The pages of Polish history hold the names of many who are known to us for their struggles on the battlefields as they led uprisings in the cause of liberating the nation. What, though, of those whose battles were fought without arms? In the arts, it was the writers whose names went down in history as artists who did great deeds. Where, then, were the musicians? They were there. They were often closer to the most crucial events of that century of non-existence than many a soldier. Yet their part in the historical fight for Poland is most often devaluated. Many of them fought using diplomacy, for instance. Some had an extraordinary ‘Independent Poland gene’ within them. After our country had been wiped from the map of the Old Continent and vanished for one hundred and twenty-three years as a result, that gene enabled them to contribute to the will to survive. It was a weapon which the partitioning powers failed to perceive. The essence of the situation our homeland was in was expressed with the words framed by lips abroad; “Poland? Where is that?” That was the status of Poland in the minds of the world. Polish composers were ambassadors and azimuths pointing to the centre of Europe, where there was a national community which had been stripped of its existence. It endured and lived on through music, in pearls of Polish culture.