Music for Soprano and String Band

This composition was written for the soprano singer Jadwiga Gadulanka and the Chamber Band of Filharmonia Narodowa (Warsaw Philharmonic) lead by Karol Teutsch. It is one movement piece with vocalise and easy structure close to A-B-A form. It means that the piece consists of a couple of episodes where the last one is a repetition of the first one in a variation form.

The voice of the singer is treated as an instrument. The lack of poetical lyrics was meant to turn both performer’s and audience’s attention to music only. The earlier version of the composition was arranged for mezzo-soprano – Music for Mezzo-soprano and Strings. It also also exists as two instrumental pieces: Elegy for Oboe and String Band (1969) and Elegy for Trumpet and Strings.