ACD299 - Track05 - Penderecki - Symphony No  2

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

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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)


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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)

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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

ACD299 - Track05 - Penderecki - Symphony No 2

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