In the composition 'Slapstick - hommage a Burton Keaton' we are dealing with Bargielski’s basic array of favourite techniques. The sound matter bit by bit reveals its different faces, as if it were posing for photographs, which will be arranged in a motion picture. This hints at, or suggests, the title which describes the way of 'sharp' editing of films, characteristic of silent movies. The 'group' tutti pieces in which more or less all the twenty performers take part, set the framework for the composition, and within this framework we have solo pieces, dialogues, actions and counter-actions of a few instruments. The 'centering', Bargielski’s special composing technique, is exemplified by the C sound in the first segment of the composition, repeated staccatissimo, and by the steady pulse of the tom-tom in the middle. The 'building block' construction consists, in the former case, in the addition of the G and then F sharp sounds to the sound matter, and then thickening the sound spectrum, and, in the latter, in intensifying the pulse of the tom-tom and getting the timpani and other instruments to join the dialogue. This is an exceptionally colorful and kaleidoscopically twinkling score. The heroes of the narration are to an equal degree groups of instruments playing in the soloist manner, which normally are treated 'chorally' (woodwinds, brass, percussion with piano and harp, strings) and individual instruments which are masterfully individualised in their solo parts, fighting with their partners to be better. The permanent 'concertato' in the concerto grosso – concertino manner (without any direct historical stylisation, though in this context we are also in for a surprise in the form of the 'flying out' - from a completely different musical world!) turns this 15-minute piece into a virtuoso composition for musicians from a chamber ensemble, in which Bargielski is constantly 'changing the step', concentrating our attention on a display of percussion virtuosity, then on a 'jazzy' swing, then again on the moody turns of the wind instruments, then on the shimmering of the aleatoric arrangements or the synchronised progressions of motifs in counterpoint. Every new 'take' of the music matter presents the previous ones in a new and hitherto unknown shape, enriched with new nuances and details.

(the note by Andrzej Chłopecki, from the 1998 ‘Warsaw Autumn’ programme book)