Concert works

WIOSNA

Wiosna is a piece for string orchestra, premiered by canadian violinist Angèle Dubeau.

Inspired by a poem written by my Grandfather, Maksymilian Baranowski, whilst interred in a forced labour camp in Siberia, 1941.

Wiosna, which means “Spring” in Polish, is a poem about the first stirrings of renewal - both in nature and within the human spirit. As the Siberian winter melts, he was one of very few survivors to have made it through the bitter cold of his forced labour camp, whilst working on a railway line on megre rations and little protection from the arctic conditions.

Wisona

from the cycle “Siberian Sonnets” (translated literally from the Polish)

The mountains of snow melt beneath the gaze of the sun -
their heads bow lower toward the earth,
they spread flat... slip into ditches -
at last, they flow away as a swollen river without end.

The earth casts off its white coat, lined with ice,
and covers itself with a fresh green carpet.
The ruler of frost, overthrown, is no longer master,
yielding his brightness before the sunlit dawn.

The world awakens to life, brimming with joy…
in our souls something suddenly, without knowing why, has stirred...
a string long silent beneath a grave has trembled.

Now we look differently upon this springtime world -
Hope, with the dawn’s sunlight, has brightened our souls
and kindled in our hearts a faith in better days.

(Komi S.S.R. 1941, Camp Point 112, Musig)

Maksymilian Baranowski

I was so taken aback at the beautiful positivity in this poem - I was very close to my Grandfather (himself a composer and choir master) and he spoke of his time in the labour camps as the worst hardship of his life. Worse than most of us can imagine. What begins as a simple observation of spring becomes a quiet act of resistance: faith and life re-emerging where everything seemed frozen. In a place of suffering, it finds light - not by denying the cold, but by showing that warmth and belief can still return.

With four verses in the poem, there are four sections to the piece which was my own emotional response to reading it. It’s one of the most personal pieces I’ve ever written.

It features on Angèle Dubeau’s album “Alex Baranowski: Portrait”.