A new work by acclaimed Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki has its world premiere tonight at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw.

Entitled A Sea of Dreams has Fallen on Me... Songs of Reverie and Nostalgia, it is a cycle of twenty one songs to verse by Polish poets for three solo voices, choir and orchestra.

A Sea of Dreams has Fallen on Me... Songs of Reverie and Nostalgia was commissioned by the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute and its premiere marks the end of the Chopin Year, the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The work is Penderecki’s return to settings of Polish poetry after a lapse of fifty years. 

“My idea was to probe into the state of Chopin’s soul. In his letters, the nostalgia for Poland is present throughout,” Penderecki said in an interview with the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

It is performed  by Wioletta Chodowicz (soprano) Agnieszka Rehlis (mezzo-soprano), Mariusz Godlewski (baritone),  the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Valery Gergiev, Artistic Director of the Marininsky Theatre in St Petersburg and Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Having gone through some seven thousand pages of poems, the composer has selected those by Adam Mickiewicz,  Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Tadeusz Myciński, Aleksander Wat, Kazimierz Wierzyński, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Leopold Staff  and Zbigniew Herbert.  (mk/pg)