This was the national anthem of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The tune is closely related to the Gregorian hymn O salutaris hostia. The text was composed by Vincent of Kielcz to commemorate the canonization in 1254 of Saint Stanisław. The song became associated with royalty and coronations in the centuries that followed, along with victories in battle. It is also sung at university inaugurations and major holidays in Poland. 

The story of Saint Stanisław’s miracle says that, after his body was cut up into pieces, it miraculously put itself back together again. This of course is an allegory or analog. 

A major force in classical music inside and outside Poland, Witold Lutosławski was a prolific creator and conductor of orchestral and chamber music. When he died in 1994 at the age of 81, the New York Times summed up his place in history as follows:

Mr. Lutoslawski prized beauty in music and made a point of saying so even when beauty in new music was out of fashion. His works are distinguished by long-lined melodies, an ingenious use of orchestral structure and harmonies that vary from comfortable lushness to pungent acidity. Yet it would be wrong to think of them as neo-Romantic. In creating what he called his “sound language,” Mr. Lutoslawski drew freely on avant-garde techniques, spicing his works with a light atonality and limited improvisation.

In other words, although he availed himself of the various emerging techniques that came in and out of fashion in the mid-to-late twentieth century (such as 12-tone and aleatoric writing), Lutosławski was not a trend-follower and insisted on his own integrity and path.

The strength of character that the composer displayed in his musical language was matched by his unwillingness to kowtow politically. Lutosławski wrote this cycle originally for men’s chorus in 1951, a time when Stalinist politics and financial difficulties prompted the composer to accept a commission from the Home of the Polish Armed Forces. Despite the obvious pressures, the composer managed never to write a work that glorified Stalin. Lutosławski made a point to seek out melodies that had been collected by the great ethnographer Oskar Kolberg, writing later in his life that “All of them have very innocent lyrics, without any politics whatsoever.”

Paweł Łukaszewski tells us that this cycle of ten songs are among the only a cappella pieces that Lutosławski ever wrote. The famous Polish choral conductor Jan Łukaszewski (no relation) of the Polish Chamber Choir found out about the cycle from the Swedish conductor Eric Ericson and was very happy to learn that Paweł Łukaszewski undertook a mixed-voice version of the cycle, saying that the reworking “makes it possible to introduce new sounds into the interpretations of [these] works.”

We made the decision to scatter the Polish Soldier Songs throughout our concert today, rather than presenting them in a single set. We will sing them two at a time, therefore, in five pairs at various points in the program.

1. Pod Krakowem czarna rola—this song is sometimes performed as a polka

2. Nie będę łez ronić—a tender song about a woman who steadfastly loves her man, even though she knows he may not return to her alive

The song Czerwone jabłuszko is based on a traditional kujawiak dance tune, which is a genre of tunes in 3/4 time from the Kujawy region. The kujawiak usually has a lyrical melody, not too fast, which is danced with knees slightly bent.

The tune feels very old and probably is. The text is so well suited to the tune that it also feels old, but this is where we get a surprise. The text dates only from the time of World War II. The tune was being played by street musicians in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, and it was used as a song of warning to alert people in the underground to the presence of spies, collaborators, and “ladies of light morals” who would deal sympathetically with the Germans.

The prolific composer and arranger Jacek Sykulski is the director of the Poznan Boys’ Choir, a well-known ensemble that tours internationally and has a strong reputation for musical excellence. Sykulski has arranged everything from folk songs to pop tunes, and Chicago a cappella has done several of his works over the past 15 years or so. He has a strong and eclectic stamp to his music, and once he gets onto a musical idea, he pursues it with drive and intensity; one might think of Finland’s Jaakko Mäntyjärvi for a contemporary composer of similar individuality.

The combination of Sykulski’s intensity and the lyrical folk tune give a somewhat dark cast to the experience of the song. The tune migrates among various voice parts; the key changes from time to time; and the frenzied buildup at the end makes one feel that one is whirling in an intense kujawiak rhythm.

This is the second set of two songs from Lutosławski’s cycle.

3. A w Warszawie—a song about a soldier who is being outfitted with his first uniform

4. Zachodzie słoneczko—a lyrical song about the sun setting

This major work is a powerful statement by a composer who wrote choral and instrumental music as well as choral-orchestral works. Jaciński played piano from the age of six and studied in Szczecin. He was a faculty member at schools in Szczecin and Poznan and for over a decade taught at the Music Academy in Bydgoszcz. He continued to produce new works while teaching composition, counterpoint, and harmony; among his famous works are his Psalm 100 (in English) for mixed choir, which, like the Stabat Mater, was championed and recorded by the Polish Radio Choir under the direction of Szymon Wyrzykowski. Marek Jaciński died suddenly in 2010 while teaching composition in Romania. His students put together a Requiem concert for him in his memory.

