Łukasz Borowicz www.nachtigallartists.cz/en/artists/conductors/borowicz-lukasz conducted the Konzerthausorchestrer
Berlin http://en.konzerthaus.de and
Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra www.polskieradio.pl/79,Orkiestra
with
bassoonist, Michael von Schönermark www.vonschoenermark.de
and mezzo-soprano, Sarah van der Kemp www.sarahvanderkemp.de
 |
| 777 686-2 |
Andrzej Panufnik
(1914-1991) http://panufnik.com was born in Warsaw on 24th September 1914,
Panufnik started to compose at the age of nine. He graduated from the Warsaw
Conservatoire with Distinction in both composition and conducting. He studied
conducting with Felix Weingartner at the Vienna Academy before studying French
Impressionist composers with Philippe Gaubert in Paris. Just before the
outbreak of World War II, Panufnik returned to Warsaw where, despite the Nazi
occupation of Warsaw, he conducted illegal concerts and composed patriotic
resistance songs. During the war he lost
most of his close relatives, as well as every note of music he had composed in
his first thirty years.
In 1945 Panufnik was appointed chief conductor of the Kraków
Philharmonic Orchestra, having to seek out orchestral players scattered all
over Poland. In 1946 he was similarly
asked to restore the Warsaw Philharmonic. In the early post-war years, he began
to reconstruct his lost works, but eventually kept only three restored works,
his Five Polish Peasant Songs, the Piano Trio, Op.1 and Tragic Overture.
Established as the father of the Polish avant-garde, he won international
admiration and honours in his own country.
By 1948, Panufnik’s situation changed dramatically. As
Poland’s leading composer, greatly respected throughout Europe, he was under
intense pressure from the requirement to conform to Soviet Realism. Many of his compositions were condemned as
‘western, bourgeois, decadent.’ In 1949,
the centenary of Chopin’s death, he was elected Vice-President of the Music
Council of UNESCO but was never allowed to attend any ceremonies or concerts.
Creatively stifled by restrictions and political pressures, he ceased to be
able to compose.
In 1954 he escaped from Poland settling in England. His
music was banned in Poland for the following 23 years. From 1957 to 1959 he
served as Chief Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, his
last official position before deciding to dedicate his life entirely to
composition. He took British nationality in 1961. Even in England, life was not
always easy for him. His compositions were independent from the current
fashion. He remained true to his own aesthetic of constantly seeking new forms
and a perfect balance between intellect and emotion, heart and mind.
However, in 1963 Panufnik won the coveted Monaco composition
prize for his still most widely loved and admired work, Sinfonia Sacra. By the 1970’s Panufnik, though still shy of
publicity, was very much part of British musical life and his music was
performed by most of Britain’s leading orchestras, with performances at the BBC
Proms and at many London Symphony Orchestra concerts.
Though, by 1977, Panufnik’s works were beginning to be
performed at Warsaw Autumn Festival, he still refused to return to Poland while
the Communists were still in power. In 1990, after the fall of Communism he
made a momentous return to the city of his birth for the performance of eleven
of his works at the Festival. He received a knighthood in 1991 and a posthumous
Order of Polonia Restituta from Lech Wałęsa, President of Poland.
It is Panufnik’s Sinfonia
di Sfere (1974-75) (Symphony of Spheres) (Symphony No.5) that opens this
disc. In one movement, it is an abstract work with a structure influenced by
the beauty and mystery of geometry. The Poco
andante opens with woodwind, soon joined by the strings with brass soon
appearing over a constantly shifting orchestral sound. As the music calms a
little there is still a feeling of shifting harmonies. The music surges then
falls again before a trombone appears with rhythmic percussion quietly moving
along in the background. The music falls lower and lower with a piano joining
the percussion until the Poco allegro
arrives.
This brings a rhythmically scurrying orchestra with drums
sounding in a light footed section with little darting phrases. The tempo
returns to Poco andante as the piano
leads in, with the orchestra soon following, in a heavy, slow moving theme low
in the orchestra, only lightened by the higher piano notes. Deep brass enter whilst
there is still the feeling of a distant movement from the piano and pizzicato
strings that shift the music along. Higher strings enter, shifting around as a
section with a terrific feeling of spaciousness, ever reaching distances, develops.
