The Deco Ensemble has been praised as 'one of the UK's foremost tango quintets', 'with a strong and highly individual voice' - The Daily Telegraph. Since it's establishment in 2013, it has toured extensively across Europe and performed at some of the most prestigious festivals. They have appeared on television and released their debut album 'Encuentro' to critical acclaim in 2015. 'L�quido' encapsulates the fluidity with which these twelve carefully chosen pieces combine Argentinian tango influences with classical and jazz. Noted composers from the old and current Tango Nuevo scene are featured, along with three compositions written specially for this project by Ricardo Gosalbo.

Hans Gál was born in Brunn am Gebirge near Vienna in 1890, as the son of a Hungarian doctor of Jewish descent. His musical talents were recognized early and he received piano lessons from one of the leading teachers in Vienna, Richard Robert. Alongside a teaching appointment at the New Conservatoire, he also studied musicology under Guido Adler at the University of Vienna and composition under Eusebius Mandyczewski, who had belonged to Brahms’ circle of friends. Already as a young composer, he won the Austrian State Prize for Composition in 1915. Throughout his life he received many honors, among others: doctorates from Universities in Edinburgh, Vienna and Mainz, the highest state honor from his native Austria, as well as the ‘Litteris et Artibus’ for serving the arts, and Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth herself. Despite winning such major awards, Gál never managed to regain the popularity he had had before 1933. He died in October 1987 at the age of ninety-seven, with much of his work unknown and rarely performed. However, in the wake of the recent revival of awareness of the music banned by the Nazis as ‘entartet’ ('degenerate'), the last years have seen signs of an increasing interest in his work, which has resulted in numerous performances, recordings and publications. Nevertheless, Gál’s large output still awaits the attention and recognition it deserves.

Includes:

1. Sonata Op. 101 in A Major for Viola and Piano (1941): I. Adagio

2. Sonata Op. 101 in A Major for Viola and Piano (1941): II. Quasi menuetto

3. Sonata Op. 101 in A Major for Viola and Piano (1941): III. Allegro risoluto e vivace

4. Impromptu for Viola and Piano

5. Suite for Viola and Piano Op. 102a: I. Cantabile

6. Suite for Viola and Piano Op. 102a: II. Furioso

7. Suite for Viola and Piano Op. 102a: III. Con grazia

8. Suite for Viola and Piano Op. 102a: IV. Burla

The Album "Sinfonietta per Sinfonietta" is a compilation of the studio recordings of the awarded pieces in the International Composition Competition under Honorary Patronage of Krzysztof Penderecki “Sinfonietta per Sinfonietta" during the years 2015-2020. There are pieces by composers from six countries, some of them already with splendid international careers, performed by Sinfonietta Cracovia under the baton of Jurek Dybal. The idea behind the competition was to enhance the repertory for string orchestra and to allow the creators of the compositions to be played and recorded. Composers of all origins and backgrounds were supposed to write a piece dedicated to Sinfonietta Cracovia in form of a Sinfonietta to be premiered at the orchestra's own annual event – the Sinfonietta Festival. The pieces were carefully selected in the anonymized process by the jury consisting mostly of the renowned composers under the honorary patronage of Master Penderecki. His active involvement in the competition encouraged over 200 composers to take up the challenge. The laureates had a great opportunity to meet the Maestro in person at the laureate concerts, held in his attendance and some of them during the rehearsals. In their own words, it was a life-changing moment. The last two Sinfoniettas on the Album, awarded with the highest prize "ex aequo" in 2020 were written already after the competition Patron's death, as a homage to him. In the 4th number the string core section of the Sinfonietta Cracovia is enhanced by solo violin and cello and in the numbers 6 and 7 by percussion section. It was meant as an official introduction and a celebration of the purchase of the new instruments for the orchestra. Number 5. entitled “Jubilee Sinfonietta per Sinfonietta" was written in the 25th year of the orchestra's existence.