The “Stabat Mater” prayer is a pillar of the medieval Latin liturgy. It focuses on the grief of the Virgin Mary as she watches her son, Jesus, dying on the cross. The text runs to 20 stanzas, of which this composer only sets the first two and the last three. Jaciński’s setting is in what we might call the late 20th century international style, with chords that hang in the air with intensity and ringing clarity—neither as dissonant as Whitacre or as contrapuntally conceived as Lauridsen, but occupying a satisfying middle place. There is very little “Polish-sounding” about this style, but it is probably the most representative style of post-WWII Polish choral composition thus far in the program. (See the introductory notes for more historical background.)

A composer mostly of orchestral and film music, Kilar found his biggest fame with the score to the 1993 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Other honors include accolades for his scores to The Promised Land (1975), Le Roi et l’Oiseau / The King and the Mockingbird (1980), and From A Far Country (1981) about the life of Pope John Paul II. His studies took off when he moved to Rzeszów in southern Poland in 1944 and met the charismatic and intuitive teacher Kazimierz Mirski. Kilar’s later study included sessions at the avant-garde school in Darmstadt, Germany in 1957 and a year with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1959-60; with Henryk Górecki and Krzysztof Penderecki he was sometimes grouped in the “New Polish School.” Later in his life he abandoned avant-garde musical techniques for a simpler language, and he was inspired by the Gorals highlander folk melodies.

“I think, that’s how I see myself, that I’m a joyful-sad man, like that very banal chord used since the impressionists’ times—minor with an added minor seventh,” said Wojciech Kilar in autumn 1996. During the period of 1981-83, when martial law was imposed in Poland, the composer began visiting the shrine in Jasna Góra, Częstochowa. He grew in religious feeling from this point forward and began composing sacred works. These included a simplifying of his musical language, with much repetition and stark contrasts, which we see in the work on today’s program. A Prayer to St. Therese was written right before the composer’s death in 2013. The priest Jerzy Szymik, who wrote the words to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the University of Silesia in Katowice, recalls seeing Kilar smiling as he leafed through St. Theresa’s Yellow Notebook.

This is the third set of two songs from Lutosławski’s cycle.

5. Oj, I w polu jezioro—a mother cries, asking her son who gave him to the army

6. Jam Kalinkę Łamała

It is wonderful when one has the opportunity to experience two very different sides of the same composer. Marek Jaciński is not only the creator of the intense serious, and legato Stabat Mater that we heard earlier; he is also the funny and playful composer of Scherzo, which is itself a clever name (it means “joke” in Italian and is often the title of a third movement of a four-movement sonata or symphony). In this case the joke is on us further still: the composer’s lyrics are taken exclusively from the sorts of comments a performer would see in a musical score to indicate how a phrase should be played. These include things like staccato, marcato, martellato, and much more. We’ll let the music speak for itself.

The two Jewish musical forms to survive the Holocaust are klezmer instrumental music for weddings and dances, usually with clarinet and other lively instruments) and kabaret (popular songs from the 1930s, torch songs and tangos and the like). Mikołaj Gliński gives us some more background as he writes for the website Culture.PL:

The story of Polish pre-war [pre-WWII] entertainment music is a soundtrack made up of songs written and composed by authors of Jewish descent. Poets like Julian Tuwim, Marian Hemar, Andrzej Włast, Jerzy Jurandot, Ludwik Starski, … along with composers like Henryk Wars, Artur Gold, Jerzy Petersburski and Zygmunt Białostocki, stand behind the vast majority of the pre-war music hit chart titles.

Sounds just like Tin Pan Alley and the American Songbook, doesn’t it? The 1930s were a superbly creative time for Jewish writers on both sides on the Atlantic. The writer continues:

They all belonged to a generation of acculturated Polish Jews, with virtually no ties to traditional Jewish culture and little connection to modern Yiddish culture. To a large extent this group of artists invented popular culture in Poland, and the songs they wrote became classics known today by every Pole.

Many Polish music-lovers are unaware that the songs they love, and which they grew up singing, are by Jewish songwriters; of course, Americans may not be aware that “God Bless America” and even “White Christmas” were written by Jewish people!

Here we have a terrific example of a Polish-Jewish tango, made famous by the heartthrob singer Adam Aston in 1932. Warszawo, moja Warszawo is a love song to the capital city. The lyrics are sweet and clear. Jonathan Miller’s new edition for choir is based on that 1932 recording.

This is a choral transcription of a classical work that wasn’t originally intended for choir. Franck Krawczyk, a composer who trained in Paris and Lyon and works internationally, took Chopin’s Etude in Eb minor, Op. 10, No. 6, and transcribed it for a cappella choir for the Accentus ensemble, directed by Laurence Equilbey (a woman conductor and an ensemble of superb accomplishment). Krawczyk captured the pianistic qualities of Chopin’s piece very well; he also gave his transcription new lyrics that were drawn from the “Lacrimosa” movement of the Mozart Requiem. On hearing both works, one can sense some of the similarities in feeling, as both Chopin’s etude and Mozart’s piece are in 6/8 meter and in a minor key. Accentus’s recording of choral transcriptions of non-choral classical works, called simply Transcriptions, made quite a splash upon its release in 2013.

