Professor Paweł Łukaszewski, DA Hab.

Com­poser; born on 19th Sep­tem­ber 1968 in Częs­to­chowa. , Son of a com­poser, Woj­ciech Łukaszewski. In 1968 he grad­u­ated with hon­ours from the State Sec­ondary Music School in Częs­to­chowa. He stud­ied at the Acad­emy of Music in War­saw in the period of 1987–1992, class of Pro­fes­sor Andrzej Wró­bel and in the period of 1991–1995, class of com­po­si­tion of Pro­fes­sor Mar­ian Borkowski (diploma with the high­est grade). In 1994 he also com­pleted the Man­age­ment of Cul­ture Course at the Adam Mick­iewicz Uni­ver­sity in Poz­nań, and in 1996 he com­pleted a two-year Post­grad­u­ate Choir­mas­ter Course at the Acad­emy of Music in Byd­goszcz (diploma with the high­est grade). Dur­ing his stud­ies he also par­tic­i­pated in many spe­cial­ist courses, e.g. the Com­puter Music Course in War­saw (1992), Sum­mer Courses for Young Com­posers in Kaz­imierz Dolny (1992, 1993), Con­tem­po­rary Music Course in Krakow (1993) and Music Com­puter Graph­ics Course in War­saw (1993–95).

Paweł Łukaszewski is active as an orga­nizer of music life. Since 1992 he has held the func­tion of Chair­man of the “Musica Sacra” asso­ci­a­tion. In the period of 1992–93 he was Sec­re­tary of the Youth Cir­cle of the Pol­ish Com­posers’ Union, and since 1995 he has been Sec­re­tary of the Board of “The Lab­o­ra­tory of Con­tem­po­rary Music”. In 2001 he held the func­tion of Editor-in-chief of the monthly mag­a­zine “Muzyka 21”.

His works have been per­formed in such coun­tries as France, Ger­many (the “Uner­hör­te­mu­sik” fes­ti­val in Berlin), Italy (Festi­val Inter­na­zio­nale di Musica Con­tem­po­ra­nea “Musica Viva” in Rome), Bel­gium, Monaco, Great Britain, Swe­den, Ice­land, Den­mark, Canada (the 5^th Edmon­ton New Music Festi­val), the USA, China and in Poland (on such fes­ti­vals as: the Sacred Music Fes­ti­val “Gaude Mater” in Częs­to­chowa, “The Young com­posers’ Forum” in Krakow, “Music in the Old Krakow”, “Wra­ti­sla­via Can­tans”, “The Lab­o­ra­tory of Con­tem­po­rary Music” in Białys­tok, “War­saw Music Meet­ings”, “Leg­nica Can­tat”, “Con­ver­sato­rium of the Organ Music” in Leg­nica, “Days of Music by Ryszard Bukowski” in Wrocław).

His works have been recorded on over 50 CDs. In 1999 his com­po­si­tion Win­ter­re­ise for string orches­tra (1993) was pre­sented by the National Sym­phony Orches­tra of the Pol­ish Radio con­ducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk on the pres­ti­gious con­cert The Last Night of the Proms in Krakow, which was held under the patron­age of the Prince of Kent.

Many times he was awarded with schol­ar­ships: Schol­ar­ship of the Office of the City of Częs­to­chowa (1993), the Union of Stage Artists and Crit­ics Schol­ar­ship (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007), Schol­ar­ship of the Pro­fes­sor Bog­dan Suchodol­ski Foun­da­tion in War­saw (1995) and Schol­ar­ship of the Fund for Pro­mo­tion of Cre­ative Activ­ity attached to the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Art (1996).

