First appearing in various magazines and eventually published in the collection Krągły rok (1967), Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s poems inspired Mycielski to compose a song cycle. It was written in two stages – first, in 1965 the composer set to music three poems (in this form they were performed as Three Songs to Words by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz), and in 1967 added three more songs, giving the entire cycle the title of his friend’s poetry collection. Mycielski selected very personal poems, highlighting a sense of loneliness, and – like in the song cycle Ocalenie – harmonised the expression of the poetic texts with music.

Krągły rok is Mycielski’s first cycle composed on the basis of his table system. While making the first drafts, Mycielski used the twelve-note rows he also used when writing Symphony No. 3. Significantly, from the tonal-harmonic perspective the songs, written in accordance with strictly defined pre-composition procedures, feature accentuated dissonances, present also in his earlier pieces. 

The composer was pleased with the effect achieved, noting in his diary:

I have not known similar ones since Schönberg, and including Schönberg. [...] Out of all the possibilities, infinitely lyrical variants, I chose this play of the augmented and diminished octave, which suspends this ending in a void, in space. This cannot be done by any computing machine or any calculation. On the last version of the score b [B flat], a, c, h [B]. A moment of musical reverie. What is it? But nor do we know what a poet, what poetry is (Zygmunt Mycielski, Dziennik 1960–1969, Iskry, Warsaw 2001, p. 399).