• New CD Notes (Bacewicz/Chandos, Friedman & Różycki/Hyperion, Kwieciński/Bôłt)

One of the joys of writing CD notes is the mix of familiar and unfamiliar repertoire that comes along.  The string quartets of Grażyna Bacewicz (filling two CDs) have been a staple of Polish music for decades, but I had never heard the piano quintets by Ignacy Friedman and Ludomir Różycki (and nor had anyone else since the 1920s).  Most recently, I have got to know, both in recorded and live performance, the music of Andrzej Kwieciński, now in his early thirties, whose works for string quartet+ have just been issued on a single CD.

The three companies responsible for bringing this repertoire to new audiences – the British-based Chandos and Hyperion and the Polish-based Bôłt (along with DUX Records) – have produced here extraordinarily vivid recordings of a century of Polish chamber music, from Różycki’s Piano Quintet (1913) to Kwieciński’s Contregambilles (2014).  All thirteen works on these four CDs are well worth seeking out.

A little belatedly (the Chandos CD came out in July, the Hyperion CD in September), here are the links to my booklet notes for Chandos’s double-CD of the Complete String Quartets of Bacewicz, Hyperion’s CD of the Piano Quintets by Friedman & Różycki, and for Bôłt’s just-released Kwieciński CD, Umbrae.

Or you can scroll the CD NOTES tab above.