami kultury i muzeami oraz mediami, realizowana poprzez regularne wykłady, audycje, konsultacje, uczestnictwo w konferencjach, komisjach konkursowych muzyki tradycyjnej i folkowej, koncertach oraz innych projektach badawczych i artystycznych.
Zobacz: Polska Pieśń i Muzyka Ludowa - seria wydawnicza
Zespół: dr Weronika Grozdew-Kołacińska (kierowniczka Pracowni), dr Agata Krajewska-Mikosz, dr Arleta Nawrocka-Wysocka (Poznań), mgr Barbara Śnieżek, dr inż. Magdalena Chudy
- PhD Students and Fellows in the Department of Musicology
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Łukasz Kaczmarowski, Szkoła Doktorska Anthropos IPAN (promotor: dr hab. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, prof. IS PAN)
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Łucja Siedlik, Szkoła Doktorska Anthropos IPAN (promotor: dr hab. Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska, prof. IS PAN)
- Jordan Lian - stypendystka Fulbrighta (opieka naukowa: dr hab. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, IS PAN i dr Piotr Wciślik, IBL PAN)
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