• Duration: 22'
• Instrumentation: 3333-4331-batt (5esec)-archi
• Year: 1978
• Language of edition: pol
• Type: parts, score

Left without a sequence number, this was given the title Symphony in a Square. What is behind this title? Seeking to solve this mystery, one may imprudently sink into futile speculations suspecting an encrypted magic square in the selection and arrangement of instruments, in the specific asceticism of the themes limited to playing chosen pitches and intervals, perhaps in textural layout. Absolutely not! Such attempts are doomed to failure unless some brilliant alchemist discovers some mathematical accuracy hidden in the piece, which - needless to say - Stefan Kisielewski tends rather not to have. Speculation, the creation of precompositional systems was alien to him, he wrote intuitively, though his intuition was based on solid knowledge of music and an infallible ear for instrumentation. And that square in the title? That so far nobody, including the person writing these words, has succeeded in cracking the code hiding this mystery, we must remain in the belief that it is a metaphor, perhaps ... plain defiance? Because in the four-part symphony, as in a closed square, the same threads continually reappear. In a purely musical sense, Symphony in a Square is a combination of moto perpetuo, favoured by the composer, and the new sonoristic aesthetic of sound, shown a little in the distorting mirror. The piece is written for large orchestra with an unusually extensive percussion, which is never used en bloc, serving generally as colouristic-rhythmical accompaniment, although it does perform solo. [M. Gąsiorowska, Kisielewski, PWM 2011]