Sonorism

Sonorism (Polish: sonorystyka) is a compositional approach developed in Poland around 1960 in which the colour and mass of sound itself become the primary material, ahead of melody and harmony. *Krzysztof Penderecki*'s "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" and "Polymorphia" built music from clusters, glissandi and unconventional string effects, while *Henryk Mikołaj Górecki*, *Witold Szalonek* and *Kazimierz Serocki* pursued parallel paths. Centred on the Warsaw Autumn festival, sonorism announced the Polish school to the world and fed directly into the sound-mass writing of European modernism.