The 19th-century chamber music is the music of salons and virtuosic brilliant pieces. Aristocratic salons, often represented by female aristocrats, or salons of artists, instrument builders or publishers were the places where meetings of social-integrative character were organized. This was a kind of a new code of cultural communication, with an enormous contribution on the part of music. The works presented on this CD perfectly fit into this tradition. They are great virtuosic duos, often an outcome of some collaboration between two composers, who also performed them, as the salon-concert repertoire was actually dominated by artists’ own compositions. Duo brillant is most frequently a violin and piano duo, the main canvas of which being a theme derived from an already composed and very popular at the time work. The pieces that enjoyed the greatest popularity were variations and fantasias for a duo, based on the themes from well-known operas. And this is the repertoire one can hear on this release. It presents four Grand Duos by the two composers: Edward Wolff and Henri Vieuxtemps, written in the period of 1852-1864. Among them, there is an arrangement-romance based on the ‘Halka’ opera by Stanislaw Moniuszko, composed by Vieuxtemps only. This fact is very important for the reception of Polish music at the time when the Republic of Poland was erased from the map of Europe. The other three pieces, written by both composers, are arrangements of popular themes from ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ by Christoph Willibald Gluck and ‘Raymond or the Queen’s Secret’ by Ambroise Thomas.

'Spanish Guitar Encores' is an album featuring several musical miniatures which I have performed during my solo recitals for over two decades, usually as encores. All of these were written in the territory of present-day Spain, a place I would like to take you to for a musical journey. It is also a journey in time across five centuries of guitar music. (Michal Stanikowski) Michal Stanikowski is regarded by the media as 'one of the most talented and interesting young-generation guitarists'. A graduate of the Academy of Music in Wroclaw, Professor Piotr Zaleski's class, he continued his musical education in Germany at the Universities of Music in Freiburg/Breisgau, Trossingen and Weimar. Stanikowski is the winner of nearly thirty music awards, including at international guitar contests in Velbert (Germany), Enschede (Netherlands), Weimar (Germany), Sanok and Olsztyn (Poland). Between 2007 and 2019, he participated in nine records published by music labels from Poland, Germany and United Kingdom. He frequents the world's largest music festivals in the US, UK, France, Poland and Italy, both as a soloist, chamber musician or member of symphony orchestras, and as a member of the jury or teacher. He has been a faculty member at the University of Music in Trossingen since 2012, and at the Conservatory of Music in Zurich since 2018. He is the founder and director of the 'Gitarrophilia' international guitar festival and competition, which has been organized in Trossingen (Germany) since 2013.

