Wojciech Kilar’s Missa pro pace was first performed on 12 January 2001, during a concert celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Warsaw Philharmonic. It was commissioned from the composer especially for the occasion and premiered by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir under the baton of its artistic director, Kazimierz Kord.
In Bohdan Pociej’s programme notes, we read: ‘Wojciech Kilar’s religious composition, his first Mass, unfolds and is played out in sacred time: in meditation, contemplation, prayer. The deeply traditional music, rooted in mediaeval piety, is extraordinarily expressive, striking in its inner, spiritual force, informed by the power of faith. This strength of simple, focussed music will be felt by every listener who participates in the mystery of the Mass, since Kilar wrote music that is religious to the core – its compositional means, language and style perfectly at one with the Latin text of the Mass. Thus it can also serve the liturgy – the Mass service in church, which is particularly solemn’.
The work’s most important message was revealed by the composer himself in his correspondence with Bohdan Pociej: ‘the title of the Missa pro pace indicates the gravitation of the whole work towards the words [of the final movement] Donna nobis pacem and determines the character of the individual movements’. The Latin inscription (Grant us peace) remains extremely relevant in the face of contemporary challenges and conflicts.
