The chamber concert featuring the Kwartludium ensemble, which includes: Dagna Sadkowska, Michał Górczyński, Paweł and Piotr Nowicki, will include compositions by young artists associated with the Polish contemporary music scene: Magdalena Gorwa, Bartosz Witkowski and Mateusz Ryczek. The idiom driving the programme this evening will be reflection, which will lead a Passion culminating the programme.

 to be / not to be is the title of the composition by Magdalena Gorwa, a graduate of the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music. She is interested not only in contemporary music in the broad sense, but also in theatre – performances with her music are staged throughout Poland. The artist’s composing language is interdisciplinary, as she draws inspiration from various sources: classical music, electronics and singing. The piece that will be heard that evening in the Black Hall was intended for violin, clarinet, percussion and piano.

Nothing to Explain for four performers by Bartosz Witkowski is a work based on a one-movement form, clearly breaking down into several episodes – thus it is the essence of the composer’s style, in which the clash of opposites, organic transitions, plays with time and perception have a key role. As for the title – as the author himself emphasizes – there is nothing to explain here.

The crucial point of the programme will be Mateusz Ryczek’s Passion, intended for a chamber line-up: violin, clarinets, percussion and piano. The impulse to compose it was the Lenten tradition of Gorzkie Żale – a religious service indigenous to Poland, and not, as tradition dictates, the text of the Gospel. Hence the four-movement structure: Wake Up, Hymn, Lament, Conversation of the Soul. There is also no verbal layer in the work. The foundation for the musical layer of the piece is a collection of melodies from pre-war Volhynia (nowadays part of Ukraine). Elements of mystery, reflection and spatial radiation of sound make up the unconventional nature of the Passion.