Tales of PRES The text was first published in Polish in a book Czarny pokój i inne pokoje. Zbiór tekstów o Studiu Eksperymentalnym Polskiego Radia (The black room and other rooms, series of texts about the Polish Radio Experimental Studio) (Łódź, 2018), published by the Museum of Art in Łódź, Automaphone Foundation, and Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Courtesy of the Automatophone Foundation in Warsaw. Translated into English by Kamil Sznajder. Creative play with sounds inside the PRES. Krzysztof Knittel in conversation with Michal Libera and Michal Mendyk What was your knowledge about the Studio like, before you started working there? When starting, were you more interested in the broad idea of electroacoustic music, or the Polish Radio Experimental Studio itself? I owe my first encounter with the Polish Radio Experimental Studio to professor Krzysztof Szlifirski. Before studying composition, I have been granted a title of a Master of the Sound Design faculty, at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Poland. Szlifirski taught electroacoustic music of the faculty, and used the infamous Black Room of the experimental studio as a classroom- those were my first experiences with sound effects achieved via changing the playback speed of tape recorders, filters and ring modulation. In other words, Szlifirski was teaching us all the methods used for music-making in the PRES. Some of this equipment was already familiar, due to the earlier lessons at the university, such as filters, delays, or echo chambers. Since my first encounters with the studio, PRES for me was an extended musical instrument, that allowed working with all the possibilities of electronic apparatus. My attempts at analogue music processing and realising experimental music started on my home tape player Tesla. The sounds I have recorded there were later used in fun street performance, perhaps in 1971, during a student-run festival in Wroclaw, Poland. All of this happened before I started my composition studies. I knew the names of creators working within the PRES, they were also my professors. such as Andrzej Dobrowolski, who has been teaching me contemporary techniques of composition. Another one was Włodzimierz Kotoński, that I have met as a great dean, as well as a professor of composition. At the very beginning, the composition studies were lead by Tadeusz Bairda, and after he left, I was assigned to great and international composition classes by Dobrowolski, where lessons were guided in the presence of all the students and foreign interns, and we all learned from each other, together with reading every score. After the departure of prof. Dobrowolski to Graz, Austria, where he also taught composition, he was replaced by Wlodzimierz Kotoński, with whom, similarly to Dobrowolski, I have become great friends. This way artists known for their work created within the 1 of 6 Tales of PRES PRES became my teachers, friends and people of mutual trust. Numerous times, that I have helped Kotonski with the realisation of his works, also as a musician playing on a synthesiser. We have also travelled together, to the World Music Days in Paris, in 1975, where the famous French clarinettist and composer Michel Portal, in the Theatre de la Ville, performed punkty/linie (1973), my composition on clarinet, electronic sounds (released in the PRES), with slideshow. Afterwards, together we travelled to Buffalo, where Kotoński was teaching composition at the State University of New York in Buffalo, while I played piano in a group titled The Center of the Creative Performing Arts, established in 1964 by notable composers, including Lukas Foss. During my stay in Buffalo, the group was lead by Morton Feldman and Lejaren Hiller and managed by Renee Levine Packer. This trip, however, I owe to Józef Patkowski, that acquainted me with Hiller while his 6 months stay in Poland, filled with intense concerts, working at PRES, and teaching at the music school. Similarly, as with Kotonski, I have helped Hiller with his concerts. Back to the Experimental Studio - everything in there was different: the work atmosphere, friendship between workers, creative spirit, and also the look of the office, ruled by Grażyna Karasiewicz, Michal Birstiger’s wife (the first women working within the small team of the PRES, later joined by two young sound engineers- Barbara Okoń and Ewa Guziołek). She [Karasiewicz] was a good spirit of the Studio, taking care of all the paperwork and contracts. Her workplace was located in a room with Józef Patkowski and Krzysztof Szlifirski on one of the higher floors, in the building located at Malczewski street [in Warsaw]. Entering this “command centre” I always had an impression, despite the grey surroundings of the Polish People's Republic in the 70s, that I am entering a room of the Austrian or the French studio. Everything there was different than anywhere else- colourful decorations, books, desks, and, what is the most important, the