The Birch Grove
for Soprano and String Quintet
Zygmunt Mycielski’s song Brzezina [The birch grove] was originally scored for soprano and piano. The composer wrote it in 1951, while staying with the poet Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz in Stawisko. He almost immediately prepared a version for soprano and string quintet, to lend the composition a more refined sound. Mycielski was also considering the possibility of this song being performed by larger
forces; his manuscript includes an instruction for doubling the parts of the first and second violins and the violas, while the cello and double bass remain single. He dedicated the manuscript of the chamber version to the poet. The words of the song come from Iwaszkiewicz’s pre-war short story Brzezina [The birch grove], where it is a sung by a country lass, Malina, keeping the dying hero company. In Mycielski’s setting, the simple folk-style lamentation assumes a highly artistic dimension. The melody exudes emotion; it is lyrical and full of melancholy, with forceful expression. The melismatically treated solo part is woven freely around the central notes, bringing out the refined melodic contour. The instrumental parts provide a harmonic complement to the leading voice and also help to forge the deeply expressive, integral flow of the narrative. Particularly moving is the opening of the song, where the soprano intones a painful lament in the highest register. With subsequent repeats, the composer reduces the intensity of emotion, passing into a mood of sadness and at the same time acceptance of the inevitable. Although the keen lament refers to traditional funeral songs, The Birch Grove is far from plain traditional music. This work is dominated by the despair of lost love and the presentiment of death, couched in an artistic form. (...)
Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska
translated by John Comber
- Words: Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz
- Series: Camera
- ISMN 979-0-2740-3849-6
- Language of edition: polski, angielski
- Language of text: polski
- No. of edition: 1
- Type: score and parts
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