• Duration: 70'
• Instrumentation: S Bar. soli-3232-4221-batt (5esec) pf-archi
• Year: 1996-2000
• Words: Edward Estlin Cummings
• Words: Jan Fabre
• Language of text: eng, ger, ita
• Order: I: Polskie Radio; III, IV: ''Kraków 2000''
• Type: parts, score, piano reduction

The piece is a cycle of songs on which I have worked, on and off, over the past few years. The first song ''Love is Thicker'' dates from 1996. The second, ''Unter den berstenden Eisspiegeln'', to a text by Jan Fabre, is a scene from the opera La liberta chiama la liberta; it was written in 1994. The third and fourth songs -''Now Air is Air and Thing is Thing'' and ''In Ti-me's a Noble Mercy of Proportion'' -were written in 1999-2000. When in 1996 Andrzej Chłopecki asked me to write a piece I thought this song cycle could be my artistic farewell to the 2Oth century. Before long I found a great ally in realising my plan in the person of E. E. Cummings and his wonderful poetry. I have chosen love as the theme of this artistic gesture, because it is often subjected to thorough scruti-ny in his poems. The work of Cummings is 'one great praise to every-thing that exists, a confession of love to the real world, a world which by virtue of its reality and concreteness will always dominate over the creations of the human mind' (Stanisław Barańczak). The songs of ''Up into the Silence'' are not love songs as such. Their deepest sense stems from the desire to touch the very essence of this genuinely human feeling. Eugeniusz Knapik