Many music librarians of the past and present have been active in music-making-in choirs, chamber or smaller vocal ensembles, orchestras, folk groups, and other ensembles. It therefore seems entirely appropriate that several IAML branches-at least during the past thirty years, and perhaps longer-have gone further, commissioning pieces of music for performance at their annual meetings or at international IAML congresses. This article is a (semi-serious) celebration of such commissions and lists all the various commissioned pieces that are currently known. There may be more, and the author concludes with an appeal to IAML members and others for further information.
The Deutsches Musikgeschichtliches Archiv (DMgA) has, since its foundation in October 1954, had close ties to both IAML and RISM. Its current Head uses primary sources, especially the Archive's annual reports and contemporary photographs, to tell the story of its establishment, its collections (including a significant collection of over 2,000 historical portraits), and its continuing relevance. The importance of microform as a long-term storage medium is celebrated, and the importance of public relations and outreach to the Archive's future in a changing world is emphasised.
Among the exceptionally rich and varied, yet still insufficiently studied body of functional music by Witold Lutos & lstrok;awski (despite the valuable scholarly contributions published in recent decades by Thomas, Gwizdalanka, and Muras), the works he composed after the war for Polish Radio- especially the corpus of eighty-five scores created as incidental music for numerous radio plays and broadcasts-stand out both quantitatively and qualitatively. Writing music for radio theatre was one of the composer's official duties following his employment at Polish Radio in May 1945, a position he held, serving in various artistic and advisory capacities, until the end of the 1950s. As a full-time employee, Lutos & lstrok;awski collaborated over the years with numerous artists (including directors, actors, musicians, and writers) and broadcasters (such as producers and journalists) involved in shaping the postwar history of Polish Radio. Lutos & lstrok;awski's own tendency to downplay the significance of his functional music, and thus his lack of concern for preserving a comprehensive collection of source materials documenting his radio work, combined with the austere working conditions and numerous technological limitations faced by Polish Radio in the postwar reconstruction period, led to the irretrievable loss of materials (scripts, scores, phonographic recordings) for some of the productions created during that time-particularly those from the immediate postwar years. Nevertheless, recordings of several dozen radio plays with music by Lutos & lstrok;awski have survived to the present day in the archives of Polish Radio in Warsaw and the National Digital Archive in Warsaw. In some cases- where neither the score nor the spoken text has been preserved-these recordings constitute the only surviving evidence of these works' existence. This article compiles the most complete possible catalogue of preserved radio play recordings featuring music by Witold Lutos & lstrok;awski, including details such as the literary source, date of first broadcast, duration, and the names of all currently known collaborators (directors, producers, and actors).
