Zbigniew Preisner (born 20 May 1955 in Bielsko-Biała, Poland, birth name: Z… Read Full Bio ↴Zbigniew Preisner (born 20 May 1955 in Bielsko-Biała, Poland, birth name: Zbigniew Antoni Kowalski) is a Polish film score composer, best known for his work with film director Krzysztof Kieślowski.

Zbigniew Preisner studied history and philosophy in Kraków; never having received formal music lessons, he taught himself about music by listening and transcribing parts from records. His compositional style represents a distinctively spare form of tonal neo-romanticism.

Preisner is best known for the music composed for the films directed by fellow Pole Krzysztof Kieślowski. His "Song for the Unification of Europe", based on the Greek text of 1 Corinthians 13, is attributed to a character in Kieślowski's Three Colors: Blue and plays a dominant role in the story. His music for Three Colors: Red includes a setting of Polish and French versions of a poem by Wisława Szymborska, a Polish Nobel Prize-winning poet.

After working with Kieślowski on Three Colors: Blue, Preisner was hired by the producer Francis Ford Coppola to write the score for The Secret Garden, directed by Polish director Agnieszka Holland. Although Preisner is most closely associated with Kieślowski, he has collaborated with several other directors, winning a César in 1996 for his work on Jean Becker's Élisa. He has won a number of other awards, including another César in 1994 for Three Colors: Red and the Silver Bear at the 1997 Berlin Film Festival 1997 for The Island on Bird Street.

In 1998, Requiem for My Friend, Preisner's first large scale work not written for film, was premiered. It was originally intended as a narrative work to be written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and directed by Kieślowski, but it became a memorial to Kieślowski after the director's death. He composed the theme music for The People's Century, a monumental twenty-six part documentary made jointly in 1994 by the BBC television network in the United Kingdom and the PBS television network in the United States. He has also worked with director Thomas Vinterberg on the 2003 film It's All about Love and provided orchestration for David Gilmour's 2006 album On an Island. Silence, Night, and Dreams is Zbigniew Preisner’s new recording project, a large-scale work for orchestra, choir, and soloists, based on texts from the Book of Job. The first recording was released in 2007 with the lead singer of Madredeus, Teresa Salgueiro, and boy soprano Thomas Cully from Libera.

Van den Budenmayer is a fictitious eighteenth-century Dutch composer created by Preisner and director Krzysztof Kieślowski for attributions in screenplays. Preisner said Van den Budenmayer is a pseudonym he and Kieślowski invented "because we both loved the Netherlands". Music by the Dutch composer plays a role in three Kieślowski films: The Decalogue, Three Colours: Blue, and Three Colours: Red . In the second of these, a theme from his musiques funèbres is quoted in "The Song for the Unification of Europe". Its E minor soprano solo is prefigured in the earlier film The Double Life of Veronique, where circumstances in the story prevent the solo from finishing.

Błogosławione Łono
Zbigniew Preisner Lyrics

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Błogosławione łono
Na słodko i na słono
Które ciebie nosiło
Które za ciebie piło
Które chwili dożyło
Które ciebie nosiło
I piersi które ssałeś
Chociaż bardzo się bałeś

Błogosławione łono
Na które tak liczono
Które ciebie wydało
I na zimne dmuchało
Wokół esy frazesy
Patriotyczne desy
Straszny zapis na murze
Siejesz wiatr zbierasz burze

Płogosławione łono
Ojczyzny naszej honor
Które ciebie wydało
Bo tak się stać musiało
Nowej zmiany perełko
Z narodową szabelką

Z tykającą kukułką
I guzikiem z pętelką

Overall Meaning

The song Błogosławione Łono by Zbigniew Preisner is a melancholic and reflective piece about a mother's womb or belly. The first verse of the song translates to "blessed belly, sweet and salty, that carried you, that drank for you, that lived through moments with you, that carried you and the breasts you sucked even though you were scared". The lyrics paint a vivid image of the nurturing and protective role of a mother's womb, which is regarded as a sacred and life-giving space.

The second verse of the song translates to "blessed belly, upon which so much depended, that gave birth to you and blew on you in the cold, around which there were phrases, patriotic banners, terrible writing on the wall, you sow wind and gather storms". This verse alludes to the social and political context of the mother's womb and its role in shaping the fate of the individual and the nation. The "terrible writing on the wall" suggests the historical and cultural burden carried by the mother's womb and its impact on the psyche and identity of the individual and the community.

Overall, the song Błogosławione Łono captures the complex and multi-layered symbolism of the mother's womb as a source of life, love, and identity. The lyrical and musical elements of the song create a melancholic and introspective mood that invites the listener to reflect on the deeper meaning of life and the human experience.

Line by Line Meaning

Błogosławione łono
Blessed womb

Na słodko i na słono
Through sweetness and saltiness

Które ciebie nosiło
Which carried you

Które za ciebie piło
Which drank for you

Które chwili dożyło
Which experienced moments

Które ciebie nosiło
Which carried you

I piersi które ssałeś
And the breasts you suckled

Chociaż bardzo się bałeś
Even though you were very afraid

Błogosławione łono
Blessed womb

Na które tak liczono
On which so much depended

Które ciebie wydało
Which gave birth to you