Four composers, four fates. The stories of the four composers and their work are exemplary for the fate of Polish music in the first half of the 20th century, exemplary for a promising new beginning after the First World War following 123 years of political and cultural oppression and foreign domination by the Russian, Prussian and Austrian empires, exemplary for the unimaginable suffering and indescribable destruction that befell Poland with the Nazi terror on 1 September 1939, exemplary, however, also for the tremendous vigor and vitality that is so typical of Polish music as an expression of an indomitable will to live and survive. The biographies of Szymon Laks (1901-1983), Aleksander Tansman (1897-1986) and Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996) also confront us with questions about the "identity" of music, about the perspectives of cultural historiography, about the mechanisms of repression, forgetting and rediscovery. Even though we are dealing with composers who never questioned their Polish identity, the centrifugal forces that affected their biographies through persecution, expulsion and exile were so strong that their national "adhesion" was lost. For decades, they found themselves in a kind of limbo from which only a transnational perspective on cultural history could free them. The fate of Ludomir Rozycki (1883-1953) was just as difficult. In 1904 he left Poland for Berlin to perfect his craft with Engelbert Humperdinck at the Royal Academy. During the 19th century and even at the beginning of the 20th century, Polish music was overshadowed by the Russian and, above all, the German "schools". For decades, training at a German academy was a must, with the Berlin institutions being of particular importance. Stanislaw Moniuszko studied at the Berlin Academy of Arts, Mieczyslaw Karlowicz at the New Academy of Music, and Zygmunt Noskowski, Feliks Nowowiejski and Ignacy Jan Paderewski at the Stern Conservatory. In 1906 in Berlin, Rozycki together with Karol Szymanowski, Apolinary Szeluto and Grzegorz Fitelberg - all of whom were students of Noskowski - founded the Spolka Nakladowa Mlodych Kompozytorow Polskich (Publishing Society of Young Polish Composers) with the aim of promoting contemporary, progressive Polish music, which was having a difficult time at home, and publicising it with editions and concerts. Rozycki enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, even beyond Poland's borders. He made substantial contributions to Polish symphonic poems with 'Stanczyk', 'Anhelli' and 'Boleslaw Smialy', and to Polish opera with 'Amor and Psyche', 'Casanova', 'Medusa' and 'Beatrix Cenci'. His ballet 'Pan Twardowski' (a Polish version of the Faust story), which premiered in 1921, was the most popular Polish ballet of the interwar period, with over 500 performances in Warsaw alone until 1939. Rozycki, who also played a central role in Polish musical life as a teacher with professorships in Lviv, Warsaw and Katowice, survived the Second World War in Warsaw, where he was active as a pianist in underground concerts. When the capital was destroyed by the German Wehrmacht in 1944, some of his previously unpublished works fell victim to the flames. 'Sonata for cello and piano' op. 10, written in Berlin in 1906, is Rozycki's first chamber music work. Alongside Zygmunt Stojowski's virtuosically expansive Sonata for cello and piano, premiered a few years earlier, it is one of the first contributions to the genre by Polish composers after Fryderyk Chopin's work written in 1847. Rozycki dedicated it to the cellist Konstanty Sarnecki, with whom he premiered the work. The three-movement work is surprising in many respects. On the surface, it appears to follow an ad aspera ad astra dramaturgy. On closer inspection, however, the relationship between the dark and light aspects proves to be extremely ambivalent in a fascinating way. The tumultuous opening with virtuoso arpeggios and urging appoggiaturas in the piano transports us to a dramatic, ominous night scene. However, the catastrophic climax is already reached in the final group of the 1st theme, a wild outburst in triple

Exactly 60 years have passed since the legendary band Warsztat Muzyczny was founded in 1963 by Zygmunt Krauze. The group's goal was to organize concerts of avant-garde music. Four years later, in 1967, the band was finally composed of: clarinetist Czeslaw Palkowski, trombonist Edmund Borowiak, pianist Zygmunt Krauze and cellist Witold Galazka. The times have come when not only performers, but also listeners began to feel the need to experience new sounds. An innovative solution was the exploration of the sound possibilities of musical instruments, defined by the musicologist Jozef Chominski as the search for sonoristic properties (Latin: sonorus - sounding). The repertoire included on this CD focuses on composers who gave a clear impetus to the sonoristic tradition. SEPIA ENSEMBLE was established in 2012 at the Academy of Music in Poznan. The core of the band consists of 11 musicians-soloists who share a special passion for performing contemporary music. They appear in various configurations - from solo productions to large ensembles. The band also tries to fill non-standard places with new music, while expanding acoustic sounds with electronic means. Szymon Jozwiak - clarinet Wojciech Jelinski - trombone Tomasz Sosniak - piano Anna Szmatola - cello

