DUX
451 products
The Great Organ of the Lichen Basilica
Wieniawski: Violin Concertos 1 & 2 / Brodski, Wit, Et Al
Krzysztof Penderecki: Violin Concerto No. 1; Viola Concerto
The instrumental concerto occupies a very prominent place in the music of Krzysztof Penderecki. This fact is related to the great life force exhibited by this genre in twentieth century and in contemporary music. It is stimulated by commissions from virtuosos and by audience expectations; also favourable is the composers’ flexibility in approaching the form, whose chief idea continues to be the juxtaposition of the solo instrument and the orchestra. The violin and viola works presented on this CD are not only interesting, concrete realizations of the concertare idea in Penderecki’s music, but also examples of this composer’s sonic language and style in the period of his creativity which Mieczyslaw Tomaszewski called a “time of dialogue with the regained past”.
WORKS FOR CHOIR & ORCHESTRA
Penderecki, Bacewicz & Tansman: Works for Violin & Piano
Palmeri: Magnificat / Litowska, Capella Bydgostiensis, Astrolabium Choir
For Tomasz Sikorskie
SONGS
Chopin: Complete Works for Piano & Orchestra, Vol. 2
Rachmaninov, Scriabin & Prokofiev: Piano Music
MISSA PULCHERRIMA MOTETS
Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No 1 & 2 / Baeva, Dawidow, Et Al
SZYMANOWSKI Violin Concertos: No. 1; No. 2 • Alena Baeva (vn); Bogus?aw Dawidow, cond; Opole PSO • DUX 575 (49:31)
Alena Baeva is a sultrily attractive young woman—a matter the open-out pasteboard sleeve, with its four fetching full-page color photographs, makes inescapable. Through both works she maintains a guilelessly fluent, sweetly seductive croon in even the most raucous passages, though her cadenzas are reeled off—albeit in startling coruscations—as if they held no expressive secrets. In these works it is not enough to play beautifully. Baeva alternates moments of poetry with stretches of faceless proficiency. The Opole band is a cut above bush league, but one immediately discerns a lack of direction, slant, or interpretive thrust in these splashy readings. Dawidow simply keeps things moving at a relaxed pace, where Wit (with Ilya Kaler, Naxos 8.557981, Fanfare 31:1), say, wallows in Szymanowski’s sensuous scoring, or Kazimierz Kord (with Kaja Danczowska, Accord 011 314, Fanfare 24:3 ) makes the most of his ecstatic, hallucinatory shifts. Both bring immediate lift and animating focus where Dawidow beats time.
Superbly balanced, glowingly detailed, walloping sound—with the soloist brilliantly on top—may persuade you that these are better performances than they are. I look forward to hearing Baeva again—in these works, coached and led by a more practiced hand. Recommended as an introduction to a promising artist, and as one of the best sounding CDs of the year.
FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis
SONATAS AND PARTITAS
PIANO QUINTETS
THREE POLISH TENORS
The Beatles
OVERTURE TO THE BALLET THE CRE
Maximus: The Greatest Movie Soundtracks
Penderecki: Works for Winds & Orchestra
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REVIEW:
The Capriccio for oboe and 11 strings is a genuinely virtuoso piece, as much for the string players as for the soloists, but that provides no problems for the outstanding Sinfonia Iuventus, and Arkadiusz Krupa is a commanding soloist. The epic Horn Concerto, subtitled Winterreise though devoid of any quotations from Schubert, dates from 2008 and is naturally utterly different in style. Its opening, mysterious and portentous, may well constitute the most beautiful two minutes of music the composer has ever written.
– Gramophone
Zielenski: Opera Omnia, Vol. 2 - Offertoria Totius Anni
Lukasz Kwiatkowski Plays Godowski
For You, Anne-Lill
Sikorski: Twilight / Nagy, Esztenyi, Warsaw Philharmonic
To say that Sikorski’s music is thought-inspiring is not enough. What is more important, it forces us to feel, react, vibrate. And in the case of the repertoire presented in this album, it introduces us to the very essence of the piano. Sikorski’s understanding of the instrument and its possibilities was remarkable. His sounds pierce through us. Only the composer, who fully existed within this sphere of sound, could so convincingly deal with the consequences of the sound’s harmony and repetition, its crescendo and decrescendo, its silence. Tension in Sikorski’s music results from the possibility and willingness to both reveal and conceal emotions with a single stroke of the pen. Passion expressed, passion suppressed, beauty, intensity, solitude, richness of sound and shortage are its essence. These works are beautifully presented by pianist Ezabolcs Esztenyi and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Zsolt Nagy.
