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

Revised in 2017 and recorded by Ensemble Echappe, Jeffrey Milarsky conductor, for Albany Records (Troy1748)

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.