28 March – 5 April
Together with such other composers as Vasyl Barvinsky, Stanyslav Lyudkevych, Mykola Kolessa, Tadeusz Kassern, and Adam Sołtys, Koffler travels from Lwów (Lvov) to Kyiv for the All-Union Plenum of the Organising Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers. The delegates present reports, attend concerts and debates. The audience in Kyiv has the first opportunity to hear Koffler’s music (a performance of his Symphony No. 2).
The Regional Radio Committee presents a feature series by Lwów’s artists marking the first anniversary of the ‘liberation’ (i.e. of Soviet rule in Lwów). In his episode, Koffler reports to the audience on his work during that year.
During an away-from-home session of the Praesidium of the Union of Composers of Soviet Ukraine, held in Lwów and presided over by Borys Lyatoshynsky, applications for membership in the Union of Lwów Composers are considered, and Koffler is unanimously admitted.
12 October
Ludwig A. Minkus’s ballet Don Quixote, arranged and reconstructed by Koffler, is premiered at Lwów’s Grand Theatre. Koffler writes an epilogue and two dances, which adds cohesion and clarity to the spectacle.
The 4th Decade of Soviet Music opens in Kyiv. Koffler’s Symphony No. 4 is probably performed on that occasion. Lyatoshynsky defends Polish composers Tadeusz Kassern and Józef Koffler, whose modernist musical language does not fit in with the conventions of socialist realism in music.
Sovetskaya Muzyka, No. 12 informs that Koffler’s Bach Suite has been published by Mistetstvo.
In Radyanskaya Muzyka (No. 5), Koffler publishes a forced critical appraisal of the past (as also did many other Lvov Conservatoire faculty members):
Living and working in ‘prewar Lwów’ was hard for all musicians, for me too. The city’s musical culture progressively deteriorated. There was no permanent opera theatre or regular symphony orchestra. All we had was many unemployed and starving musicians. The Conservatoire was in its death throes. Warsaw Philharmonic and Polish Radio ignored me as a composer, which meant that I could only hear my works performed abroad, far from the former Poland. No wonder that a plan to abandon it all and emigrate was taking shape in my head.
But then came the unforgettable September of 1939, the arrival of the Red Army – and everything changed. I was given the opportunity to live and work as a free and happy man, and to implement my artistic plans, of which I could hardly even dream in earlier days. […] My colleagues and I enthusiastically create musical works, musicological and research studies. We are convinced that our effort is not in vain, that its results will not be relegated to a drawer. We are certain that our labour and creative initiatives will always receive the support of our party and the government, of all the Soviet society for whose benefit we are working. Our compositions get printed, performed, discussed, and studied, which helps us in cultural assimilation and stimulates our creative work.