Classics and discoveries. The present album, released on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Cracow Duo: Kalinowski & Szlezer, is composed of the most famous pieces for cello and piano. This unique album includes, among others, Swan from "Carnival of Animals" by Camille Saint-Saëns and Le Grand Tango by Astor Piazzolla, as well as romantic and melodic compositions less known to listeners, including: Romance sans paroles by Zygmunt Stojowski and Milontan by José Bragato. Jan Kalinowski and Marek Szlezer have been friends since childhood, they studied in Krakow and Paris. The musicians featured here have performed on the most prestigious stages in the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, Salle Cortot in Paris, Seoul Arts Center in Seoul, Alfred Newman Hall in Los Angeles, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico. The album that Jan Kalinowski and Marek Szlezer are handing over to you is a story of twenty years of working and traveling together told with music.

Jean FRANÇAIX (1912–1997) was one of the finest French composers and pianists of the twentieth century. Born in Le Mans, into a family with long-standing musical traditions, he was able to develop his innate talents almost naturally from the cradle. Regular contact with outstanding musicians and seasoned music lovers encouraged his artistic development and shaped his extraordinary personality. The present release from Karolina Stalmachowska (oboe) is a program of music for pleasure. She is joined by a lineup of talented musicians including Malgorzata Wasiucionek, Maria Shetty, Konrad Bargiel, and more.

The present release features an exciting program of works for flute and orchestra performed by Sylwia Kubiak-Dobrowolska and the Sinfonia Nova Orchestra led by Lukasz Wojakowski. Sylwia Kubiak-Dobrowolska graduated with honors from the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw in the flute class of Prof. Elzbieta Gajewska-Gadzina. During her studies she honed her skills in courses with such outstanding flutists as Jean-Pierre Rampal, Miriam Nastasi, and Peter-Lukas Graf. She won distinctions and awards at competitions in Poland and abroad, took part in Concerts of Young Talents, performed as a soloist of the Jeunesses Musicales Orchestra under the direction of Robert Satanowski, and was the first flutist of the Spring Orchestra at Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autumn under the baton of the greatest Polish conductors Jerzy Maksymiuk and Jacek Kaspszyk.

Another album in the Anthology of Polish A Cappella Music series was being created on the eve of the first anniversary of Juliusz Luciuk’s death. This time, the ‘Collegium Cantorum’ Choir of the Czestochowa Philharmonic reached for the internationally unique work Vesperae in assumptione Beatae Mariae Virginis – Vespers on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. While researching the output of the Czestochowa-Cracow composer one can sense his individual style, based on a few indefeasible pillars. One of them is profound respect for tradition, with particular emphasis on the Gregorian chant, both in terms of the melodic solutions of the monody and the entire culture and performance conditions surrounding the chant. Other pillars of his work are the quest for colour in harmony and the peculiar simplicity of emotions reflecting the composer’s personality. The Vespers presented on this album can be considered the quintessence of the style of Juliusz Luciuk, an artist who was particularly passionate about sacred music.

This album is of high personal significance for us. The works presented here were written especially for our duet by an outstanding Polish composer. Each of these pieces has a history of it's own and brings back various memories. Most of all, it presents a fascinating world of sounds that we would like you to experience. Marcin Blazewicz's compositions are saturated with unusual emotionality, sometimes with drama. Of particular significance to the composer's style is expressiveness and tonal tensions, as is clearly heard in the Double Concerto for Violin, Accordion and Symphony Orchestra and in the Sonata for Violin and Accordion subtitled 'Night Full of Sins'. This album is also special because it is the first one with Marcin Blazewicz's compositions released a few months after his death. At the same time, it is an album that the composer personally worked on, together with us. We believe it is a real honor that such a great composer entrusted us with the performance of his works. We are grateful for the opportunity to learn from him during our conversations and joint work on the scores of the pieces that were personally dedicated to us. With this album, we want to commemorate this great man and our musical friend, who died suddenly and prematurely. We wish to present some of the last works by this extraordinary composer, whose greatest desire, as he often emphasized, was to reach out to listeners and move them with his music. (Karolina Mikolajczyk, Iwo Jedynecki)

