Grażyna BACEWICZ was born on 5 February 1909 in Łódź. In 1919, she joined the Helena Kijeńska-Dobkiewiczowa Music Conservatory in Łódź, where she took violin and piano lessons. After her family had moved to Warsaw, she continued her education at the local conservatory under the supervision of Kazimierz Sikorski (composition), Józef Jarzębski (violin), and Józef Turczyński (piano). In 1932 – thanks to a scholarship funded by Ignacy Jan Paderewski – she began a two-year study at the École Normale de Musique in Paris under Nadia Boulanger. In 1934, she returned to the French capital, this time to complete her education with respected violinist Carl Flesch. A year later, she was awarded the first honorable mention in the 1st International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition. Since then, for 18 years, she had also been active as a concert violinist.

In 1953, Bacewicz abandoned stage activities, focusing almost exclusively on composing and teaching. In 1966, she took the composition class at the Higher State School of Music in Warsaw. The artist died on 17 January 1969. The present release is a showcase of her music for string orchestra.

Lukasz Borowicz, conductor, writes: "There are neither performers nor audiences, both at home and abroad, who are familiar with the works of Stefan Boleslaw Poradowski. Excellent composer, educator, conductor, cultural life promoter... his ser-vices to the province of Wielkopolska can hardly be overestimated. For this reason, it was with great pleasure that Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, it's illustrious soloists, and I began work on an album intended to bring his music back from oblivion, as it undoubtedly deserves to be present on the concert circuit and the phonographic market." The works on this album are world premiere recordings.

Julia Kociuban is considered as one of the leading polish pianists of her generation. Her debut solo album “Schumann, Chopin, Bacewicz” was praised by critics as one of the most interesting Polish piano debut of the past years, and album with Bacewicz and Tansman Piano Concertos was nominated for the Polish Music Industry Prize “Fryderyk” in the “Album of the Year – Concerto Music” category.

MESSAGES QUARTET (Małgorzata Wasiucionek-Potera & Oriana Masternak – violin, Maria Shetty – viola, Beata Urbanek-Kalinowska – cello) was founded in 2014 and only a year later won the 2nd prize, Silver Medal, and a special award for the interpretation of Dmitri Shostakovich’s quartet in the 2nd International Chamber Music Competition in Plovdiv (Bulgaria, 2015). The Messages Quartet performs both in Poland and abroad, e.g. in Vienna, London, São Paulo, or Moscow. On a number of occasions, the ensemble has presented a comprehensive and innovative repertoire as part of a series of chamber music concerts at the premises of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice.

Review:

Both Bacewicz and Tansman are well represented on disc but competing versions of works are valuable not merely in offering a choice – a choice of couplings, for example - but also for interpretative decision-making. On their new Dux recording the Messages Quartet and pianist Julia Kociuban have opted to include Tansman’s Musica a cinque, for piano quintet.

Tansman’s piano quintet was written in 1955. It’s cast in five movements and opens with a smoky Praeludium, continues with the syncopated bravura of a Toccata, adds the compelling stillness of a complex Elegia, and a firefly Divertimento, and then unleashes a fugal finale. In every way it’s a more approachable, less intimidating work than Bacewicz’s Second Quintet though whether it’s greater openheartedness is a match for her more questing technique is another matter. It’s certainly finely played here and makes for a fine programmatic contrast. The booklet is attractive and colourful.

Jonathan Woolf

The album Musical Landscapes contains a carefully thought over and set together group of eight compositions. The latter are formative of a specific music journey that spreads out from north to south and from west to east. This journey integrates diversity and beauty of art experience: from musical subtleties through grandeur of sounds, up to Spanish guitar temperament, from raindrops to storms with hailstones, from corta figure to sonorism. The selected compositions are, on one part, the most prominent works of world music in new arrangements and, on the other, the rarely performed pieces that were originally composed for the four-guitar ensemble. The presented transcriptions, full of the four musicians’ creative solutions and conceptions make up a new repertoire characteristic of fairly individual and authorial traits. The keynote of the project is the landscape conceived of in variety of manners.

