Children’s Requiem protests modern crimes against children

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Wroclaw, August 27, 2025—On 10 September at 7 p.m., at St. Mary Magdalene’s Cathedral in Wrocław (Poland), as part of the 60th Wratislavia Cantans International Music Festival, the premiere of Zygmunt Krauze’s Children’s Requiem will take place.

Zygmunt Krauze

This monumental work for two soloists, two children’s choirs, a mixed choir and an orchestra is the composer’s loud and poignant cry of protest against the evil that affects the most innocent and defenceless among us every day. It is a funeral mass dedicated to all children killed in conflicts and wars in the modern world, in which, instead of liturgical text, we will hear, among other things, the harsh, moving figures from UN reports, as well as shocking excerpts from the memories of witnesses to children’s tragedies and the testimonies of young warriors.

‘I cannot and will not remain indifferent to the mass killing of children that takes place every day in various parts of the world. I had to compose music that expresses my pain and opposition to the cruelty of modern wars, in which thousands of the most defenceless among us are being annihilated.’

Zygmunt Krauze

Children’s Requiem is a seven-movement work for two soloists – soprano and baritone – mixed choir, children’s choir, and orchestra, in which the customary Latin Requiem Mass text has been replaced by the stark, uncompromising numbers from a United Nations report summarising the children killed and maimed in various countries around the world, the testimonies of child victims of violence, and selected fragments of eyewitness accounts of crimes against children in the Gaza Strip, Yemen, and Congo in the 21st century.

Zygmunt Krauze also draws on the writings of Seneca, who describes the world from the perspective of a philosopher – with objectivity and accuracy unmatched – offering in the end (sadly, a utopian) vision of a happy life. The only religious text in the work is a brief, poignant excerpt from the Gospel of St Matthew, reminding listeners that crimes against children also took place two thousand years ago. The entire piece is sung in English – the most universal language, understood worldwide – just as the whole world should understand the message of this unique work.

This year’s latest UN report, Children and Armed Conflict, published on 17 June – already after Children’s Requiem was completed – once again showed that violence against children is only increasing. Year on year, by 25%! Another 11,967 children were killed or maimed. How much longer we continue to look at these rising numbers with indifference depends only on us!

Background

In 1924, 101 years ago, the General Assembly of the League of Nations adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, also known as the Geneva Declaration. The Declaration contained five principles, stating that humanity should give the child everything it has to offer that is best, and that it bears the obligation to ensure care, protection, assistance in difficult situations, opportunities for development, and protection against exploitation.

In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which expressed, among other things, concern for every child and granted them the right to special care and assistance.

In 1959, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, an expansion of the Geneva Declaration, which recognized, among other things, the right of children to education, play, support, and healthcare.

In 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 196 countries worldwide.

In 2002, at the United Nations Special Session on Children, child delegates addressed the assembly for the first time. The World Fit for Children programme was adopted, setting concrete goals to improve the situation of children in the following decade.

In 2024, over 470 million children were living in war zones, and each year around the world there are at least tens of thousands of serious violations of children’s rights, with thousands killed or maimed. Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Gaza, Mali, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ukraine – this is only a partial list of countries where, every day, one can hear the cries of suffering and dying children, and the desperate wails of their mothers.

Can an artist remain indifferent to such cries? Children’s Requiem is therefore also a cry and a scream of protest against the world in which we live and against the indifference to the death that claims the most innocent and most defenseless every day. A scream calling to make this world better.

The Children’s Requiem

1. Introitus

Chór

Eleven thousand six hundred forty eight children were killed and maimed in one year only, two thousand twenty three.

Afghanistan: four hundred eighty two children.

Congo: six hundred fifty four children.

Haiti: two hundred six children.

Gaza: four thousand two hundred forty two children.

Mali: two hundred sixty children.

Myanmar: eight hundred sixty one children.

Somalia: six hundred twenty nine children.

Sudan: one thousand two hundred forty four children.

Yemen: four hundred seventy nine children.

Burkina Faso: six hundred seventy eight children.

Ethiopia: hundred sixty nine children.

Ukraine: four hundred nineteen.

In Ukraine, two thousand five hundred children have been killed since the beginning of the war.

