Sacrae Cantiones by Gomółka, Szamotuły, Zieleński, Od (2023/2023), Kościół Świętej Trójcy, Warsaw, Poland

Old Polish sacred music is full of diversity. In addition to the beautifully simple arrangements of the psalms in the native language, there are also sophisticated compositions that can easily be compared to the achievements of the greatest masters of Dutch or Italian polyphony. In the first part of the concert, we will hear selected pieces from the famous Melodies for the Polish Psalter by Mikołaj Gomółka from 1580, set to texts translated by Jan Kochanowski. The close relationship between music and text is particularly noteworthy: the descending melody of the fragment „pisarz pismo leje” (“the writer pours words onto paper”) in Psalm XLVb perfectly illustrates the ink flowing down the nib, and, in Psalm XI, the short rhythmic values accompanying the words „uciekaj co najdalej” (“run for your life”) are no accident. The motet In Te Domine speravi by Wacław of Szamotuły was written in a completely different style and was the first Polish composition published abroad. The work was printed in Nuremberg in 1554, next to the works of such masters as Clemens non Papa or Nicolas Gombert. The last section of the concert will be filled with selected compositions from Mikołaj Zieleński’s impressive collection Offertoria e comuniones totius anni. The work, “for the first time arranged by a Pole in the new style”, as the composer himself noted, was published in Venice in 1611. The offertories in the polychoral Venetian style testify to the composer’s deep sensitivity to sound, accomplished by combining various registers of instruments and the human voice. The most impressive example of this is the solemn Magnificat for three four-voice ensembles. The abundance of colors enchanted in the scores by “the greatest composer of free Poland before Chopin” will resound in the interpretation of the Chamber Choir of the Polish Royal Opera led by Renata Szczypior.