Through Music, A Text Can Be Exalted: An Interview with Paweł Łukaszewski

pawel_lukaszewski_fot_franciszek_mazur_ag_fm170424-fryd25-2.jpg, default, Through Music, A Text Can Be Exalted: An Interview with Paweł Łukaszewski, Paweł Łukaszewski during the Fryderyki Gala in 2017, photo: Franciszek Mazur / Agencja Gazeta, top-left

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A hunger for sacred themes is still evident amongst music lovers, insists Paweł Łukaszewski, Poland’s most popular composer in Great Britain today.

Filip Lech (FL): You have been composing for over thirty years. Has anything changed over these past three decades?

Paweł Łukaszewski (PŁ): No doubt everything changes with age. These have been thirty years of experience, composition, developing certain habits and customs, coming to know what I like in music and what I’d rather avoid. I took many journeys and met with many people. I can’t say how exactly my music has changed – that’s the job of musicologists. I’d rather stick to the process of composition myself.

FL: What was the greatest milestone in your composing career?

PŁ: The turning point for me was certainly my encounter with the British musical community: the conductors, musicians, choirs, music publishers and record producers. I was especially helped by Stephen Layton, who recorded two of my pieces for BBC Singers. From that moment, my romance with Great Britain began.

Later, Layton recorded those pieces for the Hyperion studio with his other ensembles: the Trinity College Choir from Cambridge, the Britten Sinfonia, Polyphony, and the Holst Singers. This was a huge change and success for me. One after another, I began to sign publishing contracts with Chester Music (one of the world’s largest music publishers – F.L.). So far, I have published thirty pieces with them. That’s resulted in further commissions – for example, Responsoria Tenebrae for the King’s Singers. Signum Records – with the support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute – released it in 2018, sung by the Tenebrae choir, directed by Nigel Short.

FL: The instrument you use most is the human voice.

PŁ: The voice is something special, if you’re talking about music; it’s the instrument most accessible to us and it’s one every one of us has. Now, sometimes we use it better or worse, but it’s a natural instrument – it’s within us. It’s not something whose sounds you have to draw out of yourself using technological means. The sound comes from us, thanks to which it can be most easily understood by another human being. Our voice stays with us at all times.

A choir isn’t just an instrument; it’s a social unit. I learned a lot about this when I conducted my own ensemble: Musica Sacra, the Choir of the Warsaw-Praga District Cathedral. Life in a choir means developing the ability to function in a team; it’s something special and very important. In a choir, we expect everyone to give a small part of themselves in order to build something together. It’s the very opposite of the soloist’s position, who only wants to hear his or her own voice and who wants everyone else to submit to his or her needs – even the conductor or the accompanist. In a choir, as well as in other ensembles – an orchestra or chamber ensemble, for example – it’s different. Each member must feel that he or she is creating something of value. In this sense, it’s a way of functioning in a group – and perhaps ultimately in a society?

Singing in a choir is certainly a lesson in how to establish contact with other people. Working in a group helps us not be alone. In an era of the Internet and phones, that’s not easy. We have many ways of communicating with each other without using our voices. This doesn’t help; people get closed in on themselves this way.

FL: What texts do you use in your work?

PŁ: Above all, Latin texts. The Liber Usualis is a treasure trove, a book in which you can find everything necessary for the entire liturgical year. I also use the Bible, though I’ve also used bits of the Apocrypha, for instance, the Book of Henoch. I’ve also used texts in German (selections from prayers in the memorial mass for Saint Edith Stein), and I also use some English. I’ve written many compositions based on the works of Polish poets, such as Iłłakowiczówna, Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Miłosz, Herbert, Lechoń and Wyspiański.

I have to draw my inspiration from a text; not every text is appropriate for a musical setting. I look for the sonorousness of the words, their ability to carry far, the poignancy that they bear within them – that which lies between the words. Similarly, in the music I look for what’s between the notes. There are a lot of these texts out there and there are a lot of them still ahead of me.

Latin is a language which has almost been forgotten; it’s not very communicative. It’s forgotten, but it’s also the language of the Church and of prayer. It fascinates me. Maybe it’s because we don’t know Latin that makes it appropriate for such use? It’s a means of breaching the walls of a secret – in the case of sacral music, we can talk about an attempt to get in touch with the secret of creation. Latin somehow seems in place in that context. Not everyone is able to understand it right away, but they can gradually drill down to it. There are certain words that I try to emphasise in particular and some which I choose to hide. It all depends how I get into the text and what it is that I want to show my listener.

In the UK, all composers work with English texts, but it was actually there that my Latin pieces gained the most attention.

FL: How are you developing your Latin skills?

PŁ: I’m not studying Latin and I’ve never studied it; I’m from a generation that didn’t have Latin in school. The experience I have and that I have developed is limited to singing in choir and composing. For me, it’s a musical and liturgical language.

FL: You talked about seeking out a secret. How does music bring a secret to your language?

PŁ: Music isn’t a literal and codified language like a spoken language; its sound is an important added value. I don’t think that it’s an addendum to the music – in an ideal situation, the words and music interact equally with one another. Speech alone, colloquially speaking, is just routine – in our times, it’s not worth much. We can say many things, but our words don’t get through to people. Music is able to get the message through, though. Moreover, I always emphasise that music doesn’t play a role subordinate to the text.

FL: Do you remember a time when music revealed something to you?

PŁ: I’m always looking for that kind of situation and they’ve happened to me a few times. I’ve almost always been spiritually moved when listening to music – ever since music school. I quickly realised that I am looking for something specific in music (and I reject many things). When I discovered the work of Arvo Pärt a few years ago, it moved me very profoundly and I began to consider why that is. I can now say with confidence that his music has spiritual content and something that lies between the notes. I found the same thing in the music of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and John Tavener.

