Four sonatas from the middle period of this exceptional yet undeservedly overlooked composer reveal a distinctive musical voice, where echoes of Rachmaninoff's and Grieg's mature Romanticism intertwine with the shimmering colours of Impressionism and the refined sensibility of the English tradition. Though these works make undeniable virtuoso demands, it is their melodic and harmonic imagination that commands the foreground: long-breathed phrases, subtle expressive nuance, and richly intriguing sonorities. The recording brings together distinguished instrumentalists associated with the Academy of Music in Kraków, whose interpretations are marked by brilliance, passion, and a palpable sense of discovery as they illuminate the beauty, individuality, and enduring artistic value of Bowen's music.

The compositions of Rev. Michal Roman Szulik-conductor, musicologist, and composer-stand as a testament to the musical life of the community gathered around the cathedral in Siedlce. Their defining quality lies in the composer's devoted preservation of the stylistic language of sacred music. Written for a cappella choir or with organ accompaniment, these settings of texts-ranging from medieval psalms and hymns to contemporary works-reveal a profound command of the history of liturgical vocal music, while also reflecting the composer's deep reverence for a tradition cultivated over many centuries.

This four-disc set brings together the complete Offertories of Palestrina, the supreme master of Renaissance sacred polyphony. Each disc is devoted to works for different seasons of the liturgical year and a range of solemn occasions. Conceived for the adornment of the liturgy at the foremost church of Rome, these compositions have retained their place at the heart of the Christian musical tradition, admired across the centuries for their devotional purpose and their incomparable artistic perfection. In this distinguished recording, Schola Cantorum Gedanensis-one of Poland's most esteemed vocal ensembles, with nearly half a century of artistic achievement-turns to this sublime repertoire with characteristic insight and poise. Laureate of six Fryderyk Awards and two Golden Orpheus distinctions, the choir, under the direction of Jan Lukaszewski, offers an interpretation of luminous clarity, tonal refinement, and contemplative depth, revealing anew the spiritual radiance of these timeless works.

A live concert recording of the one-act farce based on Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, captured during the 29th edition of the Easter Beethoven Festival in 2025. This release is based on the complete and authentic Milan manuscript, rather than the later versions that also circulated under different titles. The Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of it's chief conductor Lukasz Borowicz, joins forces with six outstanding soloists to deliver a performance of irresistible charm, virtuosic brilliance, and dynamic theatrical momentum. Thanks to it's vivid pacing and finely judged structure, the nearly 80 minutes of music pass in what feels like an instant, carrying the listener toward the work's unmistakably happy resolution to it's amorous entanglements.

The most beautiful song cycles of Polish vocal lyricism from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The distinguished baritone Mikolaj Zalasinski, endowed with a voice of Verdian richness and beauty, together with the acclaimed collaborative pianist Lukasz Debski, invites the listener into a world of melancholy, reflection, and poetic depth - a world that, despite the passage of time, remains strikingly immediate and profoundly moving. Here, late Romanticism gradually yields to emerging new harmonic and colouristic tendencies, while the musical fabric is woven from texts by William Shakespeare and leading poets of the Young Poland movement. The literary and musical refinement of these compositions, combined with interpretations of the highest calibre, form the defining virtues of this album.

This album presents a distinguished selection of chamber works for clarinet and piano, string trio, and reed trio in a variety of instrumental configurations. Composed over the span of several decades, these pieces reveal the most distinctive qualities of the composer's musical language: intense lyricism, fugal sophistication, propulsive rhythmic energy, daring chromaticism, and evocative allusions to jazz-inflected idioms and Polish folk tradition. Performed with exceptional artistry by some of Poland's finest chamber musicians, this recording offers compelling testimony to the richly deserved renaissance of Tansman's music. His works reward both listener and performer alike, combining expressive depth with brilliant virtuosity and the rare refinement of true chamber interplay.

The new album from Chopin Piano Duo - artists of international renown, deeply committed to exploring the repertoire for four hands and two pianos - brings back to light works by four composers once esteemed as pianists and influential figures in musical life, yet long overshadowed by the towering fame of Frederic Chopin and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Their music reveals a clear affirmation of Chopin's genius, with echoes of his style and characteristic forms resonating throughout. Swierzynski's cycle of miniatures and a work by Stattler were edited and prepared for publication from manuscript sources by Chopin Piano Duo themselves, and are presented here in their world premiere recordings!

