String Quartet No. 3 derives from a tune sung by Nadia who is looking for her mother. She cannot find her, even though she is looking everywhere. The composition was written in 2019/2020, commissioned by the Royal String Quartet.
Aleksander Nowak

String Quartet No. 4 written in 2022 was commissioned by the Royal String Quartet and is dedicated to the ensemble.
Paweł Mykietyn

The piece Magenta [2021] is a kind of reflection on the historical form of the string quartet. In it we can hear both classical and contemporary playing techniques. Sound samples accompanying the instruments come from a variety of sources and times. For example, we can hear a fragment of Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 1, recorded in 1921. All these heterogeneous snippets from different traditions and styles are combined in carefully composed colourful structures. The eponymous ‘magenta’ is both a verbal logotype and one of the basic colours in the synthesis of colours.
Sławomir Wojciechowski

Works of art always function in contexts: of their own genre, its tradition, the composer’s work or the accepted aesthetics of the time. In the case of these three compositions, also in the context of the Kwartesencja festival, where they were first performed. The world’s history also adds an extra bit to it: Aleksander Nowak’s Quartet No. 3 was written before the conflict in Ukraine, which has been smouldering since 2014, broke into our consciousness once again. The composer’s commentary becomes even more moving in the contemporary context. 

The three quartets – written for the same ensemble and compiled on one disc – also interact with one other. The pieces can be listened to in any order; by doing so, they are sure to reveal new meanings. 
Adam Suprynowicz

ACD 325 - Track 01 - Nowak - String Quartet No 3

The great progress of civilisation in the first half of the 19th century undoubtedly had a colossal impact on the mentality of the society of that time. The enormous possibilities opened up by the invention of steam engines allowed people to look into the future of human development with great optimism. It can be assumed that for the people of that era, the present and the future were more important than looking back. But at the same time, the development of archaeology, extensive research into the origin of species and humans, and the emerging interest in the art of ancient times also resulted in a fascination with the works of composers from bygone eras. At this point we come to the essence of our considerations. How would a musician living in the first half of the 19th century interpret a piece written a hundred or so years earlier? Would they try to achieve a rendition as close as possible to the original, or would they rather construct a ‘Neo-baroque edifice’, referring to the architectural practice of that time?
	The best solution at this point would be to get into a time machine, go to Leipzig in the mid-19th century and make friends with Ferdinand David. Since we do not yet have such an option, one of the substitutes for a vehicle that we can use is David’s violin transcription of the Six Cello Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Zbigniew Pilch
Translated by Anna Marks

ACD 337 - CD2 Track 01 - Bach - David - Cello Suite No  1  - Prelude

ACD 337 - CD1 Track 04 - Bach - David - Cello Suite No  3  - Sarabande

Work on preparing this album began in 2019, when I first encountered Mykola Dyletsky’s music – we performed fragments of his Requiem Liturgy with Wrocław Baroque Ensemble in Kyiv. At that time, they made a great impression on me, which, along with my subsequent work as a conductor on this artist’s works and subsequent concerts, strengthened my feeling that I was dealing with a unique repertoire. Dyletsky’s work is a fascinating encounter between the East and the West – the language, liturgy and melody of the Eastern Church harmonise with Western compositional techniques and musical styles. There are clear inspirations from the Venetian polychoral style and stile concertato, and tutti sections are often intertwined with figurative fragments in a solo ensemble. You can also see elements of musical rhetoric (...)
Both liturgical pieces presented on the album were written for two fourpart vocal ensembles. In my opinion, the way they are performed should be similar to the way we perform religious polychoral music of that period,
created for the Catholic Church in the Western Latin rite. I have a strong impression that if the a cappella texture present in these works were supplemented with instruments typical of European music from the first half
of the seventeenth century (e.g. cornets and trombones), i.e. instruments used, among others, by Claudio Monteverdi or Bartłomiej Pękiel and Mikołaj Zieleński, then it would transpire how close Dyletsky’s music was
to what was happening in Western Europe at that time. (...)
This project was an opportunity for me to come into contact with music that was created in the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but at the same time lies at the source of Ukrainian polyphonic music.
A great discovery was the fact that one of the ways through which polyphony entered the field of Orthodox Church music was Dyletsky’s work – his relations with Polish artists and his knowledge of the Italian style.
Interestingly, this process was one of the reasons why Orthodox music did not return to full monody, such as in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Therefore, we have evidence that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
in Dyletsky’s times was a space of unrestricted exchange of artistic ideas and their mutual interpenetration, and that the foundations of European integration in the field of culture were laid there.
I would like to thank the artists and all the people who participated in the preparation of this album. In addition, I would like to express my special gratitude for all help and substantive support to Dr Irina Gerasimova (Bazylowa), Prof. Aleksander Naumow, Dr Łukasz Hajduczenia, as well as Ludmila Kapustina and Volodymyr Andrushchak.

