The need for communal effort after the Second World War was not peculiar to Poland – in the United Kingdom, for example, Churchill was replaced by Attlee and a Labour government which brought in the National Health Service and nationalised a number of industries. In Poland, the need for a strong infrastructure was paramount, not least because the Eastern territories, including Lwów, had been retained by the Soviet Union, and in compensation Poland had gained western lands from the Germans, including the city of Wrocław (formerly Breslau). The establishment of the PWM music publishers, the ZKP, Polish Radio, and of orchestras and music schools in major cities provided an early and enduring framework for the common good of post-war music. Creatively, there was initially a fair degree of independence in the arts and, finance permitting, opportunities to travel or study abroad. As in the inter-war years, Paris was the prime focus for musicians: Panufnik, as musical director of the Warsaw Philharmonic, went there in 1946 to purchase scores and parts (music by Debussy, Ravel, Roussel and Messiaen), as well as fulfilling conducting engagements in the next few years in Berlin, London and Zurich. In 1947, both Serocki and Stanisław Skrowaczewski (b. 1923) began composition studies with Boulanger.

Nevertheless, for the vast majority of composers there was no alternative but to make the best of the opportunities available within Poland. A number of them worked at some point for PWM in Kraków, including Kisielewski, Malawski, Mycielski, Palester and Panufnik.