This album features 20th-century compositions where the flute plays the leading role. Eldin Burton's Sonatina, one of his few works, has become a staple of the flute repertoire. The outer movements are marked by a playful, joyful character, contrasted with the serene, subdued middle movement. The Sonata by Srul Irving Glick, making it's Polish premiere on this album, incorporates elements of traditional Jewish music, enhanced by rich melodies and harmonies based on frequent modulations. This is a hallmark of the Canadian composer's style. The final piece is Three Watercolors by the French flutist and composer Philippe Gaubert. These miniature works, for flute, piano, and bassoon, combine influences from Impressionism, program music, and Iberian traditions. The performers on this album are award-winning soloists, teachers, and outstanding chamber musicians, which is reflected in their nuanced and light interpretations.

Slawomir Wilk writes: "I first came across Sergei Bortkiewicz's music while studying at the Academy of Music in Gdansk. It was only his etudes that I had the opportunity to listen to, but even then I found his output extremely interesting. During the pandemic, I chanced upon the composer's Piano Sonata No. 2 while looking for new repertoire and inspiration for myself and the group of my students. I was surprised that such a beautiful piece was practically unknown and not performed in public. Being under the impression of that composition, I decided to learn more about it's creator. Sergei Bortkiewicz turned out to be not only an extremely colorful figure with an interesting biography, but also a very 'prolific' composer who left behind many wonderful works, not only for piano."

Tomasz Daroch (born 1989) is one of the most talented cellists of the young generation. He began learning to play the cello at the age of seven. He studied under the guidance of eminent cellists, prof. Michael Flaksman, prof. Julius Berger, prof. Jeleny Ocic and prof. Stanisław Firlej. In 2011, he was the laureate of the 1st Prize and the Grand Prix at the 8th International Cello Competition Witold Lutosławski in Warsaw. Tomasz Daroch remains associated with the work of the event's patron to this day. The cellist also played one of the works by Witold Lutosławski , whose 109th birthday celebrates on Tuesday (January 25), on the album "Monologue". The artist's solo debut includes compositions for solo cello by Polish composers. Apart from Lutosławski, these are also Jerzy Fitelberg, Grażyna Bacewicz, Piotr Mosa, Jan Krenz, Krzysztof Penderecki and Krzysztof Meyer. From the latter's piece "Monologue for solo cello" the whole album took the title.

The 24 Caprices for Solo Violin by Pierre Rode, next to an analogous cycle by Niccolò Paganini, should be considered one of the most important violin works of early Romanticism. Rode’s compositions are advanced and innovative, and their contribution to the development of the 19th-century cycle of instrumental miniatures is undeniable. Soloist, chamber musician, and teacher, Roksana Kwasnikowska graduated with honors from the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw in the class of her master, legendary violinist Prof. Jan Stanienda, receiving the ‘Magna cum Laude’ medal. On a number of occasions, she has been awarded in prestigious national and international competitions, including the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition in Sion, the 1st Karol Szymanowski International Music Competition in Katowice, the Beethoven’s Hradec International Music Competition, the Michał Spisak International Music Competition in Dąbrowa Górnicza, and the International Tadeusz Wroński Solo Violin Com-petition in Warsaw. In addition to her solo career, she is very devoted to chamber music.