Pianist Tomasz Lupa, born in Podkarpacie, presents an extremely extensive album with works of three Polish composers, whose activity dates back to the first years of the 19th century. All three, Józef Elsner, Franciszek Lessel and Karol Kurpinski, were associated with Warsaw for a large part of their lives, which at that time was the most important center of Polish culture. This album presents forms typical of the music of that time: variation, sonata, rondo and fugue, and the way they were shaped does not differ from the top achievements of the then European compositional thought. The repertoire of the album is connected by the national features contained in all compositions, which, combined with the Classical form, create music with specific sonic and emotional qualities. It is worth referring to the above achievements of Polish music from the beginning of the 19th century, which, although overshadowed by the genius of Fryderyk Chopin, are of great historical and, above all, artistic value.

There are a number of works in the well-known piano repertoire which, due to the colossal degree of piano difficulties, have become a permanent feature of the canon of the most demanding compositions. There is also a group of works which, to a greater extent, require from the pianist, above all, a great musical imagination, maximum concentration on every textural and formal detail as well as the ability to construct an extensive, multi-threaded narrative. Undoubtedly, this group includes the extensive Sonata in B-flat Major D. 960 by Franz Schubert, recorded by a Polish pianist – Katarzyna Kling.

The work, which is the core of the repertoire of this album, prompts both the performer and the listener to many philosophical and musical reflections. The pianist, appreciated both in the field of performance and teaching, completes the solo album with the Impromptu in E-flat Major, Op. 90 No. 2, D. 899, which in combination with the last Sonata allows the listener to get to know Schubert from two separate perspectives.

Another album under the Anthology of Polish Art a Cappella series, created together with the ‘Collegium Cantorum’ Choir of the Czestochowa Philharmonic under the direction of Janusz Siadlak, is devoted to Andrzej Koszewski’s choral music. Koszewski’s special place in Polish music is best characterized by his concept of the choir as ‘an orchestra of human voices’. Koszewski discovers in a choral ensemble the possibilities of shaping the timbre of sound analogous to those of a symphony orchestra, and (with full respect for the human voice) treats it similarly, moving in the aesthetics defined by good taste and striving to maintain a sound effect within the framework of high art. That is why all non-standard means of articulation as well as whistle and whisper, often resulting from the use of the properties of the Polish language, are employed in a thoughtful and fully justified manner, never for the effect itself. The selection of songs presented on our album, with the outstanding performance quality of the ensemble, fully confirms it.

DIABELSKIE SKRZYPCE [DEVIL’S FIDDLE] is a staged concert devoted to the figure of a local village musician. Those who claim that the greatest fiddlers of the past have simply played to dancing, are very much mistaken. Rather, they acted as a kind of guides to complexities of a specific rite or ceremony, they were mediators between the real and the spiritual world, very often exposing themselves to adverse impacts of demonic reality. It is not without reason that rural records very often feature stories about fiddlers having supernatural powers. Still alive today are stories about musicians raising their own incubi, owning some magical items, about their supernatural ability to damage strings of a fiddler playing in another band or forcing the violin to play alone. This continually vivid transgressive power of traditional fiddle and traditional music making is consistently advocated by Radical Polish Ansambl who made their début at the CODES festival in 2018. This time, these passionate promoters of Radical Polish Culture have invited an outstanding Polish composer of electro-acoustic music, Cezary Duchnowski, an illustrious avant-garde cellist Mikolaj Palosz, and a versatile singer Maniucha Bikont. They chose some authentic mazurka melodies and a unique instrument, the devil’s fiddle of Lejaren Hiller. This American pioneer of computer music, while staying in Poland in the 1970s, came across a traditional instrument widely used rural ceremonies in the Kaszuby and Kurpie regions, and developed it to the level of an exquisite virtuoso instrument. The reconstruction of Lejaren Hiller’s devil’s fiddle in combination with inscrutable musical capabilities of Cezary Duchnowski will take the CODES’ audience back to the mythical times of fiddlers-witch doctors.