Szczecin Artists| Aldona Bartnik

Since the beginning of time, the combination of word and music has been fascinating composers, as it is the song that accompanies the great changes in the history of music. For many creators, the melody of human speech is extraordinary and inspiring. The text used in the composition, in the Polish mother tongue, is also a manifestation of attachment to national values. No wonder, then, that Polish artists so willingly reached in their work for the form of a song.

The patriotic dimension of the song had a special meaning for Chopin and undoubtedly inspired Paderewski. Chopin's songs collected in Op. 74 in fact, were created during the whole adult life of the composer. They were composed to the texts of a variety of poets: Stefan Witwicki, Bohdan Zaleski, Wincenty Pol, Zygmunt Krasiński, and Adam Mickiewicz. One of the earliest, "A Maiden's wish" to Witwicki's words, probably comes from 1929. Mickiewicz's poetry was also reached for by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who rendered it into quite simple forms following the example of Moniuszko's songbooks.

An interesting phenomenon in compositional works is the use of songs for children. Aldona Bartnik will perform examples of music for children from the works of Szymanowski and Lutosławski. Lutosławski wrote songs for children to the words of various authors: Julian Tuwim, Teofil Lenartowicz and Lucyna Krzemieniecka, as well as to folk texts. In these seemingly simple compositions, often of illustrative character, innovative ideas appear which were later developed in "serious" works. Illustrating a text with sound effects, as well as the extraordinary plasticity of the stories depicted in music are characterized by "Children's Rhymes" Op. 49 by Karol Szymanowski. A series of these twenty short songs to words by Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna was created in 1922-1923.

Szymanowski's work also exhibits a fascination for Polish folklore, which is expressed in the mazurkas for the piano – written on the model of those by Chopin, as well as Kurpie Songs Op. 58 following the collection: Kurpie Forest in Songs by Fr. Władysław Skierkowski. The composer, inspired by the performance of The Wedding in Kurpie, first wrote a cycle of six choral songs, and then from 1930-32 worked on a series of twelve songs for vocals and piano. These compositions, mainly through applied scales – pentatonic, Phrygian or Mixolydian – as well as rhythmics, bourdon sounds, or the effects of exhortation, refer directly to folk art.