ANA 010
SONGS & SONNETS
"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." And as the twig is bent... The voice is the axis of Twardowski's compositions that can be found in the "Songs and Sonnets" album. It combines works that are distant in time and of different emotional weight – from the painful "Farewell Sonnets", 1970 ("Sonety pożegnalne"), devoted to the memory in suddenly deceased Twardowski's fiancée, Danish composer Elizabeth Tramsen, through formally complex song cycle "The Face of the Sea," 1979 ("Oblicze morza"), to the series "From the Viliya" 1990 ("Znad Willi"), written to the words by Helena Massalska, evoking the atmosphere of the old Vilnius region.
"Songs and Sonnets" are performed brilliantly by the world-famous bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, accompanied by the pianist Lech Napierała.
1. With Your Fair Eyes
2. Now Hath My Life
3. O Night, O Sweet Though Sombre
4. Orlando Furioso to Don Quixote of La Mancha
5. Solisdan to Don Quixote of La Mancha
6. Monicongo, Academician of Argamasilla, on the Sepulture of Don Quixote
7. Since She Left
8. The Warsaw Sparrows
9. Non è vero
10. The Eyes of Green Lakes
11. At the Fair
12. The Sleigh Ride
13. Sighs
14. One View of the Sea
15. Green Water
16. Fish
17. The Corsair
18. To the Sadly Soft Edge of the Waters
19. Ruin of Humankind
20. Father of Sweet Repose