I don’t like listening to music which is just art for art’s sake. That is to say that it’s music which was composed just for fun, for the joy of playing with sounds, for creating a system of sound trying to prove something. I’m looking for values that go beyond the technical and, happily, I’ve been able to find them.

FL: Can you tell us something more about this emotional response? I know that it might be a very intimate subject.

PŁ: We’re talking about something that’s hard to put into words. If it were easy, then everyone would be talking about it and they wouldn’t need to use music – they’d prefer the word. This emotional feeling is my search which can sometimes be connected with a single chord. An interval tied to a single syllable. We never know why this moves us so at a given moment and, at another time, we’re left entirely apathetic.

The emotion is the subject of a constant search. These days, it’s hard to find – it requires looking deep into oneself, slowing down life’s rat race. It’s like watching a film interrupted by commercial breaks or other distractions, something which is constantly happening – unless we go out to the movie theater and focus our full attention on the film. The role of composers today is to seek out the profound and express emotion. That’s hard to do ad hoc, to just sit down and say: today, I’m going to compose a piece that will move my listeners and the performers who perform it. It comes from somewhere beyond the conscious process of composition. Lately, I personally have had very little time for profound involvement in my composing. I’ve been giving a lot of my attention to my work at the university.

FL: The music of Arvo Pärt is often compared with architecture. You’re also fascinated with architectural forms.

PŁ: I’m attracted to sacral architecture. I’m fascinated by French Gothic cathedrals; for me, they’re special, because I discovered them when I was just a young chorister. I also noticed the Gothic architecture of tiny churches in small villages, as well as the grand cathedrals in Paris, Rouen, or Amiens. I also have close ties to Cologne: I’m there at least twice a year; I am an organizer of a competition for young composers which takes place there. The Cologne cathedral has greatly inspired me; there are also many Romance-era churches there which are also beautiful and quite different from the Gothic style. This fascination probably doesn’t affect my music directly, but I always imagine it being performed in sacral structures.

FL: In which sacral structures would you think it best to listen to your music?

PŁ: I’ve had many wonderful experiences in the Jasna Góra Basilica: many of my vocal-instrumental premieres have taken place there. It’s an exceptional space. The Polish Catholic Cathedral of St Mary Magdalene in Wrocław also lends itself nicely to and is appropriate for performances with large casts. I once wrote a piece for massed choirs to be situated around the dome of the Cathedral of Divine Providence in Warsaw. I appear with my choir during services at St Florian’s Cathedral – it’s a special place on my map.

In the Church of Divine Mercy in Białystok, we had the premiere of my Fourth Symphony, dedicated, in fact, to divine mercy. That church holds the remains of St Sister Faustyna and the Blessed Fr. Michał Sopoćki. I don’t want to say that music sounds magical there, but it certainly sounds sacral.

FL: We’re spoken about emotions that can’t be captured in words, but there’s a large body of literature which has been created by mystics. Does the language of any of them especially speak to you?

PŁ: Sister Faustyna’s Diary, parts of which I incorporated into my Fourth Symphony. Her experiences were exceptional, mystical. I also wrote a piece ‘De caritate’ to a text from Book Three – On the Miraculous Effect of God’s Love to the words of St. Thomas à Kempis from his book On the Imitation of Christ. It was a commission from the Choir of the National Music Forum. Thomas Aquinas is also fascinating – I’m waiting for a chance to familiarize myself with his Summa. I love his book on angels; I dedicated my Third Symphony to angels – it’s a subject very close to my heart.

FL: Last year, for the centennial of Polish Independence, you composed a piece on commission from the President of Poland: ‘Te Deum Polonia’. What is the musical idiom of Polishness?

PŁ: The simplification of patriotism in music doesn’t benefit either religion or Poland. You have to approach such a theme cautiously, so as not to get caught up in banalities. I don’t compose that sort of music too often: Te Deum was an exception. I tried to limit the extent of patriotic sentiment in the piece, so as not to breach the boundaries of good taste.

FL: What to your mind are the most important echoes of Polishness in 20^th-century Polish music?

PŁ: One of the most beautiful pieces of religious and patriotic music to me is Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater. Another good example is Górecki’s Beatus Vir and the Oratorium Sanctus Adalbertus – less well-known and only performed once. It brought together Christianity and Polishness, things which to me are inseparable. I ascribe this to John Paul II, who had a great influence on Górecki’s music. Listening to his choral works, I recall the Pope’s visit to Jasna Góra – I heard similar sounds there. Górecki managed to lift up the spirit which made itself manifest there and he enrobed it in his own sounds.

FL: What does it mean to be a composer in the second decade of the 2000s?

PŁ: It would be very bold of me to say what it means ‘to be a composer’. It’s a long road. It’s also a responsibility and a source of humility – despite all the successes and commissions one achieves, one has to be modest. You are subject to attacks, misunderstandings and words of criticism. Being a composer transcends all those mundane assertions. Above all, being a composer is being yourself: it’s a dogged, determined slog to your chosen goals.

FL: Is it a divine spark and inspiration or is it hard work?

PŁ: First, there has to be a divine spark and then you have to get down to work. It’s titanic or Benedictine work. Without caring what someone will like or not. We don’t do this for the present time. Perhaps other times will come when someone else’s creation will emerge. That’s happened many times in the history of music.

Embedded event

Joy & Devotion: A New Annual UK Festival for Polish Sacred Music

Language English

polish sacral music

sacral music

karol szymanowski

henryk mikołaj górecki

paweł łukaszewski

Spirituality