Zieleński’s compositions reveal much about the often-overlooked relationship between Poland and Italy during the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, and how Polish composers—alongside local painters, architects, and even culinary artists of the time—took inspiration from fashionable Italy. From 1608 to 1615, Zieleński was in the service of Wojciech Baranowski, Archbishop of Gniezno, who, at the King’s instigation, sent Zieleński to study with Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1557–1612), whose Sacrae symphoniae (1597) motivated composers from across Europe to come to Venice.

Zieleński’s 122 surviving works are contained in the 1611 Venetian publication, Offertoria/Communiones totius anni (dedicated to Baranowski), featuring liturgical cycles of polychoral works, as well as a handful of hymns, antiphons, three instrumental fantasias, and a remarkable 12-part Magnificat. The influence of the Venetian School is undeniably present in Zieleński’s compositions, which are reminiscent of the music Gabrieli himself was writing as principal organist at the iconic Basilica di San Marco.

Text

Quotiescumque manducabitis panem hunc, et calicem bibetis,
mortem Domini annuntiabitis, donec veniat;
Itaque quicumque manducaverit panem vel biberit calicem Domini indigne,
reus erit corporis et sanguinis Domini.
Alleluia.

TRANSLATION:
However often you eat this bread and drink from this cup,
you will proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes;
Therefore, whoever eats the bread and drinks from the cup of the Lord unworthily,
will have the body and blood of the Lord on his hands.
Alleluia.

– Communion for the Feast of Corpus Christi

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