No. 24 (33) (2023)

The texts in this volume concentrate on the problematics of musical topoi and topic theory, an area that currently is the focus of great interest for world musicology. Here, for the first time in Poland, it is presented as a subject of collective publication. The strong resonance that the theory evokes within the musicological community made it possible to bring together authors from Poland and from around the world. They represent a variety of centres and a variety of experience, with contributions from renowned researchers whose achievements include canonical works on the topic theory. This issue includes both reviews of classical approaches to the theory, and its new conceptualisations; in particular, new analytical approaches to music – largely from the 20th and 21st centuries–from topical perspective. It is an exploratory, rather than a comprehensive perspective. It could not be the latter, because, in the words of Kofi Agawu: „Theoretically, UT [the Universe of Topic] is open, since it continues to expand as more and more topics are uncovered; [it] can only attain closure on the last day of research”^[1]. That „expanding universe”[2] concerns not only the topoi themselves, but also the ever new conceptualisations that develop and diversify their theory. The present volume fits into this expansion, exploring the diversity of approaches to the subject. 

[1] K. Agawu, Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music. Princeton 1991, s. 128. Quoted after Danuta Mirka, Wstęp do The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory, transl. Marcin Trzęsiok (in this volume).

[2] Cf. the title of the text by Krzysztof Wyglądacz in this volume.