Aspekty religijne w polskiej muzyce fortepianowej XX i XXI wieku

This article discusses the works for solo piano and for piano and orchestra, in which reli- gious inspiration associated with Christianity was found. The fact that such “sacral” inspiration was pre-sent in piano music may be confirmed by many works of Ferenc Liszt and Olivier Messiaen, to name but a few evident examples. One can also add selected works of Frederic Chopin, not only Scherzo in B minor, op. 20, which includes a citation of the Polish carol “Lulajże, Jezu- niu (“Lullaby, Little Baby Jesus”), but also a number of motifs from other Polish church hymns found in Chopin’s music by Jan Węcowski. There are several categories of works with references to the sacred in the Polish piano music of the 20th and 21st century: works with religious inspiration suggested in their very title or in the musical material, and works with a widely understood religious context, but without any direct references to the sacred. Religious themes can be found in the works for piano and orchestra, for instance by Wojciech Kilar, Paweł Łukaszewski, Bogusław Madey, and Józef Świder. These themes appear in solo works for piano, e.g. by Mirosław Bukowski, Irena Garztecka, Leszek Mateusz Gorecki, Tomasz Kamieniak, Juliusz Łuciuk, Władysława Markiewi- czówna, Witold Rudziński, Marian Sawa, Sebastian Szymanski or Aleksander Tansman. The piano music with religious inspiration written in the 20th and 21st centuries has not yet been the subject of a comprehensive research. However, some authors did point to such motifs, for example Stanisław Będkowski, Bogumiła Mika, Violetta Przech, and Janina Tatarska. Still, they only men- tioned them while writing about other, non-religious issues related to Polish piano music.