Amadeus pro wordpress7/31/2023 But they almost had to do so anyway, as this is not a concerto in which the soloists can safely sit back, graze a a little grass, and feel mellow. I was delighted to hear that the second pianist in this performance, Elisabeth Brauβ, played with a bolder attack and more excitement than Jablonski, thus pushing the other pianist in their duo passages. Here, she seemed to be trying to combine her earlier Bartók-Stravinsky style with more daring harmonic concepts rootless chords, shifting chromatics, even slight touches of microtonalism here and there all combine to produce a powerful musical statement into which the two soloists, often playing choppy, broken figures, are trying to fit into. The fast third movement is an odd combination of jollity and unease, which Collon brings out perfectly.Įven I was stunned by the power and drama of the two-piano concerto, one of Bacewicz’ late works from 1966. The second movement of this concerto, although clearly an Andante, has a certain underlying feeling of restlessness about it I won’t quite call it menace, but it is not relaxed, comfortable listening except when Jablonski plays the solo part. Personally, I prefer the playing of Julia Kocluban on the Dux recording of this work although Nicholas Collon is a fine, spirited conductor who leads the work in an exciting fashion. In the faster, louder passages, I found his playing to be a shade on the “mincing” side, as if he was trying to sound a bit bold and daring but didn’t quite get there. Our piano soloist, Peter Jablonski, is a lyrical player, thus his style is more ideally suited to those relaxed moments in the concerto. I think the best word I can use to characterize these works is “breathless.” Even in those moments when Bacewicz pulled back on the volume and tempo, there is always that fine musical “line” running through the music. Every moment in this work, something interesting is happening there are no lulls, no gaps, no superfluous passages or uninteresting moments, and the same is true of the piano concerto from 1949 although some of the themes here are indeed catchier than in the overture. The themes, though not memorably melodic, are good ones, short and to the point, and Bacewicz developed and interwove them with such skill that they present a unified and logical musical statement that spans its entire five-and-a-half minute length. In today’s musical world, then, a piece like the Overture, written in 1943, would even be considered somewhat “retro,” but point is not what harmonic language Bacewicz used but rather how extraordinarily skillful she was in the way she wrote. She clearly based her aesthetics on Bartók and Stravinsky, both of whom were pretty familiar to concertgoers by the mid-1940s, although when she started composing their music was still somewhat startling to listeners weaned on Mozart and Schubert. In the old days, even when soloists in concertos were members of the resident orchestra, whether American, British or German, they were named somewhere in the liner notes, even if only in small print.īacewicz’ music was not as innovative for its time as was Szymanowski’s. Because the trumpeters and percussionist are members of the Finnish Radio Symphony, they’re not identified anywhere. But just look at the album cover and booklet. I already have the Overture and the Piano Concerto in my collection, but am more than happy to now have the two-piano concerto as well as the Music for Strings, Trumpets & Percussion. In addition, it is starting to reach the point where many of the works being recorded are actually re-recordings. But recordings are not concerts, and I still don’t see her music being programmed with any regularity by the major British, American, German or French orchestras. Nicholas Collon, cond / Ondine ODE 1427-2Įarlier this year, I made the claim that Karol Szymanowski, not Frydryk Chopin, was Poland’s greatest composer, a statement I still stand by, but Graźyna Bacewicz was their second-greatest composer, and it is extremely gratifying for me to see so many new releases of her music emerge in the past several years. Music for Strings, Trumpets & Percussion / Peter Jablonski, pno 1 Elisabeth Brauβ, pno 2 unidentified tpt & perc soloists Finnish Radio Symphony Orch. Steve Bowie on The Best Jazz Singer You’ve Pr…īACEWICZ: Overture. Giorgio Koukl on Bacewicz’ Piano Concerti Tom Baker on Klaus Tennstedt: The REALLY Gr…īacewicz’ Piano Conc… on Bacewicz’ Piano Concerti The Art Music Lounge on Klaus Tennstedt: The REALLY Gr… Discovering Discovering Melcher Melchers.
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