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Grażyna
BACEWICZ (1909-1969)
Sonata no. 4 (1949) [17:54]
Kolysanka (Lullaby) (1952) [2:19]
Melodia (Melody) (1946) [2:48]
Partita (1955) [14:30]
Concertino (1945) [4:47]
Kaprys (Caprice) (1946) [1:46]
Oberek (1951) [1:46]
Sonata da camera (1945) [12:32]
Taniec mazowiecki (Mazovian Dance) (1951)
[3:04]
Bartlomiej Nizioł (violin); Paweł
Mazurkiewicz (piano)
rec. June 2004, Bydgoszcz Concert Hall,
Poland.
DUX 0486 [61:27]
Grażyna Bacewicz was herself a considerable violinist;
indeed she was also a good pianist. Her writing for the violin
often shows her at something like her best. She wrote seven
violin concertos, sonatas for solo violin and several sonatas
for violin and piano, as well as a good number of short pieces
for the same combination of instruments. This attractive
recital presents a selection of such works, very ably performed,
though in an acoustic which is perhaps a little on the resonant
side.
The programme of the present CD is made up of works written
between 1945 and 1955. By then Bacewicz’s early influences,
notably those of Szymanowski and the French neo-classicists
she heard when studying in Paris in the 1930s (with Boulanger),
had been integrated into an idiom which, while it might reasonably
be described as neoclassical, was decidedly individual, in
part because of the subtlety with which she incorporates
echoes of Polish folk music.
The works played by Nizioł and Mazurkiewicz fall fairly
readily into two categories. The Sonata no 4, the Partita
and the Sonata da camera are works of fair substance, relatively
complex and developed structures; otherwise we are treated
(and it is a treat) to a programme of what are essentially
miniatures.
The Fourth Sonata has been relatively widely performed of
late. It is dedicated to the composer’s brother Kiejstut,
and won First Prize at the Warsaw Festival of Polish Music
in 1951. Brother and sister recorded the piece in the early
1950s (Polskie Nagrana – Muza XV-72), a performance which
I haven’t, unfortunately, ever been able to hear. The work’s
four movements explore a wide emotional range and this, plus
its formal individuality, make the epithet “neo-classical” inadequate.
Indeed, the CD’s annotator Tomas Jeż speaks of the work
as “neo-Romantic”. Nizioł and Mazurkiewicz do justice
to the aggressive phrasing of parts of the opening movement;
in the succeeding andante the piano writing at the lower
end of the keyboard and some delicate melodic lines on the
violin combine to sombre, almost mysterious effect. As Jeż suggests,
there is a slightly grotesque quality to the scherzo, an
edgy intensity which also has a comic dimension; the final
movement (marked ‘con passione’) develops two contrasting
themes, sonata-like, and is not without both seriousness
and virtuosity. This really is a very fine piece, and it
gets a good performance here.
The Partita is made up of four movements, all intriguing
and forceful. In the Preludium, a melody played by the violinist
shifts through a number of tonal centres, with the pianist
providing insistent ostinatos behind it. The Toccata drives
hard, at times almost violently, while the altogether gentler – and
strikingly beautiful – Intermezzo is built around a deceptively
simple violin melody which Bacewicz had previously used in
her Cello Concerto of 1951. The energetic Rondo which closes
the Partita has its fair shares of technical challenges,
and Nizioł and Mazurkiewicz surmount them pretty well.
The Sonata da camera, the earliest piece here and sometimes
known as Sonata 1, is perhaps less fully individual; the
baroque-indebted largo (pleasant as it is) and the eminently
danceable gigue which open and close the work sit just a
little awkwardly with the much more Szymanowski-influenced
movements which they frame. This is a piece, played with
intelligence and commitment by Nizioł and Mazurkiewicz,
which is perhaps best appreciated for what it tells us of
Bacewicz’s development as a composer, rather than for its
own unremarkable merits.
The miniatures which fill out the programme served as display
pieces for Bacewicz the violinist. Kolysanka (Lullaby) is
a charming piece, with overtones of French impressionism;
Melodia (Melody) is a miniature sonata movement, with a distinctively
Polish feel in its modal harmonies; Kaprys (Caprice) feels
rather dry alongside much else on the Cd, cleverly put together
but a little short on feeling; Oberek and Taniec mazowiecki
(Mazovian Dance), on the other hand, are vivacious works
in the long established tradition of the ‘classical’ appropriation
of national dances. Oberek, in particular, conveys very vividly
the spinning movement of the traditional dance which gives
it its title.
Bacewicz seems to me to still be seriously underrated; as
such, this CD, which gives the listener the opportunity to
hear two sides of her character as a composer of music for
this one combination of instruments, deserves a warm welcome.
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