Three Songs to Old Italian Words

Three Songs to Old Italian Words for soprano accompanied by 3 violas and cello to old Italian texts (1952)

Three Songs to Old Italian texts. S’alza nel ocean la vagh’aurora /excerpt/

Performers: Henryka Januszewska – soprano, Marek Bojarski - viola, Alfred Dahlen – viola, Marek Bugajski – viola, Ewa Gizińska-Misińska – cello, Andrzej Mysiński – conductor, Warszawa Studio S-2 1988, Polish Radio

Three Songs to Old Italian texts. O sia tranquillo... /excerpt/

Three Songs to Old Italian texts. O, miracol d’amore... /excerpt/

The work was commissioned by the committee for the celebrations of Leonardo da Vinci’s 500th birthday. Its premiere took place in 1953 at the National Museum in Warsaw. The composer used in it three anonymous old Italian poems, translated by M. Widłak-Avolio:

I. S’alza nel ocean la vagh’aurora (Graceful dawn rises from the ocean...); II. O sia tranquillo... (O, if tranquil...); III O, miracol d’amore... (O, miracle of love...). This order corresponds to the order of the work’s movements: I. Moderato, II. Andante tranquillo, III. Allegro giocoso.

It is an archaising composition, drawing on the tradition of the Italian Renaissance – both in its verbal and musical layer. The love theme of the poetic text refers to the secular lyric poetry of the period, while the music itself can be placed among sophisticated social amusements enjoyed by the Italian aristocracy and bourgeoisie in central and northern Italy in the late 15th and early 16th century.

Despite the fact that the work has been performed and recorded, its has not become a subject of detailed analyses and reviews. The work is also known as Three Old Italian Songs.