Catalogue

"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.

Stanisław Moniuszko’s songs collected in his Songbooks for Home Use were the Romantic, 19th-century counterparts of present-day pop music hits. Written to be sung at private homes and to live their own independent lives, many of them actually did fulfil this role.

What if we ventured the theory that all that jazz flows out of the Vistula River? Kuba Stankiewicz, an excellent jazz pianist and composer, began his professional career in the mid-1980s, playing with Jan ‘Ptaszyn’ Wróblewski and Zbigniew Namysłowski.

High Definition Quartet is an ensemble well-tested in musical explorations, and its pianist-leader Piotr Orzechowski has adopted, not without reason, the nickname of Pianohooligan – one who with roguish impudence jumps across the fences that separate various musical worlds.

Maciej Zieliński dedicates himself with equal enthusiasm to popular music (collaborations with Kayah and Ania Dąbrowska, among others), film soundtracks (such as Street Games and Humble Servants), and contemporary classical projects.