• Duration: 9'
• Instrumentation: S solo, mixed choir, 3 3 3 3 — 4 3 3 1 — 4Perc Org Harp — Strings
• Year: 1930
• Words: Stanisław Wyspiański
• Language of edition: pol
• Language of text: pol
• Type: parts, score, piano reduction, choral parts

Szymanowski wrote Veni Creator in the summer of 1930 intending it for the ceremonial inauguration of the Warsaw Conservatoire, the first rector of which he was to be. The patriotic significance of the text, its lofty character of the circumstances under which the composition was to be performed imposed musical resources upon the composer which he preferred to avoid in those years: a large number of performers producing a conspicuous volume of sound and the brilliance of instrumentation. In its selection of musical devices Veni Creator showes relationship with Harnasie and other work inspired by the music of the Tatra Mountains as the very first motif with its characteristic Lydian forth which derived from the music of Podhale. It seems that the use of folk motifs was to emphasise the specific Polish nature of Wyspiański's text. (based on the preface to Szymanowski Complete Edition by Zofia Helman)