A Spontaneous Agnus Dei
The circumstances that accompanied the premieres of the first two movements of A Polish Requiem were especially colourful. Lacrimosa was commissioned in person by Lech Wałęsa. Its recording was played back from a tape to an audience of half a million in December 1980 for the unveiling of the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers in Gdańsk. Agnus Dei, on the other hand, was to be performed at the coffin of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, to whom this piece is dedicated. Though the Church authorities did not give their permission, the Polish Radio and Television Choir nevertheless got into two buses and travelled with its conductor Antoni Wit to Warsaw’s St John’s Cathedral, which they entered to play this piece.