Prayer to the Virgin of Skempe

Jerzy Pietrkiewicz (P)

My good friend, the poet Jerzy Pietrkiewicz, showed me his impassioned poem to the Virgin of Skempe, and wanted me to set it to music.  It was so beautiful in its own right that I did not feel that my music could improve upon it.  Therefore, respecting the words, I set the original Polish version in a musical framework which I hope does justice to its intensity and fervour.





Andrzej Panufnik

Reproduction Rights
This programme note can be reproduced free of charge in concert programmes with a credit to the composer


[Note:  On request of Jerzy Pietrkiewicz, and because of Panufnik’s failing health at the time of this composition, Roxanna Panufnik composed a more extended string quartet version of her father’s setting.]