A film score is inextricably linked with the image, it is composed according to the wishes of the director; sometimes it becomes a separate sphere of art. The beauty of the intertwined, overlapped melodic lines spun from dreams and longings and the depth of the harmonic structures occasionally introduce the listener into an unreal, irrational world, a world of illusion, dreams... I couldn't resist them - Maksym Rzeminski

The Symphony No. 3, called the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, for solo soprano and orchestra, Op. 36 by Henryk Mikolaj Górecki (1976) is often mentioned in different contexts as one of the most original masterpieces of 20th-century music not only to come out of Poland, but from the world. This release presents the listener with a live recording of this extraordinary piece performed in the concert hall of the Poznan Philharmonic on 4 February, 1995. It is an outstanding artistic creation of Andrzej Boreyko, a conductor who was just about to launch his world career then, and Ewa Izykowska – one of the most interesting and versatile Polish singers.

CANONS

Sarnecka: Works for Piano Solo

The great Cervantes, he taught me the magic and great humanity that poetry and the music of our Golden Century harbor. In the middle of the 16th century appears in Spain the ''cross-strung harp'', as Juan de Bermudo confirms in his work, Declaration of Musical Instruments, year 1555. This appearance is due to the growing music chromatization and the progressive emancipation of the specific instrumental language. Therefore, the harp, diatonic so far, becomes a chromatic instrument in a very original way: adding an order of chromatic strings interwoven or intertwined with the diatonic ones. It turned out to be an extremely practical invention for the spanish Violeros and, apparently, not sued out of the Iberian Peninsula. The famous Tomos, witness the harp's musical intervention in these two fields, sacred and profane. One of the most prolific composers of the Tonos was Juan Hidalgo, a Royal Chapel's musician, Pedro Calderon de la Barca's right hand and, in turn, prominent harp player.

Beyond question, Karol Szymanowski wrote the greatest piano Mazurkas since Chopin's. They capture all the elemental passion of the traditional Mazurka rhythms in a pungent and pianistically idiomatic language that sounds fresher with each passing year. It's good to see these works turn up more frequently on CD, especially when they're played with Anna Kijonowska's stylistic perception and technical mastery. Like Martin Jones, she's not afraid to rough up rolled left-hand chords in order to give them more rhythmic kick. Some of her tempo choices are unusual, such as a more measured and inward take on Op. 50 No. 12, as opposed to Marc-André Hamelin's more volatile, skittish account. Yet if her touch doesn't quite match Hamelin's supple shadings, her rubatos often speak more organically (Op. 50 No. 18, for example). Unlike Hamelin and Jones, Kijonowska does not include Szymanowski's four Polish Dances and Valse Romantique. This highly distinctive release is a worthy addition to the Szymanowski discography.--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Krzysztof Lason is a violinist, teacher, and improviser who studied in Katowice, Warsaw, and Graz. He is a prize-winner of the competiitons in Cracow and Val Tidone, a scholar of the Ministry of Culture and the Dutch foundation Iris. He has performed in over 25 European countries, the USA, Canada, Japan, China, India, and Nepal, and he has recorded for Decca, BBC3, WDR3, the Polish Radio, DUX, and CD Accord. He has been nominated for the International Classical Music Awards and the Polish music award “Fryderyki.” He is fascinated with sound possibilities of the violin and he willingly performs contemporary music, which is often written specially for him. He has performed Dharma at Big Sur by John Adams on a six-string violin as the first Pole in the history together with the Orchestra of New Music. He has premiered a number of new compositions. He is passionate about balancing on the verge of music styles; he feels at ease in chamber ensembles. However, above all, he appreciates the freedom of expression, which he achieves by improvised music.

The tradition of composing a funeral mass dates back to the times of the late Middle Ages, but it was brought to artistic perfection by later composers. Alfred Schnittke initially wore the intention of writing a small instrumental Requiem, which was to be one of the parts of the Piano Quintet. Eventually, however, he rejected this idea and created a fourteen-part Requiem. The work is expressive and full of dramatic contrasts. The instrumental parts of electric guitars of a set of drums surprisingly refer to the composer’s polistylist interests. Composed in the same stream, the three religious songs refer to Orthodox church music, introducing a mood of contemplative reflection and prayer reverie.

