We can get to know Zygmunt Mycielski’s youthful oeuvre by studying a music notebook entitled by the composer Szkice kompozycyjne 1927 [Compositional Sketches 1927] (deposited in the Zygmunt Mycielski Archive at the National Library).

In addition to the sheet music deposited in the Zygmunt Mycielski Archive at the National Library, there are also various extant sketches. Some of them are just individual scraps, cut or torn from scores, sometimes impossible to link to specific titles. Others provide an extremely valuable source of information about the composer’s interests.

Zygmunt Mycielski’s song oeuvre comprises a number of moving songs – both stand-alone pieces and those forming cycles. The composer wrote them throughout his life, using poems by some of the greatest Polish poets, including Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Czesław Miłosz or Zbigniew Herbert. 

Zygmunt Mycielski’s orchestral oeuvre is made up of six symphonies (“Polish” Symphony, 1947–1951; Symphony No. 2, 1957–1961; Symphony No. 3 “Sinfonia breve”, 1961–1967; Symphony No. 4, 1968–1973; Symphony No. 5, 1974–1977; Symphony No. 6 or Last Symphony, 1985–1986) as well as some less elaborate works (symphonic “elegy” Lamento di Tristano, 1938, rev. 1947; Five Symphonic Sketches, 1945; Silesian Overture, 1948; 6 Songs for orchestra, 1978; Variations for small string orchestra, 1979–1980; Fantasia for orchestra, 1981). 

The last few years of Zygmunt Mycielski’s life were marked by compositions written to texts of religious nature. The 1980s saw the compositions of Three Psalms (1982–1983), Liturgia sacra (1983–1984) as well as Fragments to words by Juliusz Słowacki (1987), received by the critics with great respect.