Stanislaw MORYTO (b. 1947)
Cztery utwory w polskim stylu (Four Pieces in Polish Style)(2011) [11:08]
Henryk Mokolaj GÓRECKI (1933 – 2010)
Trzy utwory w dawnym stylu (Three Pieces in Olden Style) (1963) [9:37]
Romuald TWARDOWSKI (b. 1930)
Tryptyk mariacki (Triptych of the Virgin Mary) (1973) [10:15]
Witold LUTOSŁAWSKI (1913 – 1994)
Pięć melodii ludowych (Five Folk Melodies) (1952) [4:47]
Wojciech KILAR (1932 – 2013)
Orawa (1986) [8:40]
Sinfonia Academica Chamber Orchestra/Leszek Sokolowski
rec. Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Opera, Bialystok, Poland, November 2012
DUX 0939 [44:31]
Three generations of Polish composers are represented on this attractive
if rather short-timed disc with music for strings. Dominating are those
from the golden age, born in the early 1930s. Among the really great ones
only Penderecki (b. 1933) is missing from the line-up – at least
from an international perspective.
The youngest is Stanislaw Moryto, born in 1947, and his very recent Four
Pieces in Polish Style, which here gets its premiere recording, is
in a way a synthesis of what his predecessors had achieved. Like most
of the earlier works on the disc it is based on Polish folk music and
dance is an important ingredient. The last two pieces of Moryto’s
work are both dances, rural in the Larghetto, more aggressively
urban in the finale. This is invigorating music that should appeal to
most listeners.
Gorecki’s Three Pieces in Olden Style have been recorded
several times before. This work was once available on an Olympia disc
as filler to Karol Teutsch’s recording of Gorecki’s Third
Symphony, several years before David Zinman’s recording of the symphony
became a hit. This is accessible music and dance is again present, at
least in the middle movement: energetic, motoric. The third movement is
an elegy.
Romuald Twardowski was born in Vilnius in Lithuania, where he also studied
and worked as organist before he moved to Warsaw. In the mid-1960s he
studied Gregorian chant and medieval polyphony for Nadia Boulanger in
Paris, and fruits of these studies can be felt in the Triptych of
the Virgin Mary, which is deeply moving – in particular the
Deposition. In between the three parts of the triptych he inserts
two dances, contrasting sharply to the surrounding music. The first dance,
played pizzicato is truly charming, the second maybe even more so. The
concluding Resurrection is built on terrace dynamics. A fascinating
and attractive work. The Nestor in this company, Lutosławski, offers
Five Folk Melodies from 1952 which are transcriptions from a
collection of twelve melodies for piano. This is Lutosławski at his
most accessible. The melodies are short and swift, at around one minute
each, and the descriptive titles further stimulate the imagination of
the listener.
The recently deceased Wojciech Kilar, he passed away on 29 December 2013,
was a prolific composer. He was also commercially successful as a writer
of film music for among others Roman Polanski, Francis Ford Coppola and
Jane Campion. His Orawa evoked quite a stir when it was first
performed. “A refined primitivism”, wrote Ludwik Erhardt,
while Jan Krenz called it a “long-awaited breath of fresh air in
the musty room of Polish music”. The inspiration was the music of
Podhale in the Tatra Mountains, here condensed to … well, minimalistic
dimensions – though Kilar himself talked of ‘maximalism’
instead. Erhardt’s “refined primitivism” may hit the
mark but should perhaps be modified with a dose of barbarism as well.
It is repetitive but also saturated with a vitality that is irresistible.
This is very physical music and seeing it performed with the energy and
expression of a rock group can be quite exhausting. You leave the concert
hall in the same mood as after a vitamin injection or a blood transfusion
and you never forget the experience. On this recording you miss the visual
dimension but the playing is still on such a level of intensity that you
can imagine the collective movements of the orchestra.
I could grumble about short measure – the total playing time is
less than 45 minutes – and there could have been room for another
half-hour of music you are not likely to hear that often. Still what actually
is here is worth the attention of the music-loving public.
Göran Forsling
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