In Gaza, fifteen thousand six hundred children have been killed since the beginning of the war.

Forty seven million children worldwide have been displaced by war, conflicts, violence.

Four hundred seventy three million children live in warzones.

2. Kyrie

Soliści

Herod was furious and sent to kill all the children who were in Bethlehem and who were from two years old and under.

Chór

Then was fulfilled what has been spoken — the prophet Jeremiah:

Sopran solo

A cry was heard in Ramah, great weeping and wailing. Rachel weeps for her children and does not wish to be consoled for they are no more!

3. Dies irae

Chór

If no weeping can revive what has died, if no pleadings can changes the unshakeable and eternally established destiny, and if death holds fast what it has seized, let vain grief cease.

Impossible is to point out a family so unhappy that it does not find consolation in the existence of an even more unhappy one.

Soliści

What is so special about a man dying whose whole life is nothing, but a path to death? Death goes after everyone, the killer will go after the killed.

4. Lacrimosa

Baryton solo

It is like this: nothing is eternal, few, few things are long-lasting, and each is fragile differently. Although things end differently, everything that has a beginning also finds an end.

Soliści

Some threaten the world with destruction, and if you think it is worth believing one day this universe which includes all things divine and human will be dispersed and plunge into its further chaos and darkness…

It is like this: nothing is eternal, few, few things are long-lasting, and each is fragile differently. Although things end differently, everything that has a beginning also finds an end.

5. Offertorium

Baryton solo

Antoine, twelve years old: I came back from the bush to be forgiven for the wrong I did. Killing people was wrong, beating people was wrong, arresting innocent people was wrong. My heart was black then. I wanted to die, too. I think I died inside.

Chór

We are all deceived thinking that only the old and the bent with age are heading towards death, when in reality childhood, youth, and every period of life leads to it at once.

Sopran

Juliette, sixteen years old: my boyfriend gave me a machete and told me if he shot someone and they fell down wounded, I should finish them off. And I did: he shot and the man fell down, I went on and cut off the head and hands off the enemy.

6. Tenebrae

Baryton solo

I looked at this soldier and asked him: why did you shoot my granddaughter? He was stunned to see the child covered in blood and after a moment he said “I am sorry”.

Sopran solo

I would like to stop that soldier and shout to the whole world that he killed a tiny child and in that moment burned the mother’s heart. Every mother knows that the word means nothing!

A bruised little boy with blue backpack approached me and tugged on my sleeve.

“Do you know what I have here?”, he asked.

The first thing I saw was blood dripping from the backpack.

“What do you have there?”

“My little brother Ahmed”, he said, not crying at all.

7. Lux Aeterna

Chór

Maha, ten-year-old girl, vicAm of mine explosion in Yemen:

Chór dziecięcy

If I could write a letter to the most important person in the world, I would tell him: stop the war!

Sopran solo

Imagine a happy life, a free, proud, fearless, unshakeable soul standing beyond fear and desire, a soul for which the only good is nobility, the only evil is meanness, and the rest is a worthless mass of things that come and go, and that neither subtract from nor add to a happy life, neither increase nor diminish the highest good.

Soliści + chór

Imagine a happy life, a free, proud, fearless, unshakeable soul standing beyond fear and desire, a soul for which the only good is nobility, the only evil is meanness. Imagine a happy life…

Description

Zygmunt Krauze

Children’s Requiem for solo voices, mixed choir, children’s choir, and orchestra

Dedication: In memory of children killed in the wars of the 21st century

Duration: approx. 60 minutes

Instrumentation: S, Bar solo, mixed choir, children’s choir – 2 2 3[1.2.BCl] 3[1.2.CBsn] – 3 2 2 1 – Perc(3) – Strings

Commissioned by: Wratislavia Cantans International Festival

Publisher: PWM Edition

Text sources: UN, UNICEF, WHO reports, Gospel of St Matthew, Seneca (Moral Letters), fragments of eyewitness accounts and testimonies of child victims of violence.

Text adaptation: Zygmunt Krauze, Maciej Łukasz Gołębiowski, Dr Magdalena Kumelska-Koniecko

World premiere: 10 September 2025, St Mary Magdalene Church, Cathedral of the Polish Catholic Church, 60th Wratislavia Cantans International Festival