The Italians used to call the German style in music un gusto barbaro, a barbarous style. This prejudice gradually diminished, however, after it came to pass that some German composers went to Italy, and there had the opportunity to perform both their operas and instrumental works with approbation [... ] Yet it must be said that the Germans have much for which to thank the Italians and, in part, the French, with respect to this advantageous change in their style. (J. J. Quantz, Versuch... , Chapter XVIII, Par. 86) The album Gusto NON barbaro is devoted to German chamber music of the 18th century. It features works by four composers, of whom Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is the central figure. The album's title refers to a quotation taken from Quantz's treatise, eloquently characterizing the transformations that took place in the style of German music against the background and under the influence of the work of two leading centers: France and Italy. The modern mode of composition, open to the assimilation of respectable aesthetic achievements in the art of other nations, became so dominant in Germany in the 18th century that this very stylistic synthesis was considered a distinctively German feature. In the first half of the 18th century the phenomenon of the unification of national styles became a fact in the works of, among others, Georg Philipp Telemann, the godfather of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and in the middle of the century this trend was particularly dominant in the famous Potsdam circle, where, apart from Bach's son, the other composers presented on the album were active: Johann Joachim Quantz and Christoph Schaffrath. The oldest piece on the record Gusto NON barbaro dates from 1716 (Telemann - Partita IV TWV 41: g 2) and the latest from 1786 (C. Ph. E. Bach - Solo Wq 133). The differences in style and compositional techniques between these works are all too evident, yet despite the considerable time interval separating them, their common gene is palpable: technical excellence, combined with a worship of beauty and an eager, though not uncritical readiness to follow the rapidly changing tastes of listeners.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski is today commonly known as a great pianist, a statesman to whom great credit is due for Poland’s regained independence, and a composer. However, Paderewski’s pianistic career began in an unusual manner and relatively late. After graduating from the Warsaw Institute of Music in 1878, the famous pianist spent ten years teaching, composing and honing his pianistic skills, only giving concerts from time to time. His real career began only in 1888. Before that happened, Paderewski was involved in various forms of music-making (during his student days, he even played trombone in an orchestra). He often engaged in chamber music. Together with friends from his student days, he founded a piano trio with which he concertized all over Russia (which resulted in the overly entrepreneurial students’ expulsion from the Institute). His first composition for violin and piano comes from 1878 – when Paderewski had just finished his musical studies. This work was entitled Song, and was published among other compositions dedicated to Ignacy Kraszewski for the 50th jubilee of his artistic career. It is a typical salon miniature. At that time, Paderewski wrote this type of works mainly for the piano; but in 1882, he wrote Romance for violinist Wladyslaw Górski, with whom he often concertized at the time. The present release features not only this work, but all of the composer’s violin and piano pieces, performed by Slawomir Tomasik and Robert Morawski.

The album Fantaisie brillante (RecArt 0027) is full of flute music of the Romantic era in a virtuoso performance of excellent artists: flutist Wieslaw Surulo and pianist Wieslawa Plawska. In 1995 Wieslaw Surulo graduated from the Academy of Music in Krakow - class of Professor Kazimierz Moszynski. He improved his skills under the guidance of Prof. Meinhart Niedermayr at the Vienna Conservatory. Participant of the master classes conducted by Meinhart Niedermayr andPeter-Lukas Graf, of the BachAkademie Stuttgart orchestral courses under the direction of Helmuth Rilling and of the International Orchesterkurs Attergau conducted by Sir Jehudi Menuhin. Laureate of the second prize at the 3rd National Flute Competition in 1995 (Krakow), of distinctions at the 4th National InterUniversity Chamber Music Competition in 1996 (Bydgoszcz) in the wind quintet category, and participant of the 2nd edition of the Aleksander Tansman International Festival and Competition of Musical Personalities in 1998 (L�dz). He collaborates with the Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (PWM), for which he recorded a selection of works for the flute by Polish composers. He made recordings for the Polish Radio and Polish Television. He is active as a concert soloist and chamber musician. He works full-time as teacher of music, conducting numerous courses and methodological workshops. He sits on the jury of many competitions, including those under the patronage of the Centre for Artistic Education. He took part in the following festivals: the International Festival of Chamber Music in Zakopane, the Baroque Festival in Spisz, Przemyska Jesien Muzyczna [Musical Autumn in Przemysl], and the International Festival of Organ Music in the Pelplin Cathedral. Since 1994, he has been working as a soloist in the Krakow Opera, and since 2007 - as a lecturer at the Academy of Music in Krakow. In 2014 he received the degree of doctor of art.

