Song of the Night Mists is the latest project from Stefan Wesolowski, released on the British label Unheard of Hope. The album is the conclusion of a trilogy begun with the albums Liebestod (2014) and Rite of the End (2017). The latter earned the artist a Polityka Passport nomination for expanding his style, creating music that is dark, decadent and, again, highly visual.

Wesolowski’s music combines traditional instrumentation with modern techniques, electronics and natural sounds, oscillating between minimalist meditation and expressive intensity. Song of the Night Mists is an invitation to a musical journey, fostering moments of contemplation and reflection on the beauty of nature, as well as the fragility of human fate.

The project has already been hosted at the East of Culture Festival in Bialystok, where it served as a prelude to this year’s edition of the Eufonie Festival. Now, in the Gdansk hall of the St. John’s Center, the concert returns in a new context – as part of the next edition of the festival dedicated to the music of Central and Eastern Europe. On stage with the artist will be: Anna Pašić (harp), Olga Anna Markowska (cello), Maja Miro (flutes), Oliwier Andruszczenko(bass clarinet), Hubert Zemler (percussion), and Piotr Wesołowski (organ / portative).

November 22, 2025 | 7:00 pm | St. John’s Center / Baltic Sea Cultural Center in Gdansk.

You can find the program in the description: Stefan Wesolowski / Song of the Night Mists

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Euphony, from the Greek εὐφωνία, meaning “harmony of sounds”, refers to harmony, order and pleasure of listening.1 It means sounds that move us; sounds that open us to a deeper experience of reality. On the other hand, the plural form of this concept, euphonies, can be understood as a metaphor of varied sound languages, although corresponding with each other: many traditions, forms of expression and idioms, which – instead of being mutually exclusive – enhance each other.

Właśnie w takie rozumienie eufonii jako zjawiska wielogłosowego i post-klasycznego, a zarazem estetycznego, wpisuje się twórczość Stefana Wesołowskiego. Jego najnowszy album Song of the Night Mists (2025), wydany przez brytyjską wytwórnię Unheard of Hope, jest tego dobitnym przykładem. Kompozytor (zarazem skrzypek) myśli o muzyce w sposób otwarty i niehierarchiczny, tworząc brzmienia na przecięciu muzyki współczesnej i ambientu, a w jego utworach klasyczne instrumentarium (np. fortepian, flet, trąbka, organy) współistnieje z syntezatorami analogowymi czy nagraniami terenowymi.

Wesołowski draws on many idioms, inspired by Richard Wagner, Karol Szymanowski, certainly also by Aphex Twin or Winfried G. Sebald’s literary oeuvre (a German prosaist). At the same time, he embeds the Song of the Night Mists in an almost physical experience of space, recalling, for example, recordings from the Tatra Mountains, somewhere from the Polish-Slovak borderland, or the sound of church organ.

In the Song of the Night Mists, there are numerous references to musique concrète in the form of samples featuring the sound of a stream, of footsteps in the snow, of a genuine avalanche, the noise of the wind or the crackling of ice. It seems that these sounds are devoid of a human element, but it is implicitly present: it is the human who can fully appreciate the majesty of nature, as Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer did, whose poem Melodia mgieł nocnych [Song of the Night Mists] from the volume Poezje. Seria druga [Poetry. The Second Series] (1894) inspired the title of Wesołowski’s album. Poems. Second Series (1894) inspired the title of Wesolowski’s album.

The Song of the Night Mists closes the trilogy of albums consisting of the CD under a Wagnerian-like title – Liebestod (2014) – and the album Rite of the End (2017), the title of which brings to mind Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The Song of the Night Mists is composed of five pieces, each of which has its own sound narrative while creating – in relation to the others – an emotional landscape full of tension and spirituality. It is a mix of traditional instruments with electronics and an experimental approach to the form and space, a manifesto of euphony in a plural form.

Wesołowski bez zbędnego nadmiaru, wręcz subtelnie, precyzyjnie balansując wielowarstwowe brzmienia, opowiada o pięknie przyrody, co uwypukla tytułami kompozycji, zaczerpniętymi z języka geologii. Core wprowadza słuchacza w nastrój ambientu, konsekwentnie budując dramatyzm przebiegu, tonowany spokojnym brzmieniem fortepianu, a podsycany niepokojącymi interwencjami trąbki. Utwór Peak ociera się o brzmienia industrialne, a Glacial Troughs i Stalagmite przywracają omalże hipnotyzującą atmosferę. Wilhelm Tombeau to monumentalny, prawie trzynastominutowy utwór z organami, będący emocjonalną, niezwykle osobistą wypowiedzią kompozytora. Finalne, nagłe ucięcie dźwięku sprawia wrażenie wybudzenia z transu, nieoczekiwanego powrotu ze świata zadumy czy muzycznej podróży.

Therefore, at the end of the Song of the Night Mists, the composer suggests silence. However, he does not regard sounds as the silence’s ornament or an aesthetic decoration: sounds remain a medium enabling a moment of reflection and contemplation. In this sense, he is a euphonic creator, understanding the concept of euphony not as a matter of course, but as something that needs to be rediscovered. The Song of the Night Mists encourages us to pursue our own intimate quests and to create euphony from tensions and unobvious, original harmonies.

* Zob. A. Jarzębska, Z dziejów myśli o muzyce. Wybrane zagadnienia teorii i analizy muzyki tonalnej i posttonalnej, Kraków 2002, s. 25, 31.