{oh!} The Historical Orchestra, a team directed by Martyna Pastusza specializing in historical performance, invites you to the world of French baroque music. In this era, political and artistic life on the Seine was focused on the stunningly lavish Versailles court of Louis XIV. The Sun King gathered around himself a great array of musicians who were extremely important to him- he danced in ballet shows himself- and the performances were not only a popular entertainment, but also a dramatized allegory of government. Of the composers presented on the album, only Michele Corrette was not associated with the royal court. Apart from him, the recording includes compositions of such celebrities as Jean Baptiste Lully, violin virtuoso and dancer, unparalleled gambist Marain Marais and famous organist François Couperin.

The Clarigotto Duo presents a collection of Romantic works transcribed for the unusual combination of clarinet and bassoon and joined by piano on the trio selections in an aurally fascinating glimpse at the sonic possibilities of these two instruments, so closely allied in orchestral settings yet seldom present within chamber settings.

COMPLETE WORKS

Grzegorz M. Olkiewicz’s album consists of nine pieces by seven representatives of the “Upper Silesian School,” which undoubtedly affected the Polish music (and not just the Polish one) of the second half of the twentieth century. Naturally, being a native of Katowice and a graduate of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, he became interested in the repertoire composed by the university’s pupils. Sometimes it was he that served an inspiration for them and edited scores for printing and premieres. The presented recordings were made in studio, at the National Philharmonic and at the Silesian one. They emerged gradually from 1984 to 1997 thanks to the Polish Radio in Katowice and Warsaw. One could consider this selection as representative for the community although it is inevitably complete. Grzegorz Olkiewicz was born in Katowice in 1959. He has performed with most of Poland’s orchestras, and has given recitals and performed with orchestras in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, The US, and more. Many Polish composers have dedicated their compositions to him.

Originally released in 1998 to good notices, the 'Sinfonia Amabile' Choir and Orchestra conducted by Piotr Wajrak along with the best of the cadre of up and coming singers in Poland with Mozart's canonical Requiem in D Minor. The recording was sponsored by the Straszny Dwór Foundation whose mission is to promote Polish artists, primarily composers, conductors, instrumentalists, singers and dancers, in Poland and around the world.

Paul Hendrich's sound system is a coherent whole in which individual parameters of a musical work (such as harmony or rhythm) are ordered by analogous processes. Each composition expanded the boundaries of the system and created its next layers. The uppermost layer could not exist in this structure without all the lower levels. In this sense, every other piece of Paul Hendrich is a metaform, because it uses the musical language developed in earlier compositions. At first glance, Paul Hendrich's thick scores seem complicated. However, they are composed of simple processes. This simplicity would appear to us if we could look at this work as a multidimensional space, which we can trace each parameter separately. Performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik, this release brilliantly displays the composer's genius.

Anna Sikorzak-Olek plays rarely recorded 20th century Polish harp repertoire.

Krzysztof Penderecki's symphonies have a special place in the composer's legacy. In celebration of the composer's 80th birthday, DUX Recordings presents, for the first time in a box set, the symphonies as conducted by the Maestro himself, performed in collaboration with the Sinfonia luventus. These works have never been recorded in a series before under the artistic direction of the composer. He himself has said the DUX Recordings represent the best recordings of these works, making the series even more special. Founded in 2007, the Sinfonia luventus orchestra consists of the most talented graduates and students of music academies who have not attained 30 years of age. The orchestra has performed on many concert stages and at numerous festivals in Poland and abroad: in Austria, China, France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Italy.

Strangely compelling.

You would expect Krzysztof Penderecki to draw the best out of his musicians in his own work, especially after an impressive track record in this field in the past. I listened to the re-release of his recordings for EMI from the 1970s, and these are still impressive even when compared with this new digital recording.

Taking the Capriccio, the earlier recording is a tad more compact at 11:38, but easily equals the new recording in terms of drama. The soloist is set closer with the new recording, so that the balance is less natural in terms of what you might experience in the concert hall, but in all other respects this new recording is an improvement. The detail in terms of instrumentation comes through far more clearly – percussion of course, but all of those other sliding and quivering exotic sounds from all quarters, like the bowed saw for instance, are revealed in all their glory. I’ll still listen to the earlier recording for its chilling atmosphere, but recommend the new one for sheer clarity.