atmosphere, that was nice, friendly, and without, then omnipresent, mistrust. I knew that the studio was a highly appreciated institution in the circle of music composition in the world, but for me, it was, most importantly, a great electroacoustic workshop, that, thanks to the friendship and personal relationships, quickly became my place for creative work, a second home, where I have spent many busy nights, as the building was then empty and quiet. During the day the studio was usually occupied by Eugeniusz Rudnik and Bohdan Mazurek. My first steps within the walls of the PRES were made already during my composition degree at the PWSM [now known as The Chopin University of Music]. I have had the awareness of the value that electroacoustic music has brought to the world of music, and how important for Polish music was the activity of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio. Moreover, as a beginner composer, I took the invitation to work in the Studio, given to me by Patkowski, as a huge privilege and honour. Yes- privilege and honour… Interesting that today broadly understood electronic music seems to have become a synonym for artistic egalitarianism. But then, in the 70s, access to technology was still very much limited… It was quite a pleasant feeling of affiliation to an elite, creative club, that, in the place of financial contribution, the duty was to constantly expand your knowledge about electronic technologies, accomplishments of other studios in the world, as well as working as a composer within the new and young field of music art. The problem was, of course, a lack of ability to work from home, shortage of electronic instruments. Access to PRES was limited due to the political circumstances- radio has been used as a medium of socialist propaganda, and, to access the studio, a permit was needed. Luckily, Grażyna Karaśkiewicz took good care of young composers, so I could enter the studio quite often. When in 1978 I departed to Buffalo for a 6 months apprenticeship, I have received a set of keys- one to the computer studio, and one to the main building, so I can use the studio on Sundays when everything is closed. I have then gotten a nice feeling of social trust and freedom- after all, I was a person from behind the Iron Curtain… Today, 2 of 6 Tales of PRES access to electronic devices and computer apps is common, but it does not mean that everything has changed, because, just like before, the key is in knowledge, skills and talent. Don’t you think that it’s the other way? That the quality of electronic music in its first decades was higher, due to its elitism? It is not for me to judge, however, I think that in the first years of the existence of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio, many remarkable compositions were released, such as those of Kotoński, Dobrowolski, Scheffer, Rudnik, and François-Bernard Mâche. How did you find the works of PRES in an international context when you entered PRES? Was it just a local answer to composers from Germany, France and America? Or was it a specific phenomenon, with its own aesthetic and identity? In my opinion, the works of the Polish Experimental Studio did not depart from the quality of electronic and concrete music of the West. Certainly, the character of Polish works has been influenced by the political system of the times, no free speech, difficulties in travels, and inaccessibility of the world’s newest musical scores and experiments. I think that the invaluable persona of Krzysztof Patkowski was doing everything he could to fill in the gaps, such as in newly recorded music, that he was ordering to the studio and presenting during his show The Horizons of Music. Scores have been available to the library of the Union of Polish Composers, which were thoroughly collected after each edition of the Warsaw Autumn Festival. Another serious problem was the unawareness of western institutions about what was being created in Poland. The Polish Radio did not share works created within the studio, and there was no one to take care of sharing the legacy of the studio. None of the Polish compositions found themselves on the big collection of electroacoustic music, of the years from 1937 until 2001. At the very beginning of your career- were you then looking at the field of electronic music as an untamed land? Or had it already have some tradition, conventions and limitations? When I started creating my first autonomous composition in the Studio (and it was made from the tapes that consisted of electronic sounds and processed sounds of a clarinet from the Punkty/ Linie), it was like working in an unknown for me area. Of course, I have been listening to an array of electronic and concrete compositions, made by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel, Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Bruno Maderna, Luciano Beria, Luigi Nono- those were already classics of European studios from Cologne, Paris and Milan.