Music close to our hearts - this is the title with which we invite you to the next musical journey. This time the trail will be marked by clarinet, an instrument of unusual technical and expressive possibilities. It is present in orchestras and ensembles, while it's color, slightly dark, modulated, deep, brings to mind the sound of Roma and Jewish bands, wandering with their music on the European continent. The clarity of the clarinet's sound has long encouraged great composers to entrust it with important roles, to experiment with it's colour, technical possibilities, and euphony with other instruments. On this album we present you several clarinet encounters in various versions, in the performance and interpretation of an excellent musician, Mariusz Barszcz, and the accompanying him artists.

Joseph Renner was born on 17 February 1868 in Regensburg. His first music teacher was his father, also Joseph (1832-1895) - composer, organist, head of the Regensburg choir, and organizer of a private music institute. In 1887, he took the post of a choral conductor in the Austrian town of Bludenz, and in 1893, when he returned to Regensburg, he became the organist in the local cathedral. Two years later, he launched pedagogical activity. In 1900, he became acquainted with Max Reger, a great composer and organist, who spoke exceptionally favorably of his solo works. The pieces presented on the present release give the listener a full spectrum of the harmonic and expressive means used by the composer on the basis of organ music. The works are performed by Tomasz Zajac.

Born in Debica on November 23, 1933, Krzysztof Penderecki studied composition with Artur Malawski and Stanislaw Wiechowicz at the State Higher School of Music in Krakow (1954-58). In 1959 three of his works won him the top prizes at the Young Composers’ Competition of the Polish Composers’ Union. A year later, he captured the attention of Western critics with Anaklasis, performed at the Donaueschingen Festival. Penderecki’s international position was consolidated in the 1960s thanks to such pieces as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the St. Luke Passion, and Dies irae. This release in the Polish Sinfonia luventus Orchestra’s Penderecki series features his Concerto per viola ed orchestra (version for saxophone, 2015), and his Concerto per violin ed orchestra no. 2 Metamorphosen (1995).

The history of Polish culture in different epochs was created by composers who were staying outside the borders of the country, dispersed in many parts of the world, marking their bounds with the homeland by their works and attitude. Karol Rathaus also belonged to that group. He was one of the few Poles of the first half of the previous century who studied and then had artistic success in the most significant musical centers of the German-speaking world. Rathaus revealed a great musical talent from a very young age. He studied composition in Vienna and Berlin before being forced to move to the United States at the onset of World War II. The present release comprises extremely rarely performed pieces that have not been recorded until now, apart from the Suite, Op. 27. Violinist Karolina Piatkowska-Nowicka graduated with honors from the Academy of Music in Gdansk in the class of Professor Henryk Keszkowski. She is a prizewinner of numerous chamber music competitions in Poland and abroad. Since 2006 she has been a part of the NeoQuartet string quartet specializing in the performance of contemporary music.

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of the 20th-century musical landscape is the stylistic pluralism, visible not only across numerous schools and movements, but also in the language of individual artists who, unrestricted by the prevailing composition rules, would reach for various means of musical expression. The most crucial issues addressed by post-Romantic composers included the sound colour, important both for pre-war impressionists and representatives of sonorism. The album presents pieces from the beginning of the 20th century, performed by an international group of musicians related to the Belgian performance school, in which the play on the sound colour takes place in the chamber space. The leading pair of instruments are flute and viola - a couple which perfectly complements each other; its sound inspired a number of composers, like Debussy, Huybrechts, Roussel, and Schulhoff.

This album is the first release of a series of three albums on which pianist Sebastien Dupuis will record 12 Transcendental Etudes by Liszt. On each album, he will record four Etudes combined with works by another composer. The first four etudes were composed by a young, ultra-virtuoso, extravagant Liszt, who was looking for limits of the instrument and of himself. Fascinated with literature and poetry, the etudes are thundering frescos, romantic, passionate, and incredibly modern. Dupuis writes of choosing La lugubre gondola No. 2 to pair with the etudes: “In order to create contrast, I chose a radically different piece by Liszt; a Liszt who was in the last phase of his life, he became an abbot, he had retired from the world of virtuosos long ago…” Also included on this release are 4 Scherzos and a Mazurka by Frederyk Chopin, without a doubt the most virtuosic and demanding pieces by that composer. Chopin was an admirer of young Liszt’s art, thus making these pieces a practical choice for inclusion on this album.

Martín Palmeri began to work on the Magnificat dedicated to mixed choir, soprano and mezzo-soprano solo, string orchestra, bandoneon, and piano in 2010. He was guided by an idea to create a piece, which would be stylistically and emotionally close to the Misa a Buenos Aires – Misatango, yet much more difficult for the performers, and more sophisticated as far as the rhythm and polyphony are concerned. The composition was ended in 2012 and its world premiere took place in Milan. The source of the text of the Magnificat is the Gospel of Luke (1:46-55). The evangelist consciously combines three pictures into a triptych: Annunciation, Visitation, and the Marian Magnificat. The Humble Servant is chosen for the Mother of the Son of God. She starts a journey to visit her relative, Elizabeth, who will soon become mother of John the Baptist. Elizabeth greets Mary and She answers her with words of a canticle praising God. While Palmeri was composing the Magnificat, he was drawing inspiration from the Argentinian tango nuevo popularized in the greatest extent by Astor Piazzolla, who modernized the traditional Argentinian tango and enriched it with elements of jazz and Argentinian folklore; however, the references to the tango in the Magnificat do not concern only the orchestral layer of the piece. Despite the fact that the basic carrier of the tango’s idiom are the bandoneon and the orchestra, its element also crosses the vocal layer of the piece, as it is also the solo voices and choir that abound in the tango rhythms. The bandoneon in Palmeri’s music changes its facets as a chameleon: once it rhythmically energizes the sound layer, the other time it limits itself to highlight the accents occurring on particularly important words, and sometimes it accompanies the solo voices duo, subtly surrounding their narration.