The impressively rich instrumental legacy of Georg Philipp Telemann, one of the most prominent German composers of the late Baroque era, was a complement to the main area of his activity, which was church and opera music. The composer found great satisfaction in running collegium musicum associations, popular in Germany. They were groups of people interested in making music together, most often recruited from the academic youth and the bourgeois ‘middle class.’ Telemann founded his first collegium in 1702 in Leipzig, where he studied law. At the same time, he significantly transformed the traditional status of such institutions, which so far had been aimed at making music in their own group. Telemann quickly made the collegium musicum an institution organizing more or less regular public concerts in municipal halls, cafes, merchant social clubs, and aca-demic auditoriums; the collegium musicum would also support church ensembles on more important occasions. Telemann continued his co-operation with student collegia throughout his compositional activity, also in Frankfurt and Hamburg, zealously creating new pieces for them. On the present release, the Altberg Ensemble presents a selection of Telemann’s Suites and Concertos.

The best proof that Mieczyslaw Weinberg's music has fortunately and deservedly been experiencing a renaissance in recent years is another album devoted entirely to the person of this composer. This album entitled Weinberg � Sonatas for Violin and Piano was created on the initiative of violinist Michal Kowalczyk and pianists Dagmara Niedziela and Mateusz Rozek. The focus of the artists' interpretative vision is the multidimensionality of the composer's sound language, resulting from both the composer's tragic life experiences and him being rooted in three different cultural traditions. Each of the sonatas featured on the album seems to fully resonate with the events that were accompanying it's creation in terms of emotional expression. The recorded works, although they have just begun to make a regular appearance in concert programs, are undoubtedly a staple of the 20th-century chamber music.

Artistic salons had begun thriving in Paris at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Their history started in the early seventeenth century with Madame de Rambouillet’s Chambre bleue, which offered its regulars a lively exchange of views on current events in politics, the arts and science, while also serving as a venue for conversations on “love, friendship, a sense of duty, reputation, virtue and taste.” Music was an inseparable element of salon life. It was performed by both high-caliber artists and amateurs, and was the subject of heated debates, controversies and polemics. A gradual return of life to Paris, and the fresh breath of freedom that characterized the final years of the reign of Louis XIV and the ensuing period of regency in particular had created an environment, in which French composers opened themselves up to the music of various nations. The present release features chamber works by Jean-Fery Rebel, Antoine Forqueray, Louis-Antoine Dornel, and Francois Couperin, performed by the {oh!} trio.

Juxtaposing recordings of two composers on one album, one of which is known all over the world and the other completely forgotten, is surprising and requires breaking mental patterns. Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849) needs not be introduced to anyone; his oeuvre is performed, admired and commented almost all over the globe. In turn, we know almost nothing about Florian Stanislaw Miladowski (1819–1889). Therefore, the DUX initiative, which restores the memory of this forgotten output by putting it in the context of an era whose best showcase is Chopin’s music, is all the more valuable. It is no coincidence that the works presented on the album represent similar music genres, belonging to romantic resources, intimate in their reception. We can find here mazurkas, impromptus and the Polonaise in B-flat Major by Miladowski as well as mazurkas and nocturnes by Chopin. The latter is better represented on our two-disc album: we will also find here four Scherzi and the Variations in D Major on Là ci darem la mano from the opera Don Giovanni by Mozart. Therefore, listeners can prepare for a genuine piano feast, in which two different individuals, two voices from the past speak a similar musical language, testifying to the era of romanticism with their music. Lukasz Kwiatkowski, a talented young Polish pianist with many prizes, honorable mentions and performances with famous orchestras under his belt, will play the piano. He also develops his musical passions by working as a scientist – he is associated with the Academy of Music in Lódz as a researcher and lecturer.

THE CITY AND THE SEA project is a bridge connecting artists from two corners of the world - a valued American choirmaster and composer, originator of the idea of a virtual choir, Eric Whitacre, and a young Cracow composer - Klaudia Rabiega. The presented works were mostly composed to texts by well-known Anglo-Saxon poets. The compositions fit into the genre of vocal and instrumental chamber music in which the choir is equivalent to the other instruments with the piano keeping the whole together. Klaudia Rabiega knows how to compose choral music; she is perfectly at ease in the polyphonic vocal texture, and her musical language evolves in search of a balance between modern and creative style and simple language accessible to listeners. The project, which includes world premiere recordings, was implemented by excellent musicians associated with the Cracow music scene, and the whole was supervised by the charismatic conductor Andrzej Korzeniowski.

