Morze (Sea) Wiatr (Wind) Zima (Winter) Rycerze (Knights) Dzwony Cerkiewne ([Orthodox] Church bells)

These five songs are among Lutoslawski's most overlooked important works. In them he used for the first time his mature harmonic technique of twelve-note chords and aggregate chords. The poetess Illakowicz was born near Vilnius in Lithuania and often used motives from Lithuanian folklore and history. These five poems came from a collection of twenty-seven "Children's Rhymes."

All but the first of these songs are dedicated to Nadia Boulanger; Lutoslawski was scheduled to study with her in Paris when World War II intervened.

Aggregate chords, a major feature of Lutoslawski's work are often superimposed standard chords, often divided among to distinct registers or instrumental groups. For instance, the second and fourth chords in the opening song are a dominant-seventh each in the middle and low register and a major triad with an added minor ninth in the high register. These add up to all twelve chromatic notes. In addition, the melodic lines tend to be restricted to only a few choices of intervals.

The final one of these songs is the most striking. Its title is usually translated simply as "church bells" but the actual word cerkiewne actually refers to an onion-domed building - hence, an Orthodox church. The song contrasts two bell sounds: "We like the orthodox bells when they are singing..." and "We like the orthodox bells when they are angry..."

Lutoslawski wrote these songs in 1956-1957, and orchestrated them in 1958. The piano version was not premiered until 1959, and the orchestral version until 1960. By then later works using the same harmonic techniques had already become famous, so their pivotal role in the composer's development was not appreciated. Moreover, their being written in Polish has impeded their spread outside of Poland. English performing translation used in the score is especially poor. These problems convinced Lutoslawski to use only French (his second language) in his vocal music in the future.



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