ANAKLASIS / seria / Heritage / ANA 038

The album is an encounter with the history of NOSPR orchestra and the music of Tadeusz Baird (1928–1981), one of Poland’s key twentieth-century composers, co-founder of Group’49 and the Warsaw Autumn festival, as well as author of music for many films.

Baird’s three symphonies, written over the period of two decades (1950–1969), illustrate the evolution of his musical language: his fascination with orchestral sound, with drama and instrumental lyricism, as well as his eminently individual quest for (profoundly romantic) beauty in sound.

Created on the initiative of conductor Łukasz Borowicz, the album presents various approaches to Baird’s orchestral output: Zbigniew Graca conducting Symphony No. 1 in 1991; Henryk Czyż’s recording of Symphony No. 2 ‘Quasi una fantasia’ made in the then Stalinogród (Stalin City), as the label on the original tape informs (now it is again the city of Katowice); finally, Łukasz Borowicz’s interpretation of the Third from 2024. The recordings were made in three venues in Katowice: (Silesian) Plebiscite Street, 2 Silesian Parliament Square, and 1 Wojciech Kilar Square, all – by the same radio orchestra from that city, though under its three successive names: WOSPR, WOSPRiTV, and NOSPR. As a bonus, the album also notably includes WOSPR’s premiere recording of Symphony No. 1 under Jan Krenz, made in late 1951 / early 1952 at the Roma Theatre in Warsaw (priceless as a document of its time).

This is precisely the kind of project to learn Polish music history from!