In 2013 a group of Krakow-based instrumentalists shared the stage as part of the European Workshop for Contemporary Music, conducted by maestro Rudiger Bohn. Having then played together at Darmstadt's Internationale Ferienkurse fur Nee Musik, the musicians established an independent body. A couple of events held in a community center by one of the town's exit roads and in a then neglected theater marked the beginnings of Spoldzielnia Muzyczna contemporary ensemble, a group who specializes in performing new music. This is the ensemble's first entirely self-curated and self-produced album. It includes compositions which shaped the group's identity.

The Glière Quartet was founded in 2017 in Vienna. It consists of excellent musicians who are passion-ate about chamber music, especially about quartet works: Polish-Austrian violinist Dominika Falger (leader of the 2nd violin section of the Wiener Symphoniker), German violist Martin Edelmann, since 2018 (Wiener Symphoniker), Hungarian cellist Endre F. Stankowsky (Solocello Budapest Opera), and Ukrainian-Austrian first violinist and founder of the ensemble Wladislaw Winokurow specializing in the interpretation of pieces by Ukrainian and Russian composers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On this release, the Glière Quartet showcases their namesake’s String Quartets, Nos 1 and 2.

Works by the composer, organist, conductor and organizer of the musical life Feliks Nowowiejski (1877–1946) are relatively rarely performed today, which is why they are little known to a wider audience. Associated with Poznań, the composer of the famous "Rota", among various genre and highly skilled creative works, also left behind a unique Oratorio for solo voices, choir, orchestra and organ, Op. 3 to the libretto by Theobald Rehbaum. The work "Die Heimkehr des Verlorenen Sohnes" ("The Return of the Prodigal Son”) was composed in 1901, during Nowowiejski's studies in Berlin under the supervision of the outstanding composer and conductor Max Bruch. The world premiere of the work took place only in 1993 (the composer himself had never heard the entire work) and since then one of the first oratorios of Polish music has not been performed. Thanks to the DUX label, the recording of the oratorio concert "The Return of the Prodigal Son" in the original language version is available to listeners, recorded by the Symphony Orchestra of the Warmian-Masurian Philharmonic.

Joanna Gutowska writes: “The album Kaija Saariaho – Works for Cello has been inspired by Saariaho’s extremely rich musical language, which significantly influenced my artistic development and inspired me to further exploration of colors. The album largely refers to my doctoral dissertation ‘Kaija Saariaho’s cello works as an example of new qualities of sound and expression,’ in which I focused on identifying the key factors that contributed to the development of her original musical language. It mainly focuses on the composer’s small instrumental works (Petals for cello and electronics [1988], Spins and Spells for solo cello [1996], Mirrors for cello and flute [1997], Neiges for eight cellos [1998], Sept Papillons for cello solo (2000), and Light and Matter for violin, piano and cello [2014]).”

The cycle of Nine Preludes, Op. 1 gained recognition already two years before its official release. In 1904, Arthur Rubinstein – fascinated by the first contact with the Preludes, as well as with several other compositions of his later friend – used the following words to describe them: ‘This music indeed touched my deepest emotions; I have not experienced anything similar since the discovery of Chopin. Who is that man? Where does he live? Where is he now? I need to meet him!’ Undoubtedly, op. 1 can be considered the first great showcase of Karol Szymanowski’s talent. In each of the miniatures, a smooth synthesis of Romantic influences and harmonic and textural procedures typical of many of the composer’s works occurs. These works are beautifully performed by flutist Agata Igras and pianist Mariusz Rukowski.

