“Cleverly Devised, Postmodern Toy”: Paweł Mykietyn’s Music in the Category of Postmodernism and Constructivism on the Example of III Symphony for Alto and Orchestra

Works of Paweł Mykietyn belong to the most characteristic trends of Polish contemporary music. His compositional attitude was individualised in the first decade of the 21st century, and today he is recognised as one of the most original Polish composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Andrzej Chłopecki, when characterising Mykietyn’s music after the premiere of the composer’s II Symphony, compared this work to a “cleverly devised, postmodern toy”. Also Mykietyn’s next, III Symphony (2011), can be considered in the context of the categories of postmodernism and constructivism. This work manifests the postmodern attitude, but it is also marked by strict, “cleverly devised”, constructivist thinking. Its musical language contains intertextual references to hip-hop and rap music; on the other hand, it includes such typical for Mykietyn measures as “(de)gradation form”, “accelerando form”, “permanent accelerando” and dodecaphony, which can be found while analysing the work. III Symphony can be also interpreted in relation to techniques of deconstruction, including both concept and structure of the composition.