De Natura Sonoris No.2 is an early 1970s chiller classic, continuing and developing some of the textures in Capriccio in a purely orchestral context. Again comparing the EMI recording, made when the piece was brand new, this new Dux version has more immediacy and clarity, but more importantly shows up some of the ways in which Penderecki’s view on the work has changed over the years. There are some dynamic differences in the balance here and there, and those dry, choking clusters in the strings in the beginning are taken more slowly and with less of a sense of murderous drama. Strangely, even though the new recording is a good two minutes shorter than the old one, the new version seems slower: listening to the cacophonous brass and strings beyond four minutes into the piece, there is a greater sense of drive and urgency in the old EMI version. Where Penderecki saves time in the new recording is by compressing the longer stretches of static atmosphere earlier in the work, which are less of a novelty these days. Either way, the old analogue tape coped badly with those fireman’s bells and the sheer weight of noise from the massed brass and percussion in this work, making this new recording a welcome alternative. The sliding brass beyond 5:00, with its conversational interruptions, is a definite goose-bump moment, and the final held note under that scraped percussion is like a small chorus of drowned angels.

Penderecki’s more recent style, in any case since the ultra-romanticism of the early 1980s, has in some way proved even more controversial than his earlier avant-gardism, and the Piano Concerto does sit rather strangely with its ghostly forebears on this disc. The work was written after a great deal of procrastination by the composer, who “refrained from writing a piano concerto for many years because I was afraid [of the] many excellent concertos written in the 20th century.” The final push came from a commission from New York, with Emanuel Ax and the Philadelphia Orchestra in mind as performers. Started in June 2001, the work was originally to have followed the Capriccio design, but after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 the light-hearted nature of such a title seemed inappropriate. The work took on a more serious character, and the non-religious title ‘resurrection’, which refers to mankind’s universal desire for renewal and re-birth after disaster and crisis.

The style of the work is linked to Penderecki’s 1996 seventh Symphony, The Seven Gates of Jerusalem, but also integrates the grand stylistic gestures of Mahler and some of the romanticism of the great piano composers such as Rachmaninov. At over 30 minutes in duration it certainly has a symphonic scale, and with no intermission between any of the sections the uninterrupted musical narrative is a ride of considerable intensity. If I have any problem with this work – and I do consider it a substantial masterpiece – it is the difficulty one has in establishing an individual character to either the source, the composer, or the intended message – the expressive aim. I don’t claim that all music should have immediate clarity in either of these aspects, but I doubt if I have any colleagues even in the musical fraternity who would be able to put their finger on what is going on here. I don’t mean this in a technical sense – the work is about as difficult to listen to as Shostakovich’s 1st Symphony; but in terms of where, what, why, huh?

The booklet notes may have something of an answer to give. ‘The piano part is treated in a very original way in as much as… it explores first and foremost the piano’s percussive qualities.’ Yes, but not ‘in contrast to the major works of the piano literature’ as far as the 20th century goes: composers since Bartók have been doing little else. In any case, there is plenty of running up and down the keyboard in fairly standard romantic style, so I don’t feel any great claims can be made for originality in the solo part. More telling is that ‘the sound idiom employed by the composer harks back to the great symphonic tradition of the turn on the 19th century’. This push-me-pull-you treatment results in something akin to Saint-Saëns and Busoni fighting under a duvet, with the eclectic spirit of John Adams and the hothouse mania of Scriabin acting as referees. One of the central elements in the piece is a chorale, whose introduction at 7:10 is sheer White-Christmas Hollywood. The whole thing quasi-concludes with a final massive statement of this main chorale ‘theme’ at 28:17, with recorded bells kicking in at 29:23 which are as corny as hell. The only thing we miss at this point is a few blasts from a cannon, and the spirit of Tchaikovsky might be appeased as well: the title ‘resurrection’ might as well stand for a ‘revival’ of this way of expressing triumph of the human spirit over destructive forces.

Despite all this the Piano Concerto is strangely compelling – one of those works you know you’ll be playing again, if only to remind yourself of the strange conundrums it proposes – was it really like that? Yes, it really is, and one has to stand in awe of the way in which Penderecki rather audaciously and uniquely creates a new work out of such a gallimaufry of antique recipes. I do however wonder quite what place it will ultimately take in the canon of 21st century musical art.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Ratusinska: Chamber Music