Roman Palester (1907–1989) was a man of great erudition, well-versed in the literature and art of his day, as is evidenced, for example, by his regular programmes for Radio Free Europe. The radio station, where he worked as head of the culture department for twenty years (1952–1972), provided him with a substitute of home. It made him feel closer to Poland and its affairs – since announcing his decision to emigrate in 1950, he had been a persona non grata in his homeland, banned as a man and as an artist. This is why his music is still so little known – it has not been performed for years and in many cases has not been published either. And yet it is very much worth exploring and incorporating into the canon of Polish 20th-century culture, as is evidenced by the present recording. The three substantial vocal-instrumental works by Roman Palester included in it – Kolacze [The Wedding Cake] to words by Szymon Szymonowic, Trzy wiersze Czeslawa Milosza [Three Poems by Czeslaw Milosz] and Listy do Matki [Letters to the Mother] to words by Juliusz Slowacki – present various hues of the composer’s musical world. Written in different periods of his life – Kolacze in 1942, Three Poems by Czeslaw Milosz in 1973–1977, and Letters to the Mother towards the end of his life (1984–1987) – they perfectly convey the musical style close to the composer in each period, as well as the feelings and emotions he struggled with at the time.

This album is the latest installment in the series of recordings of compositions by Roman Palester, which have been produced by the University of Warsaw Foundation in cooperation with the University of Warsaw Library. Following on discs devoted to Palester's chamber works for two violins, his piano compositions, and his string quartets, this recording presents works for string trio, violin and cello, and for string trio with oboe. As with the majority of Palester's oeuvre, these works have never been previously recorded and the scores of most of the remain unpublished. The autograph manuscripts of these works are held by the University of Warsaw Library, to whom they were given by the composer in his will. During Palester's lifetime, on the String Trio No. 2 was published (but this edition, by the Italian publisher Suvini Zebroni is effectively impossible to find today). The Sonata for Cello and Violin was most likely no performed during Palester's lifetime. The remaining works were performed sporadically and were sometimes performed for radio broadcast; they however have little traction amon performers or contemporary audiences.

Marek Raczynski belongs to the young generation of Polish composers and relates his artistic work mainly to choral music. He has composed many a cappella choral pieces which have entered the repertoire of many vocal ensembles all over the world. His artistic repository also includes vocal-instrumental pieces, instrumental forms and numerous arrangements. His initiation to the world of music Marek Raczynski owes to Prof. Stefan Stuligrosz, the conductor of “The Poznan Nightingales”, the boys’ and men’s choir in which Marek Raczynski sang for over a decade. Later, as a member of many choirs performing in Poland and Germany, he further developed his sense of music and knowledge of choral literature. Marek Raczynski graduated from the Frederic Chopin University of Music in Warsaw where he mastered his composing skills during a Post-Graduate Composition Course in the class of Prof. Pawel Lukaszewski. Additionally, Raczynski also graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan where he studied psychology. Marek Raczynski does not limit himself to composing. He is a co-founder and member of “Minimus” Vocal Ensemble and, since 2015, he is a vice-president of the Chamber Music Promotion Association, “Musica Minima”. Marek Raczynski’s pieces have won many prizes at composing competitions.

