Aleksander ZARZYCKI (1834-1895) Piano Concerto in A flat major, Op.17 (1859-60) [17:21]; Grande Polonaise in E flat major, Op.7 (1859-60) [10:03]
Jonathan Plowright (piano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Lukasz Borowicz
rec. June 2012, City Halls, Candleriggs, Glasgow
HYPERION CDA67958 [61:26]
Amazingly enough, this is now volume 59 in Hyperion’s gargantuan Romantic
Piano Concerto series. Two Polish composers and contemporaries share the
billing.
Let’s take Wladyslaw Zelenski first. He was born near Cracow he studied
there and in Prague and Paris. Back in Cracow he began a distinguished
pedagogic career - succeeding Moniuszko as composition teacher - before
moving to an even more distinguished position in Warsaw. He was soon back
in Cracow however and was eventually to become Director of the Music Conservatoire.
So, a strong academic pedigree and clearly an important teacher – his
most famous pupil was Stojowski.
The foregoing brief biography comes from a review of his chamber
music on this site and I’ve also reviewed a deal of his solo piano
music. It’s smaller-scaled Zelenski that I’ve usually come across – his
violin sonata is another such work – rather than his concertante side
so it was good to encounter the big-boned 1903 Concerto in E flat major.
Dedicated to the virtuoso Ignaz Friedman, it’s cast in heroic-romantic
mould. The piano enters early and there’s rich Slavonic lyricism in the
second theme, with hints of Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saëns. He’s careful
not to swamp the rhetoric in saturated string tone and conductor Lukasz
Borowicz and Hyperion’s engineers do well to explore the exchanges between
piano and wind principals. There’s a slightly antique, but very melodic
dance at the heart of the slow movement which is a theme and variations,
also sporting a flighty allegretto vivace and a warmly textured
Quasi adagio. The finale relinquishes introspection with a lively
Krakowiak, neatly syncopated, and with a well-judged contrasting slow
section accompanied (once again) by attractive wind commentary. Throughout,
Jonathan Plowright shows considerable stylistic affinity with the music
and plays with fire and poetry. This is apparently the first ever recording
of the work – and it’s more than welcome.
His confrere Aleksander Zarzycki was the first director of the Warsaw
Music Society in 1871 and had been, in younger days, a fine pianist. One
of the pianists he subsequently engaged for a post at the Warsaw Music
Institute was Paderewski. Violin fanciers may know his name, ironically,
more than pianophiles because his Mazurka in G, Op.26 was a favourite
encore of David Oistrakh and was also recorded no fewer than three times
by the Polish fiddler Bronislaw Huberman. Others who left recordings of
it include Isolde Menges, Ossy Renardy, Zino Francescatti and Wanda Wilkomirska.
So, a good pedigree for violinists, but what of the strange A flat major
Piano Concerto composed in 1859-60? This sounds like – and probably is
- a torso, shorn of its opening movement, as it begins with an Andante.
Dedicated to Nikolai Rubinstein the whole affair seems shrouded in mystery,
as the published version of the concerto was apparently a revision. What
of, and how much, seem to be unknown. So we have two-thirds of a concerto,
realistically speaking, but this is all that we have. The slow movement
is lyrical though not especially distinctive. But the finale is, like
his compatriot’s, a Krakowiak but one which makes the rhythm very much
more overt and even galumphing. It’s a stop-start rhythm anyway, but Zarzycki
takes great delight in its abrupt, disjunctive qualities. His Grande
Polonaise was completed in the same year as the concerto and is couched
in rather sprightly operatic fashion. It’s all a bit obvious and bombastic.
Plowright does what he can with it.
Adrian Thomas’s notes are good and the recording quality is first class.
So this is a most interesting but occasionally perplexing coupling. I
strongly advocate the Zelenski, and will leave the question of Zarzycki
to you.
Jonathan Woolf
A most interesting coupling of which I strongly advocate the Zelenski.
See also review of the 24/96 download by Dan Morgan
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