“I cannot and will not remain indifferent to the daily, mass killing of children in various parts of the world. I felt compelled to compose music that expresses my pain and protest against the cruelty of modern wars, in which the most defenceless among us are being annihilated by the thousands.” With these words, composer Zygmunt Krauze introduces his latest work, Children’s Requiem, whose world premiere will feature Sinfonia Varsovia.
On 10 September 2025 at 7 p.m., the Church of St Mary Magdalene, the cathedral of the Polish Catholic Church in Wrocław, will host the concert The Annihilation of the Defenceless as part of the 60th edition of the Wratislavia Cantans Festival. Under the baton of Jacek Kaspszyk, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Polish Radio Choir – Lusławice, the NFM Girls’ Choir, the NFM Boys’ Choir, and soloists Marcelina Román (soprano) and Michał Partyka (baritone) will give the first performance of Krauze’s work, commissioned especially for the festival. The piece is the composer’s artistic protest against the suffering of the most vulnerable victims of war – children.
In Children’s Requiem, Krauze replaces the traditional Latin liturgical text with the stark and unrelenting figures of a UN report summarising the number of children killed and maimed in wars across the globe, alongside testimonies of young victims of violence and recollections of atrocities committed against children in Gaza, Yemen and the Congo. The work also incorporates texts by Seneca and a poignant passage from the Gospel of Matthew, reminding us that crimes against children were committed two thousand years ago as well. The entire piece is sung in English.
The programme will be complemented by Mahler’s Adagio – the only orchestrated and completed part of his unfinished Symphony No. 10 in F sharp major, on which he was working when death overtook him in May 1911.
The concert by Sinfonia Varsovia on 10 September at 7 p.m. will be broadcast live on Polish Radio Channel 2 as part of the “Filharmonia Dwójki” series. More information about the event can be found on the festival website.
