The Waters of the Stream Are Running for mixed choir a cappella (1956)

This brief choral composition was initially part of incidental music to a production of Adam Mickiewicz’s Forefathers’ Eve  directed by Aleksander Bardini and presented at Teatr Polski in Warsaw in 1955. Tadeusz Baird arranged it as a separate work, which he dedicated to his friend, Bardini. In its structure it is subordinated to the text and takes into account Mickiewicz’s dialogue between Gustaw (tenors) and children’s choir (sopranos and altos). The entire piece resembles a joyful folk tune with a simple harmony (C major), narrow melody, drone fifths in the basses, fixed metre (3/8), two-bar, recurring rhythmic pattern of a mazurka, fast tempo.

Although the critics were not really interested in it as an autonomous composition, its theatrical version was appreciated by, for example, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, who said that the beauty of Baird’s music had a significant impact on the shape of the theatrical production presented on stage. 

The Waters of the Stream are Running won an award at a closed composition organised by the Polish Composers’ Union for a song to a text by Adam Mickiewicz.