The Famd. Pl Orchestra The Orchestra was established in 2009 under the auspices of the Academy of Early Music Foundation from Szczecin. The main objective of the Foundation is to promote the trend of historically informed performance. The group is one of very few in Europe which uses period instruments from the turn of the 19th century, pitched in a - 430 Hz. The Orchestra is made up of outstanding instrumentalists who play period instruments and work full-time as soloists, chamber musicians and teachers at renowned national and foreign music institutions. The leader of the Orchestra is Grzegorz Lalek, a prominent violin virtuoso, whose music activity combines solo, chamber and orchestral performances. The founder and artistic director of the Orchestra is Pawel Osuchowski. The direction towards which the Orchestra is meant to be heading assumes cooperation with artists from the Baltic Sea region revolving around the concerts and festivals organized by the Foundation: On the Gothic Track - Music in the West Pomeranian monuments and the Szczecin Early Music Festival. The Orchestra plays regularly in the regions along the Polish-German border, where it gives numerous concerts and festivals, such as the Concerts of Nations, Kloster Sinna Sommermusiken, Kultursommer in Dominikanerklosert Prenzlau, Uckerm�rkische Musikwochen. In 2010 the Orchestra was the only Polish group, conducted by a Pole, to perform Fr�d�ric Chopin's music according to the historic scores of prof. Jan Ekier, with Kevin Kenner playing the piano built by Pleyel in 1847. Since 2010 the Orchestra has been running a concert project called Beethoven non plus ultra featuring the performance of all the works by the master from Bonn. In 2012-13 the group took part in the programme of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage - The Promotion of Polish Culture abroad and toured Ukraine with The Royal Concerts - the Music of the Old Republic of Poland and the Music Archives of Polish Monasteries. Pawel Osuchowski A graduate of the Academy of Music in Cracow, in the conducting class of prof. Jerzy Katlewicz. He improved his knowledge and skills under the supervision of Helmuth Rilling by taking part in concert projects and master courses as a scholarship holder of the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart. He conducted a number of symphonic concerts, including the Philharmonic Orchestras from such cities as Czestochowa, Jelenia G�ra, Cracow, Opole, Olsztyn, Rzesz�w, Szczecin, Katowice as well as the Sinfonia Baltica in Slupsk, Preu�isches Kammerorchestre Prenzlau (Germany) and the Leopolis Orchestra in Lviv. He also conducted performances at the Opera at the Castle in Szczecin and performed in front of international audiences at the concerts and festivals in the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Iceland, Germany, Ukraine and Italy. He established and ran Consortium Iagellonicum - the University Baroque Orchestra at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow - between 1993 and 2000. He is currently working as the artistic director of the Collegium Maiorum Choir of The West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, which performs at a number of concerts in Poland and abroad. In 2007-2012 he hosted his own radio programme called The Music Dialogue on the Polish Radio Szczecin. Since 2008 he has been working as an artistic director of the Famd. Pl Orchestra. The artist is also involved in animation and organization of artistic events, concerts and festivals. He started the Bach Days in Cracow, Europe without Borders - Music without Borders Cracow 2000, the Szczecin Early Music Festival, On the Gothic Track - Music in the West Pomeranian monuments and other events. He is an artistic director of the Academy of Early Music Foundation where he is involved in artistic and educational activity. He was the author of the international scholarship programme for young people Reykjavik vs Szczecin - the meetings of young chamber music groups 2010. He recorded numerous records with Polish music and was nominated for the Fryderyk Award for the recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's works. Vitae Pomeranorum - The Lost World of Pomeranian Music Vitae Pomeranorum project was prepared by the Academy of Early Music Foundation and is aimed at promoting and popularizing the knowledge of music traditions of the old Pomerania, which spans the contemporary areas of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (German: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) in Germany and the West Pomeranian Region in Poland, for which Szczecin used to be an administrative, economic and cultural hub for ages. The project involves a series of workshops, lectures, conferences and concerts. The subject of the first edition which took place in Chojno and Szczecin in 2013 was Franz Anton R�sler, the 18th c. composer whose life and work were related to the history of music of what is known today as the Euroregion Pomerania. Anton R�sler vel Antonio Rosetti, the German composer and double bass player, was born in the period of the Bohemian Enlightenment. He is often mistaken for four other musicians of the time whose names had similar German and Italian spelling. He was born in 1750 in Leitmeritz (now Litomer�ce in the northern Czech Republic) and died on 30th June 1792 in Ludwigslust (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Germany). He had the vocation for spiritual matters and studied in Jesuit colleges in Prague until the congregation was suppressed in 1773. He did not manage to take orders and began working as a musician under a changed Italian name - Rosetti. His first employer was Prince Ernsat von Oettingen-Wallerstein, who enabled him to develop his composing talent during