7. Gdzie to jedziesz, Jasiu?—a ballad about a girl (Kasia) offering to go after her love (Jasiu) to the eastern front in Ukraine. Lutosławski only sets the first verse, though there are several others.

8. A na onej górze—this is a tune that Oskar Kolberg collected in Mazovia. As with the previous song, the melody is mostly found in octaves within the soprano and tenor parts. The text is about a pretty girl encountering a group of soldiers on a mountain – and the things that the soldiers think about her.

This is a superb cycle of three short songs by one of Poland’s leading composers, now 92 years old (born on New Year’s Day, 1927). Like his countryman Wojciech Kilar, Juliusz Łuciuk studied at Darmstadt and with Nadia Boulanger, also taking seminars with Olivier Messaien. Łuciuk has been focusing solely on composition since he finished his studies. He has written orchestral, chamber, choral, and solo vocal works. Most of his later choral output is of a sacred nature, making this cycle somewhat unusual; the musical expressiveness is so powerful that we wanted to give it a place on this program.

This cycle is original music based on folk texts. The musical language is reminiscent of the Danish composer Vagn Holmboe’s middle-period works such as Solhymne, which Chicago a cappella performed very early on in its history; Łuciuk’s harmonies create soundscapes without being either strongly tonal or highly dissonant, and yet they have strong character and evoke color and emotion.

Paweł Łukaszewski is professor of music and Rector at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, where he studied with Marian Borkowski and currently teaches and mentors a growing number of young composition students. A prolific composer and choral conductor, Paweł Łukaszewski has had his works recorded on more than 110 CD recordings and performed on more than 400 festivals worldwide. In recent years he has seen great success with British choirs, giving him a strong introduction to the English-speaking choral world. Reviewer Ronald Grames wrote in Fanfare, after listing some of the greats of sacred choral music including Górecki, Pärt, and Taverner, “… it is clear that Paweł Łukaszewski belongs in this company of titans.”

Paweł Łukaszewski’s musical style is characterized by what critic Mark Rochester calls “luscious and luminous qualities.” Łukaszewski writes primarily sacred music, and there is a power to his work that feels spirit-filled and urgent. His catalog is so tilted toward a cappella work that one could easily create an entire concert (or three) consisting of his own works alone. He also doesn’t shy away from difficult texts: the lyric here comes from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

St. Maximilian was born as Raymund Kolbe in 1894 in the Kingdom of Poland, which at the time was part of the Russian Empire. Kolbe was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar. He had a vision of the Virgin Mary when he was 12 and decided to devote his life to her service. Kolbe founded the monastery at Niepokanalów, which at one time was the largest in the world. He also founded monasteries in Japan and India.

Niepokanalów became a major publishing center, including anti-Nazi propaganda during World War II. For this, and for hiding 1,500 Jewish refugees, Kolbe was arrested by the Gestapo, taken to Pawiak and then imprisoned at Auschwitz, where he volunteered to take the place of a family man in the hunger bunker. This was a wing of the camp created to warn against escapes by subjecting its prisoners to death by starvation. Kolbe led prayers to the Virgin Mary with his fellow prisoners and remained calm to the end. The guards gave him a lethal injection of carbolic acid, for which Kolbe raised his left arm and calmly awaited death. When canonized in 1982 by Pope John Paul II in 1982, St. Maximilian became the patron saint of drug addicts, prisoners, families, and the pro-life movement. Niepokanalów has also become an important devotional site for laypeople.

1994 was the centenary year of the saint’s birth. The friars of Niepokanalów commissioned Paweł Łukaszewski to set St. Maximilian’s last letter to his mother, written at Auschwitz, to choral music. Father Roman Soczewka from the monastery writes:

It was the composer’s aim to express the prayerful, mystic character of the text by placing a maximum limitation on resources and musical elements, both rhythmic and harmonic…The composition is quiet, but at the same time full of unusual tension, indicative of the atmosphere and mood of the place from which the letter was sent.

One might say that this piece of music, like its text, is a masterpiece of understatement. One example is line, “U mnie jest wsztstko dobrze” (“everything is fine with me”), which is so shatteringly modest in its untruth; the composer puts an unusual amount of harmonic tension right there before calming down a bit.

9. Już to mjia siódmy roczek—this is a tune from Kraków, collected by Kolberg.

10.Małgorzatka—this tune is from Mazovia, a whirling dance describing Maggie as she dances with the soldiers.

This is an a cappella movement from the composer’s famous Missa Pro Patria (Mass for the Country), premiered in 1998 in Częstochowa. It features a disarmingly simple alternation of chant and block chords. The lyrics are by a famous priest who was a leading voice for reform during the early years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

On the page, this piece is disarmingly simple, but once again, Łukaszewski pulls on the heartstrings. Starting in D major, he alternates block chords, a soprano line soaring over long-held notes in the other voices, and a reciting tone marked “quasi canto gregoriano” (like Gregorian chant), which propels the music along while remaining in a contemplative vein. The composer moves up to E major and then finally to F-sharp minor, heightening the tension and adding sharps before a final moment of repose.