Saxophone Varie, Vol. 2

Music of Our Time vol. 3

Aleksandra Kaca was born in 1991 in Radom. Composer and Italian language specialist. She is a graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, where she studied composition with professor Marcin Błażewicz. She also completed a postgraduate course “Menedżer Artysty” (‘The Artist’s Manager’), carried out in cooperation with SGH Warsaw School of Economics. She is currently pursuing a degree in composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, where she is working with Simon Steen-Andersen and Niels Rønsholdt. Kaca also holds a degree in Italian Language and Literature from the University of Warsaw, which she obtained whilst following a part-time course in cultural production, journalism and multimedia at the LUMSA University in Rome. She is a laureate of many national and international composer competitions, such as the first prize at the 56th Tadeusz Baird Competition for Young Composers (2015) and the Call for scores competition, organised by the American ensemble E4TT (2016). Her works were performed during the 59th and 60th editions of ‘The Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music’, at many different venues, such as the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music, the Pomeranian Philharmonic Hall, the Fryderyk Chopin University, The Masovia Institute of Culture, The Baltic Sea Cultural Centre, as well as the Music Academies in Cracow, Katowice, Poznań and Łódź. Aleksandra Kaca is an active participant in her country’s music scene. She is a co-founder of a group called gen~.rate, which focuses on promoting works written by the young generation of composers. She also works with Delirium-Edition, co-organising important music events – e.g. the performance of Patterns in a Chromatic Field by Morton Feldman as part of the KODY Festival (2017), as well as Dark Matter(s): The Artist’s way Mykietyn / Balka / Peszat / Kociuban at Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera (2017). As a translator, she co-operates with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Cinema Italia Oggi Festival (Cinema Muranów / Cinecittà LUCE) and the directing duo Manetti Bros. In her composing work, Kaca focuses mostly upon colours and how to combine them in order to achieve a multidimensional, yet a coherent image. She often reaches for non-obvious orchestration, such as combining the harp with the piano (Smugi cienia) or the soprano and barithone saxophones with electronics (Argument snu). Aleksandra Kaca persists in exploring her interest in many different music genres. She is the leader and founder of the ensemble called FJORS (composition, voice, keyboard, electronics), specialising in alternative and electronic music, as well as trip-hop.

Modern Solo Violin Music

Songs and Chamber Music brings together two powerful musical voices separated by generations yet united by emotional depth and lyrical intensity. Roman Ryterband's rarely heard works trace a life marked by exile, loss, and cultural memory-from intimate Hebrew songs and elegiac chamber pieces to German Lieder and American-inspired songs shaped by war, displacement, and longing. His music blends late-Romantic richness with Jewish musical echoes, revealing a composer of striking melodic invention and human sensitivity. Alongside Ryterband's rediscovered legacy, Wojciech Stepien offers contemporary reflections on solitude, love, and memory. Drawn from his opera A Single Man and song cycles inspired by James Joyce, Stepien's works evoke California landscapes, inner monologues, and haunting emotional shadows. Together, these recordings form a moving dialogue between past and present-music that speaks quietly, intensely, and with enduring relevance.

Legacy: Lutoslawski, Swider, Lason

This is the third album featuring the piano works of Karol Szymanowski, performed by the outstanding interpreter of his music, Joanna Domanska. The Sonata is the first major work in the young composer's output, an exceptional piece full of contrasts. The dark, dramatic mood of the outer movements collides with the more cheerful middle sections, particularly the charming pastiche of the minuet. Preludium and Fugue are early works that already astonish with their seriousness, depth of expression, and a sophisticated use of texture and harmony. The Variations, considered one of the most difficult works in the piano repertoire, are based on a wistful theme drawn from the music of the Podhale region. This album features the first-ever recording in which the monumental, virtuosic finale is presented in it's entirety, without the shortened version suggested by the composer himself. The works on the album showcase a spectrum of emotions: lyricism, flickering mystery, subtlety, mournful gravity, triumph, and bravura. While all the pieces demonstrate a typically 19th-century virtuosic pianism, the most prominent quality is the depth of musical expression.