For his com­po­si­tions Łukaszewski has been awarded with numer­ous prizes and hon­orary men­tions, e.g. in 1988 – a hon­orary men­tion at the Aca­d­e­mic Com­mu­nity Com­pe­ti­tion in Krakow for Mod­l­itwa (Prayer) for the mixed choir a capella (1988), in 1994 – the 2^nd Prize at the Young Com­posers’ Forum in Krakow for Win­ter­re­ise and an hon­orary men­tion at the Tadeusz Baird Young Com­posers’ Com­pe­ti­tion for Arram­pi­cata for orches­tra (1992), and in 1995 – the 1^st Prize funded by Orfeo – Bogusław Kaczyński’s Foun­da­tion at the Com­pe­ti­tion of the Acad­emy of Music in War­saw, also for Arram­pi­cata, in 1996 – the 2^nd Prize at the 5^th Adam Didur Composer’s Com­pe­ti­tion in Sanok for Recor­da­tio­nes de Chri­sto moriendo for mezzo-soprano and cham­ber orches­tra (1996), in 1998 – the 2^nd Prize at the 27^th Inter­na­tional Com­pe­ti­tion Flo­ri­lege Vocal de Tours in France for Dwa motety wiel­ko­postne (Two Lenten Motets) for mixed choir a capella (1995), and in 2003 – tho 3^rd ex aequo Prizes for the Com­posers’ Com­pe­ti­tion “Pro Arte” in Wrocław. He was also hon­oured with the Award of the Pres­i­dent of the City of Częs­to­chowa for his com­po­si­tions (1995), Medal for Achieve­ments and Chancellor’s Award of the Baltic Higher School of Human­i­ties in Kosza­lin (1998), Hon­orary Emblem for Mer­its for the Kosza­lin Voivod­ship, the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polo­nia Resti­tuta (1998) and the Brother Albert Award (2006).

From 1996 to 2001 Paweł Łukaszewski worked as Assis­tant at Chair of Com­po­si­tion of the Acad­emy of Music in War­saw, where in 2000 he obtained the aca­d­e­mic title of dok­tor (DA), and in 2006 he obtained a post-doctoral degree (dok­tor habil­i­towany) in com­po­si­tion. Since Decem­ber 2010 he has held the post of Professor.

Review of the con­cert of 8^th March 2002 by Sta­ni­sław Olędzki:

Dur­ing Lent the Way of the Cross ser­vices are cel­e­brated in Catholic churches. Hence, it is not sur­pris­ing that the first per­for­mance of such a mass com­posed by Paweł Łukaszewski, mas­ter of con­tem­po­rary church music, gath­ered a full con­cert hall at the Phil­har­monic. Nobody could dream of a bet­ter pro­gramme at that time.  (…) All music pieces by Łukaszewski should be regarded as the per­fect set­ting for spe­cial church cer­e­monies. And if today there was any sense in impos­ing any indi­vid­ual style upon the con­tem­po­rary sacred works it is Paweł Łukaszewski I would point to, rep­re­sented by his numer­ous sacred com­po­si­tions, includ­ing Via Cru­cis. If only such music, or at least with a sim­i­lar qual­ity, could we hear in our churches more often… (…)

Despite his young age Łukaszewski has great achieve­ments, espe­cially in the area of choral music, in which he moves freely, shap­ing the sub­stance accord­ing to the truth of his own style, nature of the lan­guage and enor­mously expres­sive pas­sages.  Such fea­tures of skills are usu­ally obtained in the phase of one’s full cre­ative matu­rity, after many years of work. Łukaszewski achieved them a long time ago, which proves the uncom­mon scale of his talent.

Łukaszewski’s Via Cru­cis is a com­po­si­tion last­ing 56 min­utes. It is devel­oped on the basis of a mega-rondo, i.e., a great rondo, in which each of the four­teen Sta­tions is pre­ceded and closed with sim­i­lar music (like in a refrain), con­sist­ing of the for­mula of the name of the Sta­tion (choral male voices), invo­ca­tion: We bow down before Thee … (choral female voices), and at the end the lamen­ta­tion You who suf­fered wounds for us …  (choral female voices) and instru­men­tal inter­ludes, which in my opin­ion sym­bol­ize the pas­sages between the Sta­tions (on the back­ground of low drones of the brass we hear the hasty steps, almost tan­gled, chanted sounds of flutes, oboes and clar­inets). There are more such “talk­ing sounds” in this music (see below). To the moments con­sol­i­dat­ing the form I would also include the strokes (from one to four­teen), which are rec­og­nized by the lis­tener from the third or the fourth one as a pecu­liar num­ber­ing of the Sta­tions and later on he just waits for them like for some­thing per­ma­nent. I have not seen the score but I think that also the above men­tioned “per­ma­nent” ele­ments of the piece are sub­tly vari­anted in their tex­ture and means of expres­sion, cre­at­ing a pecu­liar “vari­ety of the unity”. The strongest dif­fer­ence could be eas­ily noticed in the Sta­tions of tak­ing off the Cross and putting in the grave (calmed dynam­ics in the cho­ruses of pas­sages between the Sta­tions and in the strokes “num­ber­ing” these Stations).

