Sacred Modernism, East of Vienna: From Niculescu’s Inner Liturgy to Łukaszewski’s Luminous Precision

By Adrian Leonard Mociulschi—Special for Nine O’Clock

In an age when contemporary music gravitates toward spectacle, fragmentation and algorithmic maximalism, Polish composer Paweł Łukaszewski emerges as one of the most disciplined heirs to Poland’s long tradition of musical clarity—a lineage that runs from the structural intelligence of Chopin to today’s renewed sacred modernism. Born in Częstochowa, the spiritual epicenter of Poland, Łukaszewski has built a body of work whose luminous austerity and architectural precision have quietly reshaped the European choral landscape. His education at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music, where he studied both cello and compositi...