In Poland MPJ’s poetry has long inspired singers and composers to set her words to music. The most iconic performances have been by the great singer Ewa Demarczyk with music composed by Zygmunt Konieczny. In her 1967 studio album Pocałunki she blended verses from MPJ’s volume of the same name. It quickly sold over 100 000 copies and the recordings remained popular for decades.
The presence of Maria’s poems in Polish popular music continues; here is the most recent example:
Ophelia
Oh, I shall have to stay here for a while
in glassy water, in a seaweed net,
until this fact and I are reconciled:
I wasn’t loved, it’s as simple as that.
More than that, her poetry has now inspired
British and American composers:
Roxanna Panufnik (UK/Poland)
Faithful Journey: A Mass for Poland
This is a monumental composition written in 2017–2018, with which Roxanna Panufnik celebrated the centenary of Poland regaining independence. Her intention was to write a work in which she could highlight the bond between her and her country of origin. For this purpose she used, in addition to the traditional order of the mass, works by Polish poets, such as Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Bolesław Leśmian, Zbigniew Herbert, and Wisława Szymborska.
The UK premiere was performed by the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and took place in Birmingham Symphony Hall on 21 November 2018. It was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.
Here is the poem by Maria which Roxanna chose for her Oratorio:
NATIONAL COLOURS
Blanched and bloodied,
Bloodstained and white, linen
Wound dressing, you are proclaimed The Banner,
You have staunched the appalling gore.
The wind unfurls this testament to carnage,
It elevates the heroic bandage,
This memento,
This debt
And this moral.
(1935)
Ryan Latimer (UK)
Speaking of Letters and Dancing
(Composed 2019, recorded 2021)
Latimer chose two poems by MPJ: A Letter and Dancing
They were set in conversation with "Summer Night" by the Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa.
Griffin Candey (USA)
Roses (2023)
In the words of the composer:
“Roses is the second song cycle I wrote for my good friend, Alexandra Nowakowski, and my introduction to the poetry of the amazing twentieth-century Polish poet, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska”
”Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska’s poetry, like her trailblazing contemporaries (poets like Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sylvia Plath,) took on the assumptive gender roles codified into poetry. It turned them on their head, rejecting the idea that women should only write blithe, lilting poetry about beauty or nature”.