The music suddenly drops from the soaring strings into the Andante (più lento) section, a darker,
more mysterious part, again pointed up by the piano. Lower strings continue to
shift around and little woodwind motifs gently sound with percussion occasionally
adding a sudden input. The orchestra slowly grows more intense before arriving
at a fast moving section with a mixture of percussion, brass and piano that soon
shifts to a rhythmically dancing theme for percussion, brass and piano. As the
music continues to speed up, a trumpet joins in over the increasingly jazzy
theme. Violins introduce a broad shifting theme that eventually slows before a
gentle little woodwind theme that slowly moves forward interrupted twice by a
drum outburst. There are timpani rolls, together with piano but it is the lower
strings that eventually fade into the molto
allegro where solo drums create a violent, dramatic passage before the
violins return, quietly shifting around, with the strings becoming increasingly
agitated.
Deep piano chords lead into the Molto andante section with the pianist’s right hand playing a
rippling motif. A brass ensemble enters, mournfully, drums have a say before
the strings play the theme, shared with the woodwind. Drums still, quietly, try
to hold a faster pulse before the strings take over with little piano trills as
the music slowly increases in passion, tempo and dynamics, Panufnik showing a
masterly use of rhythm, textures, colours and dynamics. The music slowly
quietens and slows to a string ensemble. The drums try to increase the tempo
and dynamics but the music quietens to just a piano motif that leads into the
final Molto allegro section full of
energy with pulsating drums and agitated strings. There is a brief respite when
the woodwind enter against the violent drums before a dramatic coda led by the
drumming.
There is often an underlying instability, a restlessness of
shifting themes and harmonies yet Panufnik’s symphonic thought is consistently
apparent in this fine work. The Konzerthausorchestrer Berlin give an extremely
fine performance under Łukasz Borowicz’s direction.
Drums feature in the opening of the Bassoon Concerto (1985), a Prologo, with a plodding rhythm where
they and the percussion are soon joined by the bassoon in a marching theme. Dramatic
lower strings add to the drama as the bassoon marches on before violins lighten
the mood and lead into Recitative I
with a long held high bassoon note, repeated, then varied in a plaintive theme
before the woodwind quietly join in this meditative movement. This is a lovely
movement with some very fine playing from bassoonist, Michael von Schönermark. Slowly
the music rises to a more animated end leading into Recitative II where the bassoon alone adds staccato notes with
sudden violin interruptions in this unusual section, finely played by this
soloist
Aria brings a
flowing theme from the bassoon with gentle woodwind accompaniment before the
orchestra joins to lend a dark accompaniment to the bassoon’s beautiful theme,
quiet haunting and very memorable. As Panufnik develops the theme there are
strident strings and, later, a gloomy plod from the pizzicato strings that only
adds to the dark melancholy of the music. Eventually dramatic staccato strings
interrupt but the bassoon adds a less anxious feel, the orchestra now hushed
against deep pizzicato strings. The bassoon re-enters to continue the theme but
the dramatic strings re-enter. When a solo passage for bassoon arrives it is animated
but, nevertheless melancholy, sounding like a heartfelt cry. The bassoon slowly
quietens before strings join, quietly and with the bassoon, continue the sad,
slow theme – a tragic, poignant moment of quiet heart rending beauty. There is a
beautiful coda when woodwinds intermingle in the theme. Written in the final
years of the Cold War and the murder of the Polish priest, Father Jerzy
Popieluszko, there is, in Panufnik’s own words, an ‘echo’ of these events in
this concerto
The brief Epilogo brings
a sudden violence that, after the Aria,
shakes the listener with staccato strings. Even when the bassoon enters it is
with a short, sharp motif that does, nevertheless, begin to flow though quite
rapidly before ending on lighter, more optimistic note. Again the Konzerthausorchestrer
Berlin is first rate.
Love Song, a
setting of words by 16th century writer, Sir Philip Sidney, did not
appear in the arrangement for string orchestra played here, until just before
the composer’s death in 1991. It has a lovely swaying melody for harp and
strings to which mezzo-soprano, Sarah van der Kemp brings a nice timbre, adding
fine feeling as the song rises emotionally, following the gentle sway of the
orchestra in this lovely setting. The strings of the Konzerthausorchestrer are
excellent.
Landscape (1962 rev.
1965) (for String Orchestra) opens with shimmering, hushed strings before
the music firms up in this slow moving, atmospheric landscape of sound where harmonies
constantly shift adding a rather misty, atmospheric feel. The music builds in
intensity before a sudden drop that allows the music to end peacefully, fading
to silence. Łukasz Borowicz conducts the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra for
this last work in an extremely atmospheric performance.
There is some exceptionally fine music on this new disc, an
excellent addition to this series. The performances by the Konzerthausorchestrer
Berlin and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Likasz Borowicz are
first rate and there are excellent booklet notes. There is no text to Love Song
which is sung in English.
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