Maestro Wojciech Milewski will close the 20th season of the Summerville Orchestra with Odwieczne pieśni [Eternal Songs], a symphonic triptych by Mieczysław Karłowicz, in concerts on May 17 and 18. Entitled “A Summerville Celebration” and performed just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, the concert program will also include Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute and a world premiere of a work written for the Summerville Orchestra by Colorado composer, Chris Pilsner.
About the Eternal Songs
Written over the span of about a year and a half and finished in February 1906, this large-scale symphonic work was premiered on 21 March 1907 by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Grzegorz Fitelberg. The title page of this work bears a motto, “Oto staję przed Wami, by zanieść skargę na los swój!” [Here I stand before you to protest my fate!” Each movement of the Eternal Songs carries an emotive and poignant title—beginning with Pieśń o wiekuistej tęsknocie [The song of eternal longing], followed by Pieśń o miłości i śmierci [The song of love and death], and closing with Pieśń o wschechbycie [The song of eternal being].
It is generally accepted by various Karłowicz scholars that this music comes from the composer’s love and awe experienced during many of his solo hikes in the Tatra mountains. In fact, Karłowicz reflected on his source of inspiration in one of his essays:
“And when I’m atop a steep summit, alone, with only the azure cupola of sky above me, surrounded by snowbound peaks rising from the sea of flatlands, that’s when I begin to dissolve in the surrounding universe, cease being a solitary soul and feel the mighty breath of the everlasting presence of eternity. This feeling permeates all my soul’s fibers, fills them with a gentle light and—reaching great depths of buried memories of worries and of pains endured—heals them, makes them simpler and plain. The hours spent in this dreamlike state are like a temporary return to non-being; they provide calm to living and to death, they speak of the eternal joy of dissolving into eternity.”
Without a doubt, the Eternal Songs are a very personal statement by a composer who only a few years after the premiere of this exceptional work died in an avalanche accident in early February of 1909, only a few weeks after a triumphant presentation of the Eternal Songs at the Warsaw Philharmonic on 22 January 1909. Remembering this occasion decades later, one of the audience members and later a Warsaw Philharmonic conductor, Józef Oźmiński, wrote:
With his Eternal Songs, at his last concert Karłowicz led the orchestra and the public to an unparalleled enthusiasm. Strictly speaking the orchestra and the public for the first time realized that an extraordinary musician stood before them. That’s why especially after the second movement of this trilogy, he was forced into repeated bows, and we have never before seen Karłowicz so beautifully radiant and happy as he was that day. All of us were overjoyed by his success and bade him a heartfelt adieu, hoping to see him soon. Alas, he would never return to us…”
Eternal Songs became one of Karłowicz’s most often programmed works, with at least five performances in the U.S. since 1945, according to the data supplied by the Polish Music Publishers [PWM]. Another performance of this magnificent work by Maestro Milewski and the Summerville Orchestra at their Summers Corner Performing Arts Center just north of Charleston, South Carolina, will take place on May 17 and 18.
Concert Details
This exceptional concert will take place under the Honorary Patronage of his Excellency Marek Magierowski, the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland in the United States. In his letter to Wojciech Milewski, Music Director of the Summerville Orchestra and Charleston Opera Theatre, Ambassador Magierowski, wrote:
I am particularly grateful for the inclusion of a segment dedicated to the esteemed Polish composer, Mieczysław Karłowicz. His compositions, with their deep, lyrical melodies and intricate emotional landscapes, are not merely integral to our Polish cultural heritage; they are also universal expressions of the profound impact music has on the human spirit.
May 17 and 18, 2024
‘A Summerville Celebration’ feat. Maestro Wojciech Milewski in Karłowicz’s Eternal Songs
Summers Corner Performing Arts Center
318 Gnarly Oak Lane, Summerville, SC, USA
Tickets & Info: summervilleorchestra.ludus.com or call: 843. 873. 5339.
[Sources: press release, summervilleorchestra.org]