This article is devoted to contemporary compositions for classical guitar inspired by traditional music. The subject of analysis includes two works by Tatiana Stachak’s Variations on the Oberek and Variations with Swing, which represent different musical traditions and distinct approaches to the treatment of folkloristic motifs. The authors present ways in which traditional music is presented in contemporary guitar compositions, attempting also to define and examine its functions, particularly within the field of instrumental pedagogy. The incorporation of folklore into contemporary guitar music combines artistic and educational purposes, supporting the development of performance techniques while simultaneously broadening the performers’ cultural and aesthetic competencies.

The aim of this article is to outline the essential differences in the learning process of classical and popular guitar music. It describes the educational goals of music schools and the methods of learning to play the classical and electric guitar. Attention is drawn to the differences in tone production between the two instruments, as well as to the types of musical material studied by students during their education. The article presents the contrasting approaches to learning the fundamental elements of music in both styles of playing. These differences stem from the distinct construction of the instruments, the methods of producing sound, and the specific purposes of each musical genre. The discussion covers such aspects as learning notes, fingering, phrasing, articulation, tone production, sight-reading, harmony and improvisation. The text also describes techniques characteristic to each instrument. It highlights issues found in classical guitar education and in popular-music training that have different meanings for the performer – among them arpeggios and scales. Finally, the article discusses the skills and qualities of a trained classical guitarist and a popular-music guitarist, and the benefits of broadening one’s repertoire with works inspired by both classical and popular music.

The article analyses the stylistic features of Young Poland art song in its verbal, musical, and verbal-musical dimensions, based on selected vocal miniatures by Mieczysław Karłowicz, Karol Szymanowski (Six Songs, Op. 2), and Henryk Opieński (Preludes, Op. 13), composed to texts by Kazimierz Tetmajer. The aim of the study is to identify the constitutive characteristics of Polish art song at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to examine their relationship to the Romantic tradition and musical modernism. The analysis is based on an original selection of works and on the concept of Romantic song markers proposed by Mieczysław Tomaszewski. The findings indicate that the songs of Karłowicz and Opieński largely preserve the Romantic model of word–music relations, enriched by elements of new sound colouration, whereas Szymanowski’s early songs reveal more advanced modernist tendencies, particularly in terms of texture and the hierarchy between the vocal and instrumental parts.

Robert de Visée’s guitar works represent one of the pinnacles of French instrumental music during the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King. The history of transcribing it for the six-string guitar can be traced back to the 19th century and continues uninterrupted to the present day, with a plethora of subsequent arrangements for the modern guitar. It is impossible to overstate the importance of de Visée’s music in the context of the guitar repertoire as it constitutes an invaluable source of both concert and teaching material. The transcription of de Visée’s guitar works presents a number of challenges, some of which are outlined below. The most significant distinction is the discrepancy in the tuning of Baroque and contemporary instruments, which inevitably introduces interference with the intrinsic fabric of the composition during the transcription process. The remaining issues arise naturally from the initial one and include a number of decisions that the transcription’s author is required to make. These decisions encompass a range of elements, including the transposition of notes, the manner in which voices are conducted, the type of strokes (batteries) employed, and so forth. Matters pertaining to the transcription process also include the accurate interpretation of the symbols utilized in the tablature and a comprehensive understanding of performance practices unique to French Baroque music.

The aim of this article is to present the contents of two music journals, “Poradnik Muzyczny” [“Music Guide”] and “Przegląd Muzyczny” [“Music Review”], published by the Ludowy Instytut Muzyczny [People’s Institute of Music] in Łódź, with a focus on subjects related to classical guitar and guitar music in Poland. For many years, these periodicals, issued on a monthly or bimonthly basis, depending on the period of publication, were the primary platform for exchanging ideas about the guitar in Poland. These journals published historical and methodological articles on the guitar, reports on guitar events, reviews of publications for the instrument, and original compositions and arrangements for guitar solo as well as for ensembles with the guitar.

