Jan Krzywicki
(1948)

Jan Krzywicki

Scherzi

Scherzi is a playfully serious succession of musical characters that are--at various times--

mysterious, questioning, lively, blustery, exotic, intense, songful, skittish, teasing, aspiring, ferocious,

or majestic, among others. At various times, the pianist is required to strum the strings and to

play "stopped" notes (a dry sound similar to pizzicato). The overall form of the work consists of a

three-part Asection, a three-part B, and a mixed development of A and B.

The work was jointly commissioned by the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association

and Music Teachers National Association in 2024 as part of the MTNA Composer Commissioning

Program. Violinist Kurt Nikkanen and pianist Maria Asteriadou premiered the work in June 2024

at Kutztown State University, PA.

Jan Krzywicki

StarSongs

StarSongs is a meditation on night and stars in the form of five choral songs.

The first song, which sets the initial stanza of a poem by Kathleen Raine as a kind of

prelude, expresses the fall of night, the emergence of stars. The second song (Walt Whitman)

contemplates night's spirituality, while the third (William Carlos Williams), a kind of scherzo,

portrays the activity in the heavenly constellations at night. The fourth, a vocalise, offers an

interpretation of G.C. Little's text without employing the words themselves. The final song

completes the text of the initial poem, a consideration of man's irrepressible need to dream.

StarSongs was commissioned by The Music Group of Philadelphia, Sean Matthew

Deibler conductor, as part of its twenty-fifth anniversary season. The work was subsequently

revised, performed and recorded by the Temple University Concert Choir, Paul Rardin, conductor,

in October 2022.

Jan Krzywicki

Catching Light

Catching Light was commissioned for the thirtieth anniversary season of Network for New Music, an ensemble that I have conducted since nearly its inception.

I was asked to contribute a work that would, in some way, be about light, for a concert entitled The Heart of Light and Dark. From among the great variety of ways that attributes of physical light are described in the English language, I chose three: flickering (burning unsteadily or fitfully), shimmering (shining with a reflected or subdued, tremulous light), and burning. These types of light were not, however, taken literally but rather as stimulating departure points. Since there is considerable overlap in these types of light, there is also much musical overlap between the movements, all sharing the same DNA, especially so in the first and third (the third folowing the second without pause).

The fifteen minute work was premiered by Network for New Music on April 19, 2015 in Philadelphia at the Curtis Institute of Music, Gould Hall, the composer conducting. The work was subsequently revised in 2017 and recorded by Ensemble Echappe, Jeffrey Milarsky conductor, for Albany Records (Troy1748). I am very grateful to Linda Reichert, artistic director of Network, for her support over the years.

Jan Krzywicki

Two Elegies

Composed fifteen years apart, the Two Elegies contemplate death from different vantage points. In the first elegy, c.c.cummings poem When God Lets My Body Be considers death as the return of his/her body to the natural world, as an accepting afterlife communion with Nature. Composed in memory of my mother, the work was commissioned by Confluence, Allison Olsson director and premiere in 2013. In the second elegy, Come to Me (1998), a setting of Christina Rosetti's famous poem Echo, the speaker yearns to reach beyond dedath to his/her departed love through memories and dreams. The work was first performed by the Temple University Concert Choir in 1999, Alan Harler conducting. Two Elegies was recorded by the Temple University Concert Choir, Paul Rardin for Albany Records (Troy 1748)

Jan Krzywicki

A Precipice Garden

A Precipice Garden is a cantata about our experience of time--its ephemerality, speed, inevitability, suspension, finality, and eternity. The twenty-minute work is a setting of five short poems by poet and conductor James DePreist that derives its name from his collection of poems A Precipice Garden. The work was commissioned to mark the twentieth anniversary of The Music Group of Philadelphia and its director Sean Deibler in 1997 and subsequently revised in 2025. Briefly stated, the first movement is a kind of prelude that considers time as a magical, instantaneous succession of moments future/present/past. The second movement, a kind ofscherzo, is concerned with the relentless speed of time, while the third movement, an elegy, considers time's incremental, inexorable progression towards death. The fourth movement is a fantasia on the eternity of time, while the last, a kind of postlude, views the end of a day as one of the inevitably recurring cycles of our time experience. The cantata ends with a final allusion to the chiming clock reference heard throughout the piece.The work is indebted to composer Bernard Rands who first brought DePreist's poetry to my attention. The fourth movement in particular is a humble homage to Rands who has been an inspiration to me over the years.

Jan Krzywicki

Concertino bucolico

Commissioned by the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, Karl Middleman conductor for Ricardo Morales (clarinet),

Daniel Matsukawa (bassoon) with the composer conducting, to appear on a program with the Richard Strauss Duo Concertino.

Jan Krzywicki

Concertino

The composition of Concertino was initiated by Anni Baker Wolman who generously

offered to fund a commission for Philadelphia's Orchestra 2001. James Freeman, the

orchestra's director, suggested a work with oboe and trumpet that would feature Dorothy

Freeman, oboe, and Barbara Prugh, trumpet, both of whom subsequently expressed a

desire to include their less frequently used instruments-- oboe d'amore and piccolo trumpet.

The result, Concertino for oboe(s), trumpet(s), harp and string orchestra is a work of about

twenty minutes in three continuous movements. The quick first movement, mostly urgent,

intense and forceful, yields to a slow movement that is initially calm and melodic but then

unstable and eventually tragic. The final movement is sprightly but is interupted by a brief

argument before reaching a climax and eventually resolving calmly. Premiered in February

2000, the work was substantially revised in 2023-24.

Jan Krzywicki

Arabesques de prés et de loin

Arabesques de près et de loin derives from a work for flute, violoncello and piano that

was composed in 2017 for Dolce Suono Ensemble to honor the one-hundreth anniversary of

Debussy’s death. Throughout the composition of that piece, I found myself thinking of

Debussy's incomparable Sonata for flute, viola and harp and decided that when finished I

would compose an additional piece using much of that material. While the two works are

similar, there are many differences that make each a distinct piece in its own right.

I have always been struck by Debussy's musical magic, playfulness, love of

nature and outdoor space and sought to emulate those qualities, using his penchant

for arabesque figurations to create musical events close and distant--thus the title, arabesques

near and far. These events occur progressively, successively, or overlapping (echo), and are

most often reflected in the dynamics and tessitura. Technically, the nine-minute piece employs

much of Debussy's own musical vocabulary (pentatonic, whole-tone, and octatonic pitch

collections) as well as a few specific fingerprints: the dominant ninth chord, the "water motive"

from Pelleas et Melisande and La Mer, and a few chords from the piano Etudes. I wanted the

piece to inhabit Debussy's sound world,--without sounding like an imposter.