Seven composers: Kotoński ◆ Kilar ◆ Bujarski ◆ Block ◆ Moszumańska-Nazar ◆ Meyer ◆ Stachowski

It would, of course, be all too easy to ignore the music of other composers in the 1960s, not least because so little of it is still performed. Nevertheless, the extensive publications by PWM, and the less accessible recordings, do reveal how a broad swathe of composers participated in sonorism and its aftermath. It quickly becomes apparent that Penderecki's sonoristic techniques were appropriated selectively by others and that his usage of them cannot be taken as representative of Polish avant-garde music in the 1960s. The music of composers who developed their own extended instrumental techniques and notation (Szalonek), or borrowed selectively from what rapidly became a common pool of effects, is often markedly different. Some composers placed these effects in a more rhythmicised or metred context, others were more open to a transparent pitch organisation, some highlighted individual instruments in a chamber or orchestral setting. Some exploited the tensions and sense of apprehension that the new sonorities could evoke (Penderecki, Górecki, occasionally Baird) while others encouraged less anxious responses (Bujarski, Kotoński, Kilar, Serocki). For Schaeffer it was experiment itself which had pride of place. The majority of composers explored sonorism more or less simultaneously with Penderecki and Górecki, i.e. in the early 1960s, though a few came to it later in the decade (Szalonek).