The symphonies of the two Polish composers on this release were composed and first performed within several months of each other in the mid-1920s (they...

The symphonies of the two Polish composers on this release were composed and first performed within several months of each other in the mid-1920s (they are both also in g minor, as it happens). At first glance it could almost seem as if these two men, Paul Kletzki and Czeslaw Marek, spent their lives shadowing each other. They were born just nine years apart in the then divided Poland, and while Kletzki grew up in “Russian” Poland under the Tsar and Marek lived as an Austrian citizen under Emperor Franz Josef, they both later moved in the same circles of Warsaw musicians, they both left their homeland to study in Germany, they were both compelled by war to flee and found refuge in Switzerland, and – perhaps the most extraordinary coincidence – they both abandoned composition altogether at almost exactly the same age of 43. Their fate was bound up intimately with that of their native land; and yet it seems that Marek and Kletzki never actually met. This is the world premiere recording of both of these works, performed beautifully by the Polish National Radio Symphony, conducted by Thomas Rosner.