Polish Radio Experimental Studio

The Polish Radio Experimental Studio was founded on 15 November 1957,[1] but only in the second half of the following year was it adapted for sound production.

[5] Though the studio was a place where autonomous electronic pieces were recorded, this was not its main purpose; it was launched as a space for the creation of independent compositions, sounds illustrations for radio dramas, and soundtracks for theatre, film and dance.

The studio's premises were located in the Polish Radio headquarters on Malczewskiego Street in Warsaw, in the 6x6 metre Black Room designed by Zofia and Oskar Hansen.

The first autonomous track recorded in the Experimental Studio was composed by Włodzimierz Kotoński, and titled Study for a Cymbal Stroke (Etiuda konkretna - na jedno uderzenie w talerz) from 1959.

[8] Krzysztof Penderecki based his 1963 naturalistic radio play for reciter and tape Death Brigade[9][10][11] on Leon Weliczker's diary.

Wieliczker had been a prisoner in the Nazi Lviv Janowska Concentration Camp, where to cover up the German crimes he had to dig up and burn the bodies of those they had killed.

Schaefer did not object to the idea of producing the track in a different place (including a potential "studio of the future"), nor did he define the instrumentation, but only determined the parameters.

When, in 1965, a delegation of Soviet composers were invited to visit Poland during the Warsaw Autumn Festival, they fitted in with the conservative, socialist-realist style, restricted by Communist Party rules.

Produced here were tracks of: Włodzimierz Kotoński, Andrzej Dobrowolski, Tomasz Sikorski, Eugeniusz Rudnik, Krzysztof Penderecki, Zbigniew Wiszniewski, Bohdan Mazurek, Bogusław Schaeffer, as well as Arne Nordheim, Szábolcs Esztényi, Lejaren Hiller, the KEW Group (Elżbieta Sikora, Krzysztof Knittel, Wojciech Michniewski), Nicole Lachartre, Magdalena Długosz, Tomasz Stańko, Paweł Szymański, Andrzej Bieżan, Michael Ranta, Marek Chołoniewski, and Krzesimir Dębski.