Fiat voluntas tua – offertory for two violins and piano or organ (1943)
Wyk. Anna Kwiatkowska – skrzypce, Aleksandra Kupczyk – skrzypce, Joanna Opalińska – fortepian
Dokumentacja 31. festiwalu „Warszawskie Spotkania Muzyczne”
Studio Koncertowe Polskiego Radia im. Witolda Lutosławskiego Poniedziałek, 8 maja 2017, godz. 19.00
Organizatorzy koncertu: Związek Kompozytorów Polskich i Program 2 Polskiego Radia
Producent nagrania koncertu: Związek Kompozytorów Polskich
Nagranie z zasobów Związku Kompozytorów Polskich
The note on the title page informs us that the miniature was part of “easy little pieces for the orchestra of Kommando 807”. In a letter to his mother written at the time the composer mentioned that he was arranging a chorale by Johann Sebastian Bach for the Easter mass, while a note on the score reveals a slightly different context of the origins of the work: “I wrote it in the prison camp – unable to recall Bach chorale from the Orgelbüchlein”.
Fragment from a letter to Mycielski’s mother, Maria Mycielska née Szembek.
Dear Mummy. Concept the same, here, we’re preparing an Easter Mass out of Bach’s chorales and the Offertory. I intend to find a moment to read. I’m thinking only about all of you, believing that this is the last Easter without you, in these conditions, before more trials. [...] Love. Zygmunt.
The title of the work, Fiat voluntas tua [Thy will be done], leads the listeners to a fragment of the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus teaches those present the prayer Our Father.
The melody of the outer sections of the work (based on the ABA reprise pattern), anticipated in the piano (or organ) introduction, resembles not so much a chorale, referred to by Mycielski in his letter to his mother, but the melody of the “Es ist vollbracht” aria from Bach’s St. John Passion. Given the 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 19:30).
The funereal nature of the piece, emphasised by the falling, fading melody of the first part, and slightly brightened up in the middle part by the rising melos and swaying triple rhythm, returns in the third and last part of the work. 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 by negativity: mortal fear, worry, darkness, terror and doubt. In Mycielski’s composition they symbolise – it would seem – the weight of the dramatic emotions associated with the composer’s stay in a POW camp. Thus the composition can be interpreted as a unique testimony, an imploring cry – by means of Bach’s aria – for mercy...