Andrzej Chlopecki, the late critic and animator of the music scene, wrote extensively about Szymanski’s music as well as supporting the composer by means of his longtime role with the Warsaw Autumn festival. Chlopecki puts things thus: “the formal structure is beautiful while stylistic expression is calculated: for Szymanski’s music is a continual game.” He then offers precedents in Johannes Ockeghem and Anton Webern, deducing that Szymanski’s “guiding principles would be speculation and constructivism.” Rendering the loaded quality in the composer’s works, Chlopecki adds that “the aim of Szymanski’s music is the creation of symbolic entities within abstract art forms.” Dissociative Counterpoint Disorders was composed for Malgorzata Sarbak. Sarbak premiered the piece in Warsaw in the Palace of Culture and Science. Harpsichordist Malgorzata Sarbak currently serves as a keyboard teacher at F. Chopin College of Music in Warsaw. She has made archival recordings for the Polish Radio, and has won numerous competitions, most notably the International EBU Competition New Talent 2005.

The pieces featured on this release are joined by a common thread of one idea. Preludes Op. 23 by Sergei Rachmaninoff and the Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor by Gustav Mahler were created almost in the same period of time, in 1901-1903. Mahler wrote his Adagietto under the influence of passionate feelings toward Alma Schindler, who soon became his wife. On the other hand, Rachmaninoff composed his Preludes shortly after marrying Natalia Alexandrovna Satin. Chopin’s nocturns became a personification of passionate feelings. One could say it was women that were an indirect impulse for the creation of these works. +Edward Wolanin is a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw. He is currently a professor of his alma mater, a prize-winner of numerous competitions, and now a member of jury of many of them. His great sensitivity is revealed in music and in contacts with others. He emanates with warmth and naturalness. This is how he is both in life and music.

I do not always choose to struggle with difficulties and play my full potential. I make my pieces difficult whenever I please, according to my disposition and that of my audience. It is in this concise manner that Carl Friedrich Abel characterized his performance skills, which in the life of the composer were widely recognized as a unique phenomenon. The album by Krzysztof Firius, Anna Firius, and Tomasz Pokrzywinski includes selected ABBA gambic works from the recently discovered Maltzan book collection, made public by the Polish musicologist Sonia Wronkowska.

They have performed at almost all prestigious music festivals in Poland, meeting with an enthusiastic reception of the audience and critical acclaim. Each of them is a laureate of a number of music competitions. They met while working with the Krakow chamber orchestra Capella Cracoviensis. They have many chamber concerts with a varied repertoire, from baroque to contemporary music. The present release is a review of the ambitious modern repertoire of the ensemble Cracow Wind Quintet, where classical positions coexist well with Polish chamber music, often- as in the case of Burleski by Mikolaj Gorecki or the Pawel Lukaszewski quartet- dedicated to the musicians participating in this recording.

The works by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, according to the popular opinion, belong to the most original pieces composed by Polish artists. Although the musical language of Paderewski is very strongly rooted in the major-minor system, thus in the Romantic tradition, various innovative measures that the composer subjected particular musical forms and genres to, often turn out to be a genuine enigma for musicologists and researchers of his work. This album includes both smaller pieces, including the famous Minuet in G major, Op. 14 No. 1 at the forefront, as well as texturally complex works (incl. Variations in A major, Op. 16 No. 3), in which their formal architecture is developed in an idiomatic way. The recordings were made in, always full of music, the Paderewski Court in Kasna Dolna - the Polish home of the Master, his only preserved estate in the world. Invitations to participate in the project were accepted by artists holding leading positions among Polish music performers - Katarzyna Duda, Hanna Samson, Jacek Jaskula, Robert Marat, Robert Morawski and a talented young pianist - Cezary Karwowski.

ONE WEEK IN RIO is the phonographic debut of the duo, as well as the world premiere of two exceptional pieces. The title suite, written by Sérgio Assad, and a new version of the History of Tango by Astor Piazzolla. Adam Woch and Robert Guzik are one of the most interesting guitarists of the young generation in Poland. They have made their common debut in one of the most prestigious concert halls in the world – Carnegie Hall in New York. Their debut album consists of two world premieres: the seven-movement suite One Week in Rio by Sérgio Assad, composer and guitarist of the legendary Assad Brothers duo and the famous History of Tango by Astor Piazzolla in a completely new version for violin and two guitars, recorded together with Roksana Kwasnikowska. The remaining repertoire is complemented by works by Latin American composers, which have been the most popular during the last years at the concerts of the ensemble.

The Rorantists fitted into the cultural trends of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. That time, called the epoch of humanism, knowingly referred to the Hellenic culture, which aspired to perfection in art.According to that, the enlightened Polish King Sigismund the Old, decided to remain in history of Polish culture by building a monument of art- his sepulchral chapel in the Wawel Cathedral. By that means, the King wanted to realize the vision of the perfect piece of art, the synthesis of architecture, sculpture, painting and music. This release honors those traditions, and features songs that would have been sung in that grand hall. Featured musicians include organist Andrzej Bialko, vocalists Zygmunt Magiera, Piotr Piwko, Pavel Doronowski, and more.

Stravaganza is an exciting journey throughout the most varied affects found in Italian instrumental and vocal music from 1500 to 1700. The unique combination of both arpa doppia and harpsichord, two polyphonic instruments with a wide tradition in Italy at that time, offers a suggestive and innovative performance of this repertoire. Sara �gueda and Javier N��ez achieve an impressive richness of sounds and colors, adding great ingenuity to this wonderful music.