Krzysztof Baculewski "Subjective Annals 60 Editions of the Festival"

This is not a mistake: the second Festival took place as planned, two years after the first one, and the name 'Warsaw Autumn' was used in the programme book only unofficially (it was not printed on the cover). The dates were changed. The Festival was held between Saturday 27th September and Sunday 5th October. Altogether there were eighteen concerts and - for the first time - opera and ballet performances. Also for the first time the programme included a concert of electronic music - erroneously referred to as electron music, played back from tape and with a lecture by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Works by Anton Webern, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono and Luciano Berio were performed. Moreover, the 'Warsaw Autumn' was host to Roman Palester, at that time a presenter and author of broadcasts for the Polish Section of Radio Free Europe in Munich, who visited Poland during a momentary 'thaw'. ere were also the debuts of Kazimierz Serocki, Włodzimierz Kotoński and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. The performers included the Juilliard String Quartet, pianists: Sviatoslav Richter, Regina Smendzianka, violinist Henryk Szeryng, clarinettist Ludwik Kurkiewicz, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, as well as conductors: Bruno Maderna, Kurt Sanderling, Yevgeny Mravinsky and, for the first time, also Andrzej Markowski.

From today's perspective one can clearly observe the change in the Festival's profile - a shift toward the most recent works representing the most avant-garde movements of the day. The dominant trends were dodecaphony and serialism. Music for tape was also making its appearance.