Andrzej Kosendiak (tranls. Anna Marks)

ACD 338 - Track 19 - Dyletsky - Canon Of The Resurrection

ACD 338 - Track 1 - Dyletsky - Requiem Liturgy

In the United States, the trumpet is power. It leads jazz parades and bids farewell to fallen soldiers, plays in marching bands, mariachi groups, and on university campuses. Both John Williams and Duke Ellington wrote concertos for trumpet and orchestra; it also plays an important role in Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question and Aaron Copland’s Quiet City. This instrument, associated with many traditions, has a much higher status in the New World than in Poland or other countries of the Old Continent. Hence the choice of repertoire for the album and the limitation to composers from the United States, as Aleksander Kobus, the originator and protagonist of the recording, pointed out in a conversation with me.
(...)
The selection of only North American composers ensures a high level of coherence for the album, showing different facets of Neoclassicism and tonality in contemporary music. From the aforementioned classic Stevens, through representatives of the middle generation – Joseph Turrin, Bruce Broughton or Vizzutti and Ewazen – to the youngest in this group, Kevin McKee. All of them contribute to maintaining the continuity of the North American repertoire, which has long been an important point of reference for the Polish trumpeter and his wife.

Jan Topolski transl. Anna Marks

ACD342-Track08-Cascades

ACD342-Track01-Fandango

When preparing my arrangements of Joachim Stutschewsky’s works, I aimed, first and foremost, to convey the emotions that this music stirs up in me. It is not a mere transposition of the musical text to the double bass register or a faithful reproduction of the cello originals. I was very much intent on obtaining unique sounds colours and their shades. My transcriptions are thus a subjective attempt at telling an extremely intimate story in a new, different manner.
A passion for music transcription is another thing that I share with Stutschewsky. As in the case of that cello master, my first experiences in this field come from the time of my studies in the legendary Prof. Tadeusz Górny’s double bass class at Wrocław’s Karol Lipiński Academy of Music. Extending the instrument’s repertoire through arrangements was the subject of my diploma thesis, which concerns transcriptions of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 5 No. 2, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata in G Minor.
My next project in this field was the album Karłowicz. Songs, on which, together with Justyna Skoczek and Bartosz Porczyk, we recorded my original transcriptions of Mieczysław Karłowicz’s complete surviving songs. The present programme is another step in the project of presenting and promoting, also to the wide audience, the unique
sound of the double bass as a solo instrument in its own right.

Paweł Jabłczyński (transl. Tomasz Zymer)


ACD323 - Track02 - Stutschewsky - Kaddish

R E F L E C T I O N attempts to voice emotions and fears through a consciously selected repertoire. Are instrumentalists always expected to identify with the music they perform? Though this is arguably not the case, playing music can become a way to a better understanding of oneself, one’s needs, emotions, and to one’s self-identification as an artist.
This album is also a presentation of unknown works by Polish composers, some of whom worked in their fatherland while others had to leave it. By presenting their music here through the prism of my own experiences and interpretations, I pay my homage to these artists.
The album’s programme was also the subject of a performance arts concert titled Reflection, directed by Magdalena Urbańska, during which I presented these works with the actress Alicja Wojnowska and confronted myself with the emotions that this music evokes in me. The concert was held on 29 May 2024 at the Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Cracow.

Adrian Nowak (transl. Tomasz Zymer)

ACD339 - Track01 - Gelbrun - Introduction and Rhapsody

Violinists Szymon Krzeszowiec and Bartłomiej Nizioł, violist Elżbieta Mrożek-Loska and cellist Adam Krzeszowiec selected chamber works by Mieczysław Wajnberg for the program of their latest album. The disc includes two Sonatas (for Violin Solo and for Two Violins) and world premiere recording of the complete four-movement version of the Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello, Op. 48.
„All the works contained on this album were composed in Moscow or its environs and premiered there. One might almost say it was a testament to the vitality of Russian musical culture, except that neither the composer nor any of his ‘creative inspirers’ were Russian. Weinberg was a Pole and a Jew, a refugee from Warsaw. The violinists were Jews from Ukraine, primarily connected with the city of Odessa, where Weinberg’s father had worked as a violinist at a theatre many years before.“

Danuta Gwizdalanka transl. Tomasz Zymer

ACD 325 - Track 01 - Nowak - String Quartet No 3

CDAccord

Related tracks