Folk religious chants have already been the object of scientific study for several decades. The matter of morphological features of the religious repertoire in the living tradition includes several basic factors, such as poetic text structure (versification, strophic structure), stylistic and formal properties, metre and rhythm, melodics, and tonal considerations (cf. B. Bartkowski, Niektóre ce-chy muzycznej metrorytmiki polskich pieśni religijnych żyjących w tradycji ustnej, “Summarium. Sprawozdania Towarzystwa Naukowego KUL” 1978, no. 3 (23), p. 250). The purpose of this article is to present and analyse the tonal phenomena occurring in folk religious chants performed throughout the funeral rite in the region of Rzeszów (Rzeszów region – a region in South-Eastern Poland inhabited by the ethnic groups of Lasowiacy and Rzeszowiacy, which covers the approxi-mate area of the current ten districts (Tarnobrzeg, Stalowa Wola, Nisko, Kolbuszowa, Leżajsk, Mielec, Ropczyce-Sędziszów, Rzeszów, Przeworsk, and Łańcut). -cf. Kolędowanie na Rzeszowszczyźnie, ed. K. Smyk, J. Dragan, Kolbuszowa – Kraków 2019, p. 8, and range maps, pp. 382–383), especially during the prayer for the deceased at home, the procession to the church, the procession to the cemetery, and the inhumation at the cemetery). The musical scales upon which the melodies of the individual chants are based have particular significance in terms of their musical shape. In fact, the tonality, which constitutes a note system, influences the interval structure, the relationships between individual notes, the melody and, indirectly, the regional conditions for the performance of the chants (cf. B. Bartkowski, Niektóre cechy…, p. 250). The material will be presented based on the scale range criterion while individual tonal phenomena will be presented using selected examples.

The time leading up to one of the most important periods in the history of guitar music – “the golden age of the guitar” in the first half of the 19th century – was the heyday of European cities such as London, Paris, Vienna or Dresden. Music was the main source of entertainment for royalty and high society, and numerous music publications, sheet music editions and instrument hand-books were being created. Manufactures tried to outdo each other in structural innovations, refin-ing and patenting increasingly interesting instruments. One such instrument was the immensely pop-ular English guitar (guittar), which differed in design and tuning from the instrument we know today. At present, it would be futile to look for the guitar repertoire of the second half of the 18th century on concert stages or in academic curricula (with a few exceptions, such as Luigi Boccheri-ni's quintets or Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello's partitas), and English music is almost nowhere to be found. It is, to a large extent, undiscovered and nearly forgotten. Bringing it back to life will not only provide insight into the design and performing capabilities of the now unknown guittar (as well as its distinctive playing technique, fingering and articulation) and allow us to learn more about the works composed for the instrument (and their characteristic features), but – above all – give a full picture of the evolving aesthetics of the 18th century. These compositions will also fill the existing gap in the guitar repertoire of the second half of the 18th century, offering broad prospects for their performance in the future. The most important consequence of that is the preservation of the continuity of guitar literature from the Renaissance to the present day, and the resulting possibility to make the world described in Leopold Mozart’s or Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s treatises tangible.

The article aims at presenting the guitar output of the composers who were members of Les Six group. It may trigger further, detailed research into the guitar works of composers for whom this instrument became a mere sound episode in their oeuvre. Four of the six French composers included in this group: Georges Auric, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre dedicated a part of their oeuvre to the guitar literature renascent in the first half of the 20th century. Their interest in the instrument was the result of the activity of the great masters of the time, Andres Segovia and Ida Presti. It also resulted from their specific approach to creation – among other things, a desire to oppose the previous aesthetics or to write simple and humorous music, in which the guitar proved to be an excellent medium. The article contains an analysis of selected compositions and the genesis of their creation. The analysis also focuses on the role of the guitar in French music throughout the ages and the programmatic ideas of the group known as Les Six.