Dear Professor,

Tadzio Ochlewski is sending me "From the Tatras to the Baltic". What a magnificent story, I’ve been waiting precisely for something like this, as a layabout, that is an artist I consider myself to be in spite of all appearances. You’ve selected those which – if a fool thinks anything when hearing something – should make one think and hear! What a lesson, even for major-minorists (Major-minorist is a term as well. A bit of a fool and a bit of a chord of sixths).

Shortly after that Mycielski arranged four songs for choir and orchestra for the Mazowsze Song and Dance Ensemble, eventually expanding the cycle to five pieces and retaining the melody and prosody of the folk originals, which he took from Adolf Chybiński’s anthology. The last song (“Ćtyry kury zapiały”), added to the cycle as its second segment, was written in the spring of 1952, on the fifteenth anniversary of Karol Szymanowski’s death (on the basis of Mycielski’s correspondence with Adolf Chybiński of 29 March 1952). It also became part of another cycle of orchestral songs, Nowy lirnik mazowiecki. 

The dramaturgy of the cycle unfolds until it reaches its climax in the last song: “The song should be performed in such a way as to accentuate the successive build-ups of tempo – from the slowest to the liveliest – and dynamics, from the quietest to the loudest” (the composer’s note included in the score).

Although arrangements of these songs for choir and orchestra as well as in the form of piano score are available, the songs should be performed in public only – as the composer indicated – in their orchestral version.