Litość [Charity] for soprano (tenor) and piano to words by Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1930)

Vocal-instrumental and vocal works

dedication: to Bernardino Rizzi

duration: ca 2’

manuscript: Zygmunt Mycielski Archive, Manuscript Department, National Library, no. IV 14313 akc. 020704

premiere (as Caritas): Paris, 7 May 1931, Zofia Massalska – soprano, Mieczysław Mierzejewski – piano

The song, composed to a poem taken from Norwid’s collection Vade-mecum (described by the poet as “one hundred arguments” and by the first publisher, Juliusz Gomulicki, as a “priceless jewel of the entire European poetry”), was dedicated by Mycielski to one of his first composition teachers, Father Bernardino Rizzi.

Charity, manuscript. Zygmunt Mycielski Archive, National Library

Its simple, three-part structure (aba¹) finds its justification in the structure of the poem, which in the middle segment stresses the need for God’s intervention to relieve the suffering of the SPIRIT. A broad, melodeclamatory melodic line in a very slow tempo (lento, crotchet = ca 58), presented against an ostinato, centralising and lilting movement of falling chords of sevenths, further specifies the nature of the poem, expressing a mood of sadness and pain (outer segments). The operation of a higher Being and its emanation in the form of a summons of the forces of nature (middle segment) are illustrated by the composer with momentary animation as well as dynamic and textural intensification leading to a climax, in which the words “flash of thunderbolts” are chanted in a high register.