Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Jelena Poulíčková is the winner of the Pianist 2025 Composing Competition. All judges fell in love with this thought-provoking Lullaby. The score appears inside the June/July issue of Pianist (No 144). Pick you your copy today, by going to pianistmagazine.com/store/back-issues/pianist
A bit of history about the composition: Jelena wrote it for her daughter, Daniela, when she was ill at the time. Daniela was so moved by the piece, that she wrote a poem to accompany it. Here's the poem below:
Lullaby
Mother sits gently rocking the cradle
Which makes shifting shadows appear,
While the moon creeps in to streak with grey
Her loose locks of ebony hair.
"Hush, little one, still your cries,
Unclasp the wooden bars -
Let your tears rise to the velvet skies
As beads in a necklace of stars.
Fear not the branches that beat on the pane
Or the furious wind's gaping howl,
Spectral voices that seem to whisper your name
Or the menacing shriek of the owl.
In your dreams you shall journey to faraway lands
Where leaves rustle up lullabies,
Where white doves coo and moonlight glints -
Hush, little one, still your cries."
Mother sits gently rocking the cradle,
Watching her little one doze;
Now that the last of the whimpers have faded
She falls into weary repose.
Jelena Poulíčková is the winner of the Pianist 2025 Composing Competition. All judges fell in love with this thought-provoking Lullaby. The score appears inside the June/July issue of Pianist (No 144). Pick you your copy today, by going to pianistmagazine.com/store/back-issues/pianist
A bit of history about the composition: Jelena wrote it for her daughter, Daniela, when she was ill at the time. Daniela was so moved by the piece, that she wrote a poem to accompany it. Here's the poem below:
Lullaby
Mother sits gently rocking the cradle
Which makes shifting shadows appear,
While the moon creeps in to streak with grey
Her loose locks of ebony hair.
"Hush, little one, still your cries,
Unclasp the wooden bars -
Let your tears rise to the velvet skies
As beads in a necklace of stars.
Fear not the branches that beat on the pane
Or the furious wind's gaping howl,
Spectral voices that seem to whisper your name
Or the menacing shriek of the owl.
In your dreams you shall journey to faraway lands
Where leaves rustle up lullabies,
Where white doves coo and moonlight glints -
Hush, little one, still your cries."
Mother sits gently rocking the cradle,
Watching her little one doze;
Now that the last of the whimpers have faded
She falls into weary repose.