In works such as Via Cru­cis one can notice many ele­ments of archaiza­tion of the composer’s lan­guage – lack of them would arouse jus­ti­fied sus­pi­cions. Only in sound aspect of the piece they are numer­ous drones empha­siz­ing the sever­ity of the har­monic cli­mate (as if taken from the early organum by Huc­bald and Guidon of Arezzo), fre­quently used aus­tere sound of the brass and the high-pitched, almost medieval “pipes” (flutes, oboes, clar­inets in pas­sages between the Sta­tions) and gen­eral harsh­ness (bit­ter­ness) of the sound; in its melodic aspect – aus­tere recita­tives and melodecla­ma­tions sim­i­lar to syn­a­gogue singing (espe­cially in Sta­tion 8 and 13); in the choral tex­ture – the oppo­si­tion: female voices vs male voices sim­i­lar to the old antiphonal singing (in all “refrain” choral parts, also in some “plot” parts, e.g. Sta­tions 3, 7). The com­poser delib­er­ately referred to the prac­tice of rhetor­i­cal fig­ures by “visu­al­is­ing” his sound lan­guage to the max­i­mum, thanks to which he achieved such vivid pic­tures as in the fol­low­ing Sta­tions: Sta­tion 3 (the sequence of invo­ca­tions of indi­vid­ual voices of the choir a capella with pro­longed last syl­la­bles to the form of drones), Sta­tion 7 (excla­ma­tions depict­ing moans and sighs of the tor­tured Christ), Sta­tion 9 (“wan­der­ing” sounds depict­ing the words of Isa­iah All we like sheep have gone astray), Sta­tions 10 and 11 (cul­mi­na­tion of tor­tures by cru­ci­fix­ion has its equiv­a­lent in the dra­matic move­ment in music, quiv­er­ing of the choral and the orches­tral tex­ture), in the Sta­tions of dying, tak­ing off the Cross and putting in the grave  – the music is thin­ning down, freez­ing (“death”). More­over, in this last Sta­tion of the Way of the Cross we are struck by the melody of the sad carol and lul­laby Jezus malu­sieńki. This quo­ta­tion prob­a­bly sym­bol­izes the rebirth to the new life in the moment of death of the body). Such quo­ta­tions are jus­ti­fied from the point of view of expres­sion, form, idea, as well as the­ory (as the so-called “locus exem­plo­rum”). They have become tra­di­tion of the Pol­ish music , e.g. the carol Silent night in Sym­phony No. 2 (Christ­mas Sym­phony), the song Święty Boże, Święty mocny… in the Pol­ish Requiem (Recor­dare), Boże, coś Pol­skę… in Te Deum by Pen­derecki, quo­ta­tions in music by H.M. Górecki (Old Pol­ish Music, Sym­phonies No. 2 and 3), Woj­ciech Kilar (Krze­sany, Siwa mgła [Hoary Fog], Bogu­ro­dzica [Mother of God]) and others.

If in these “refrain” parts the com­poser delib­er­ately imposed the self-limiting dis­ci­pline on him­self, in the four­teen Sta­tions and the fif­teenth one, which plays the role of a coda, we could wit­ness and, more impor­tantly, expe­ri­ence the grow­ing dra­matic ten­sion of the piece, reach­ing its apogee in the Sta­tions on the Gol­go­tha (10–14)  and the final Sta­tion 15 (the Res­ur­rec­tion). Despite the gen­er­ally accepted assump­tion of some asceti­cism, or per­haps because of it (by say­ing lit­tle we can say much more than say­ing much), we are so pre­oc­cu­pied with the plot that we do not feel bored for a sin­gle moment. It hap­pens because the com­poser knows the arcane of psy­chol­ogy and per­cep­tion of large (long) forms and he has worked out his own set of for­mal means. Using the refrain frag­ments, seem­ingly the same but always a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, he sort of deletes all that hap­pened from our mem­ory, leav­ing the lis­tener before a new piece after each Sta­tion. In my per­cep­tion, such “reset” func­tion in a sense had the amor­phous frag­ment of pass­ing from Sta­tion to Sta­tion. In the fun­da­men­tal “plot” frag­ments (eleven times based on the Gospel, three times based on the Book of Isa­iah) the musi­cal plot is very reach and var­ied: from quite ascetic pas­sages based only on the nar­ra­tion parts (spo­ken or melode­claimed), through choral Sta­tions a cap­pella, to the very dra­matic ones, using the rich choral and orches­tral appa­ra­tus (Sta­tions 10, 11 and 15). (…)