Catalogue

The workings of inspiration are truly inscrutable. Karol Szymanowski sought it in the Antiquity, the Orient, and in Polish folklore. The artists of to-day, though cast from a different mould, are in turn inspired by the oeuvre of Szymanowski.

The workings of inspiration are truly inscrutable. Karol Szymanowski sought it in the Antiquity, the Orient, and in Polish folklore. The artists of to-day, though cast from a different mould, are in turn inspired by the oeuvre of Szymanowski. They take up anew what the giant of Polish music left off nearly a hundred years ago and use his works as a point of departure for more explorations, a journey into the unknown. This is certainly true of sax player, composer and producer Adam Pierończyk – a restless soul, an artist who has collaborated with, among others, Sam Rivers, Archie Shepp, Bobby McFerrin, Tomasz Stańko, and Avishai Cohen. The US website ‘All About Jazz’ hailed his virtuoso playi

What should one start with when writing about Zygmunt Konieczny (b. 1937)? His outstanding achievements in the fields of songwriting and film music? His mastery of linking the music to the lyrics in his small-scale pieces? His timeless song standards that appeal to so many generations (which in popular music is a token of the utmost success)? His ‘Grande valse brillante’? ‘Sweet Peas and Roses’? ‘The Carousel with Madonnas’? Or ‘That Lass’s Eyes’? One could go on indefinitely with this list.

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.

‘The heart – a void, a gaping wound. / A wound on the left-hand side of the world.’ It is with his heart that Aleksander Nowak seems to have read Radek Rak’s Nike-awarded novel A Tale of a Serpent’s Heart or a Second Word about Jakób Szela. His opera thus abounds in emotions perfectly comprehensible to a sensitive audience – emotions that are nearly obvious, though the author shuns literalness.

When cinema’s great visionary Francis Ford Coppola is calling – the director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now – who would hang up on him? Wojciech Kilar took up the offer of cooperation, which resulted in his soundtrack (now of cult status) for the tale of the Transylvanian monster whose love was a bit too strong. Years later, this pathetic-lyrical cantata for mixed choir and symphony orchestra has been turned inside out by pianist Piotr Orzechowski and saxophonist Kuba Więcek.

When cinema’s great visionary Francis Ford Coppola is calling – the director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now – who would hang up on him? Wojciech Kilar took up the offer of cooperation, which resulted in his soundtrack (now of cult status) for the tale of the Transylvanian monster whose love was a bit too strong. Years later, this pathetic-lyrical cantata for mixed choir and symphony orchestra has been turned inside out by pianist Piotr Orzechowski and saxophonist Kuba Więcek.

A vaudeville is a humorous stage piece made up of light-style songs and dances, whose form and content are meant to put the audience in a good mood. The vaudeville composed by Aleksander Nowak, based on Marcin Wicha’s Nike-awarded book Things I Didn’t Throw Out, is no such thing, though. Wicha’s book is a mournful prosaic rhapsody on the prosaic nature of life and on death as its inseparable component. The author bids farewell to his deceased mother through the process of sorting out the stuff that she left behind.