a number of music journeys. In 1785 he was promoted from the position of double bass player to the function of bandmaster and court composer. He worked successively in Oettingen, Ansbach, Paris, Trier, Ludwigslust and Berlin. Following 16 years of hard and badly-paid service in Wallerstein, Rosetti took the position of bandmaster in the court orchestra of Friedrich Franza, I Prince of Mecklenburg and Schwerin, at the Ludwigslust Castle. He was finally an appreciated and well-paid musician who joined such renowned artists from Pomerania as Johannes Matthias Sperger or Franz Xavera Hammer. It was the final period in Rosetti's life. The orchestra and vocal group in Ludwigslust were an inspiration for his later orchestral and oratorical works. The extensive composing output of Rosetti includes over 400 works, mainly vocal, such as songs, hymns and anthems, as well as more complex pieces such as chorals, odes, cantatas, offertories, masses and oratories. The performance of Rosetti's Requiem in E-flat major during the special Holy Mass in memory of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on 14th December 1791 in the St. Nicholas Church in Prague was a truly memorable event. The final performance of Jesus in Gethsemane oratory at the court of the Prussian King Frederick William II in 1792, just three months before the composer's death, became equally famous. However, what brought Rosetti greatest fame were his instrumental compositions - solo, chamber and orchestral music. Concerts and symphonies were particularly popular and acclaimed in Europe. The first printed edition of Rosetti's symphonies was published in 1779 by Le Menu et Boyer in Paris. Since 1781 his works had been included in programmes of the Parisian Concert Spirituel. His symphonies were equally popular in London, where they were played during the famous Friday concerts of J. P. Salomon. The total of 51 symphonies composed over only 17 years testifies to the incredible talent and great ease with which he created his subsequent works. A number of manuscripts and first editions of Rosetti's symphonies survived to this day. They are stored in the archives of Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in Munich, �sterreichischen Nationalbibliothek in Vienna and in the Library of the Pauline Monastery at Jasna G�ra. The composers and critics contemporary to Rosetti expressed admiration for his art. Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, a German composer and writer of the Sturm und Drang period, included Rosetti among the most popular composers of his time in the treaty Ideen zu einer �sthetik der Tonkunst. He wrote that Rosetti's music was characterized by natural beauty and charm as well as unique melodic line. The most marked assessment came from composer Charles Burney, the then British music historian, who saw Rosetti along with Haydn and Mozart among the greatest music geniuses of 18th c. Today, after all the years, his music bears witness to the exceptional wealth of the culture of the epoch, which is echoed in his symphonies. The symphonies presented on the album Vitae Pomeranorum strive to answer the question which I was faced with while the Famd. Pl Orchestra worked on the interpretation of Rosetti's music. Why did history so mercilessly deprive the composer of a well-deserved place among the contemporary music artists of the period? When you listen today to the themes and phrases of the symphony in G minor, it is quite easy to imagine that Mozart or Haydn could have written it just as well. But it was Rosetti who opened the door and built bridges between Bach and his sons, the early works of Mozart and Haydn all the way right to Beethoven's symphonies. Never before had the counterpoint patterns of Baroque art and the classical symmetry of homophonic tutti been combined so daringly. The selected symphonies were created in 1780-87, the symphonies in D major and C major were included in the collection of six works released in Paris and signed by Rosetti. They consist of classical four parts and have a modest instrumental line-up. The narrative is given traditionally to string instruments, although Rosetti applied a division into two voices of viola and a single voice of cello emphasized by additional bass (called either basso or violone), which was not used by other composers. The polyphonic texture reaching up to six independent voices makes great use of that. Wind instruments - flute, oboes, bassoon and horns play a double part - on the one hand they support the main melodic line of violin and on the other they complement the colourful effects of dynamic contrasts of tutti. The symphony in G minor, written in March 1787 in Wallerstein, RWV A 42 (Rosetti Werke Verzeichnis - the composer's catalogue edited by Sterling E. Murray) has a similar construction. It has an unusual four-part structure with a minuet in part two. As the only symphony by Rosetti pitched in minor key it has a clearly distinguishable dramatic expression and foreshadows not only Mozart's work from the following year (KV 550), but also the thematic pattern of Beethoven's 3rd part of Concerto in C minor, Op. 37. Undoubtedly, musicologists have a long way to go before they will be able to assess the extent to which Rosetti's music inspired the greatest composers of the age. Listening to just one of his symphonies leads to a very simple conclusion that Rosetti should be placed among the greatest composers of 18th c. , which makes his music even more attractive today, when audiences are saturated with the popular music of the old masters. Pawel Osuchowski The material was recorded on 28th-30th August 2013 in the Holy Trinity Church in Chojna. The Famd. Pl Orchestra plays period instruments and their copies pitched in a - 430 Hz.

Komeda Deconstructed