The Aurea Porta Friends of the Arts Foundation is completing a project—developed over roughly a decade and a half—of digitizing and cataloguing materials from the archive of Bogusław Schaeffer. As a result, the rich artistic legacy of the composer and playwright, one of the most original creators of the 20th century, is being preserved for future generations while also gaining a presentation suited to the 21st century.
This wide-ranging undertaking includes activities such as collecting, securing, transporting, and conserving materials (scores, texts, graphics, manuscripts, and facsimiles) originating from the artist’s private archive. These materials are stored at the Foundation’s headquarters, where they are organized, inventoried, and archived, and additionally described in popularizing notes and in a catalogue of compositions originally prepared by Dr. Jadwiga Hodor.
A key element of the work is specialist conservation (including disinfection, deacidification, and binding), the scope of which was determined through expert consultations. These actions are intended to protect the collection from irreversible damage that would otherwise threaten it, given that the materials had been stored in the artist’s Kraków (Nowa Huta) apartment in conditions far removed from archival standards.
Documentation is also being compiled by gathering information about library materials and indicating the availability of audiovisual and “dispersed” materials (the composer often lent his works to performers without requiring their return).
In parallel with conservation work, the collections are being digitized. Thousands of pages in various formats have been scanned, and separate digitization workflows compliant with current standards have been developed for different types of resources. Musical scores are presented in JPEG, TIFF, and PDF formats, while audio and audiovisual materials are provided in WAV and MP4 formats (with website responsiveness maintained).
The expansion of the digital repository aims to reintegrate outstanding—and often forgotten—works into cultural circulation. Digital copies of physical objects are made available free of charge for artistic, research, popularization, and educational use. This is supported by the official website (designed by the Ciekawość team), as well as by maintaining dedicated collections in the Polona and Europeana digital libraries.
The archive has become a source for the project Avant-Garde Cultural Education: Bogusław Schaeffer’s Instrumental Theatre, which resulted in the instructional mini-series Let’s Make Sound Together!, presenting excerpts of interpretations created in the spirit of “this does not need to be played; it needs to inspire”: Duetto for flute (performed on a balloon flute), Trio for flute, viola, and guitar (on a can gopi), 19 Short Pieces (on a kalimba), and Variants for Solo Oboe (on a straw oboe, performed by Paweł Romańczuk).
It is also worth mentioning the cycle of music-and-visual-arts workshops Space, Symmetry, and Figures in Music and Art (alternative title: Space, Sets, and Figures, or Geometry in Music, Art, and Mathematics. Music-and-Art Workshops Inspired by the Work of Bogusław Schaeffer), as well as the exhibition Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where a score of Conceptual Music for Percussion, Piano, and Computer, loaned by the Foundation, was presented.
Importantly, in 2025 interest in Schaeffer among the stage, concert platforms, and academia also remained strong, as evidenced by, among others:
- the concert White vs. Black. A Dialogue of Contrasts. A New Take on Instrumental Theatre at the Masovian Museum in Płock (provoking extreme reactions);
- the 17th Era Schaeffera Festival: Non-stop / Factory of Sounds and an evening with Schaeffer’s music and improvised jazz-style Gombrowicz (dir. Łukasz Czuj);
- a theatre-television adaptation of Quartet for Four Actors (dir. Mikołaj Grabowski);
- performances of musical compositions (such as Two Elegies for violin and piano presented as part of the 100th Anniversary Festival of the Polish Composers’ Union, Electronic Mass in Joanna Duda’s revision, and బోగుస్లా షాఫర్తో సంభాషణలు—non-existent but possible dialogues with Bogusław Schaeffer by Krzysztof Klima);
- book publications (the long-awaited The Phenomenon of New Music. The Universe of Bogusław Schaeffer by Jadwiga M. Hodor, head of the Kraków Civic Committee for the Memory of Bogusław Schaeffer).
In the past year, the Foundation and its collaborators also watched with admiration the dynamically developing talent of Filip Gołdanowski (b. 2008), the archive’s custodian, composer, and pianist. The young artist gave two authorial recitals in Warsaw and two recitals in Paris, where he also presented works by other composers, including Schaeffer’s Short Piece for Piano.
The project was co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund—a state special-purpose fund.
Partner: Legalna Kultura.
Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC
