The lowest tier in this hierarchy, a religious theme, refers to a link between music and religion “through the Word” – according to Pociej, by drawing, in a musical composition, on passages from the Scriptures, texts of the Mass determining the rite and rhythm of the liturgy (ordo missae) as well as the nature of the celebrations of the various days in the liturgical year (propria) or poetry rooted in the sphere of the sacred. Thus a religious theme can be associated with a number of musical genres to be performed during liturgical celebrations, during various services, but also with concert pieces the music of which is a medium for texts of specific provenance and character. This category can also be referred to instrumental music the narrative of which is reflective, meditative, prayerful in nature.

The sound matter marked by a religious experience becomes sublimated; it assimilates archaising tonal, melodic and harmonic means, harmonising them with the musical language of the day. Despite a peculiar clash of the old and the new, of immanently and externally religious, a religiously enlivened musical work does not become a caricature – it is held together by a higher ordering idea.

A religious theme and religious agitation can seek the highest level of musical spirituality – religious immersion (however, the previous stages are not necessary for it to occur). The introduction into a musical work of a text referring to spiritual experiences or a commentary signalling affiliation with the sphere of the sacred, as well as the choice of a sound substance resembling the religious monody of the Middle Ages – an ideal example of music immersed in religion – can be subordinated to the organising power of expression as a suprasonic element of the work, “blended in a special way into sound creations” (Roman Ingarden, Utwór muzyczny i sprawa jego tożsamości, Kraków 1973, p. 243). It is defined by elements like the nature of melodic lines, type of movement and organisation of time, colour and aura shaped in accordance with instructions included in the score or found “between the notes”, as it were.

The above compositions by Zygmunt Mycielski meet the criteria of belonging to the first stage of musical spirituality – having a religious theme. The title of the offertory for two violins and piano/organ (Fiat voluntas tua) leads us to a fragment of the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew (when Jesus teaches the Pater noster prayer), while the texts used in the other compositions refer to:

• the liturgical rite of the ordinarium (Liturgia sacra) and proprium (Eternal Rest);
• Old Testament Judeo-Christian tradition: Book of Genesis (Lignum vitae), Book of Psalms (Psalm XXVIII, Three Psalms);
• religious literature: the poem / Christmas mystery play / Christmas carol / mystical oratorio Góry się ozłociły – szafiry mórz ciemnieją… by Juliusz Słowacki (Fragments) and the morality play / drama Miłosierdzie by Karol Hubert Rostworowski (Charitas).

While in vocal-instrumental works Mycielski was quite rigorous when it came to the literary layer and usually did not interfere with the structure of the texts, introducing repetitions of the most important fragments at most, the composition presented to John Paul II – Liturgia sacra – strikes us with the composer’s individual approach to the ordinarium pattern. While working on it, in July 1983 Mycielski confessed in his diary: “God must exist!”, and this personal experience of the sacred found its reflection in the unique form of Liturgia, with the composer consciously giving up the classic form of the Ordo Missae. It was replaced with a paraphrase of the musical mass, its only canonical elements being the texts of the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. Mycielski limited the Gloria and the Credo to short selected fragments referring to the figure of the Lamb (Gloria) and the Holy Trinity (Credo). In addition, he added to this unique compilation fragments that were to be recited: the words describing Christ and spoken by John the Baptist (“Ecce Agnus Dei”), the prayer preceding the reception of the Eucharist and expressing humility and respect, trust and love (“Domine, non sum dignus”) as well as the final blessing (“Benedicat vos”).

Composed in such a way, the work is hard to unequivocally classify in terms of its genre. Such doubts were shared by the composer, who spent some time, considering the right title for his piece: Res sacra, Res divina, Msza, Liturgia sacra, Missa brevis… To this collection we can also add one more piece, found in the pre-composition material of the Last Symphony – Carmen liturgicum.

The vocal instructions left by the composer, the formal coefficients indicated by him, or even the musical remarks found on the pages of the sketches are too general to formulate a thesis about the religious agitation (and therefore also religious immersion) in Mycielski’s oratorio-like works and the youthful Psalm XXVIII (in the several dozen bars of the introductory section of the work we can observe the germination of certain ideas, which would find their development in Mycielski’s later works – attention paid to the due prominence of the words, tonal logic, increased metre and rhythm activity, a tendency towards permutation and motivic rotation).

The chamber offertory Fiat voluntas tua (1943), written in minor keys, consists of three segments bound together by the centralising movement of “marching” octaves, with added colour provided by a quaver-based rhythmic continuum. The melody entrusted to the violins, anticipated in the instrumental introduction, resembles the melody of the alto aria “Es ist vollbracht” from Bach’s St. John Passion. Given Mycielski’s remarks on the inhuman conditions in the camps where he was kept during the Second World War, it could be hypothesised that Mycielski deliberately introduced into a piece written for the camp Kommando a melody that carried the words spoken by the crucified Jesus: “It is finished” (John 19:16/30) 

Mycielski’s larger works written in the last period of his life (Three Psalms, Liturgia sacra, Fragments) are based on twelve-note rows. When preparing the tables of basic figures and their permutations, the composer used various colours in the pre-composition materials to mark the notes that performed particular functions in the transformations of the rows, and at the same time made it possible to obtain both dissonant and consonant chords, with the latter (perfect consonances) serving to organise the key points of the works. The meticulously planned horizontal-vertical structures and the saturation of the melody with quotations from Gregorian chant or quasi-choral interval structure produce the effect of an unusual tonal and harmonic order. These solutions are additionally strengthen by the linking of fragments of the composition by means of related melodic material. The references to familiar melodic idioms as well as to the colour experiments of Josquin des Prez, or the introduction of the cryptogram B [B flat]-A-C-H [B], objectify, as it were, Mycielski’s individual idiom – noble, Latin, avoiding nineteenth-century loftiness – placing the works in question within the sphere of religious agitation.

The works in question are characterised by unique concentration achieved through material simplification and textural reduction. They require maximum focus and seriousness from both the performers and the listeners. It seems that these are the characteristics that place them within the sphere of religious immersion. 

Mycielski’s Fiat voluntas tua is funereal in nature. The descending, fading melody of the first segment, strengthened by a characteristic leap of minor sixth – so close to the “Erbarme dich” exclamation from Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion – and slightly brightened in the second segment by an ascending melody and swaying three-part rhythm, returns in the third and last section of the piece. The keys of the successive segments – F minor, F sharp minor and E flat minor (modulating to F minor in the finale) are often marked, regardless of the period (from the Baroque to late Romanticism), by negativity: mortal fear, worry, darkness, terror and doubt. They symbolise – provided this is not an overinterpretation – the weight of pent up dramatic emotions associated with the composer’s stay in a POW camp, and the resulting composition can be interpreted as a unique testimony, an imploring call for mercy...

The listeners are transported into a completely different dimension by Mycielski in his Liturgia sacra. The unique structure of the piece as well as its expression are – it would seem – a result of an internal transformation we can observe by reading the entries from the last volume of the composer’s diaries. In his reflections on Messiaen’s oeuvre Mieczysław Tomaszewski wrote:

When the sacred is experienced personally, music assumes a character which at its most intense is sometimes described as mystical (this is about music [...] in which the lyrical subject directly expresses their own feelings)” (Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Muzyka wobec sacrum. Próba rozeznania”, in Olivier Messiaen we wspomnieniach i refleksji badawczej, ed. Marta Szoka, Ryszard Daniel Golianek, Łódź 2009, p. 43).

In his mass Zygmunt Mycielski not only chants the word “Credo” multiple times, but also humbly confesses “Lord, I am not worthy”. Like the Centurion from Kafaurnaum, he has the performers sing – with humility, with no exaltation, almost in silence – the words he wrote about a year earlier: “A few old sentences: ‘but only say the word and my soul shall be healed’, ‘let us proclaim the mystery of faith’, open up new horizons, which transport us to a world different from the one that seems to be” (Zygmunt Mycielski, Niby-dziennik ostatni 1987–1987, Warsaw 2012, p. 180). 

Referring to the mysticism of Zygmunt Mycielski’s last composition, Fragments to words by Juliusz Słowacki, Michał Bristiger observed:

I am now listening how the music ends with the word L i gh t and a musical figure appearing also at the beginning of the piece, against a dark ground, when we still do not know what will come of it, and which comes true at the end. The word begins to glow [świecić in Polish] and contains within it both the world [świat] and its background [tło] and its – as Miłosz says – ‘fool’s cap’ with the ś and the ć, which the Polish language puts on solemn words and which Zygmunt knocks off the word with his last gesture, allowing it to shine freely. The voice of the flute breaks away, goes up quietly and calmly until it reaches, in harmony with the last chord, its last note, until it becomes dispersed in a rest – without a fermata, pianissimo and ritenuto a piacere. I am listening to this silence, this moment of departure, this moment of conversation, wanting to whisper: ‘Good night, sweet prince’ (Michał Bristiger, “Zygmunt Mycielski” [tribute], Res Facta Nova 1994 no. 1 (10), p. 9).

Olivier Messiaen confessed to Tadeusz Kaczyński that despite his theological background, he did not explain the religious themes tackled in his oeuvre. In his conversation with Jan Stęszewski Zygmunt Mycielski expressed similar intuitions: “the mind will not reach the reserves of emotion...” (“Najbardziej cenię sztukę płynącą w sposób naturalny. Z Zygmuntem Mycielskim rozmawia Jan Stęszewski”, Ruch Muzyczny, 1987 no. 13, p. 3). Although the composer in a way was defending his spirituality and for a long time did not classify it by referring to a specific religious system, his interests focused on writings unequivocally pointing to his fascination with themes rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Moreover, Mycielski responded to a centuries-old musical tradition by using specific genres, melodic patterns and culturally well-established symbolism. He sublimated elements of the musical heritage, encrusting with them the fabric of individual twentieth-century works. Yet it would seem that it is not the logos that determines the form and value of these compositions. Mycielski imbues them with musical content and a broad repertoire of expressive intonations in an individual manner. These intuitions have been recognised by Anna Koszewska, who defines them as follows: 

Music became faith in Zygmunt Mycielski’s life and work. Or – perhaps – religious faith was contained in music (Anna Koszewska, “‘Credo’ estetyczne Zygmunta Mycielskiego. Próba rekonstrukcji systemu”, in Krytyka muzyczna. Teoria, historia, współczesność, ed. Michał Bristiger, Rafał Ciesielski, Barbara Literska, Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, Zielona Góra 2009, p. 180).