Catalogue

Does music need parity? Probably not, it defends itself. But it is worth noting and emphasising the artistic advantages of outstanding contemporary composers and their unforgettable predecessors - women in Polish music are a voice as separate as it is expressive. The album is the result of cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and more specifically the Polskie Heroiny Dźwięku (Polish Heroines of Sound) program conducted by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the wider Polska Music campaign.

Dawid Bajgelman is a composer from Łódź, born in 1888, who used to specialise in adapting Jewish musical tradition to the needs of operettas and cabaret. He founded a symphony orchestra in the ghetto and continued composing. He did not survive the Holocaust; he died in a concentration camp. Fortunately, his music is alive again.

A musical drama written for voices, harpsichord, strings, looper and dragon. The piece is a fascinating collision of the sensitivity of one of the most outstanding Polish composers of contemporary music and an exceptional writer, awarded and, above all, read in Poland and around the world.

To say about Krzysztof Herdzin that he is a versatile musician and a titan of work is to say nothing. This pianist, composer, arranger, conductor and music producer also feels at home in jazz (he played in the bands of Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski and Zbigniew Namysłowski, he is a band leader himself), pop music (he collaborated with, among others, Anna Maria Jopek, Maryla Rodowicz and Edyta Geppert), contemporary music (for which he was nominated to Fryderyk award many times), film and theatre.

"Singing and vocal music have accompanied me since my early childhood" – says Romuald Twardowski, born in 1930 in Vilnius. – "Popular tunes, songs hummed by my mother, the sounds of church choirs – all those things were invigorating my imagination."

“The Best of…” compilations are a product of long-established music markets. They caught on when the catalogues of popular composers’ and performers’ albums became too large to follow even for the most fervent fans looking for their favourite numbers.

Franek the raftsman and Jakub the hairdresser vie for the hand of beautiful Zosia. Though this one-act opera by Stanisław Moniuszko, composed in Paris to a libretto by Stanisław Bogusławski, is often viewed as a hasty attempt to repeat the success of Halka, unlike that latter work The Raftsman ends happily.

Born in 1907 in Podolia (now Ukraine), educated in Lviv and Warsaw, Roman Palester emigrated from Poland soon after WWII. He died in Paris in 1989. For many years he headed the cultural department of Radio Free Europe’s Polish section.