• Proof-reading bloopers (BBC Music Mag)
Monday, 3 September 2012 2 Comments
Where’s a musically literate editor when you need one? Here’s a panel from the September issue of the BBC Music Magazine, where Paul Watkins is interviewed in advance of the release of his recording with the BBC SO under Edward Gardner of Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto and Grave (Chandos CHSA 5106). I spotted the glaring transcription error (line 6), but my friend John Fallas spotted the funnier typographical one (line 9). Depressingly sloppy copy.
The first double CD (BR ES01) shows that Bôłt’s intentions are not just to provide an historical record of a past age. The first CD consists of seven tape pieces from the PRES archives (by Bohdan Mazurek, Penderecki, Eugeniusz Rudnik and Schaeffer). The second CD consists of new ‘covers’ of these pieces, plus another of Schaeffer’s Symphony (1966), although the original realisation of this historically significant work by Mazurek is not included. It does appear, however, on the sixth disc of the series, which is devoted to Schaeffer.
The second double CD (BR ES02) is devoted to Mazurek, whose name and achievement as a composer have for too long been overshadowed. In the early years, through the 1960s and beyond, Mazurek, like Rudnik, was one of the sound engineers employed by PRES, so his own compositional output never had the space to breathe that it deserved. This neglect has now been rectified. His pieces are presented solely in their original versions.
Elsewhere, the significant aspect of this venture – and I hasten to add that I’ve not yet had the opportunity to hear any of the discs so far issued – is the revisiting of the past and the possibility for listeners to compare originals with their covers. It’s a neat and inventive idea. The third, single CD (BR ES03) consists of new versions of PRES pieces, ranging from works by Rudnik and Mazurek to later works by younger composers Krzysztof Knittel and Elżbieta Sikora, performed by 
Knittel and Sikora reappear on the fourth, triple CD (BR ES04) along with Wojciech Michniewski. Although Michniewski has since made his career as a conductor, this trio, known collectively as KEW from their first-name initials, was a driving force as an improvising ensemble in the early 1970s. This is the CD issue that excites my anticipation most, because much of it has not been heard since those years. There are three substantial group tracks, one by Michniewski, seven by Knittel and five by Sikora.
Rudnik is also given a separate, single CD of his own (BR ES05), this time reinterpreted by D J Lemar (aka Marcin Lenarczyk), who has worked with a wide range of musicians, including the Royal String Quartet (as in a 2007 recording in which Szymanowski’s Symphony 4 makes an appearance – 
The last of the six CDs so far issued (BR ES06) is a double CD devoted to Schaeffer. The four originals on disc 1 are reinterpreted on disc 2 (there are two new versions of Assemblage to add to the two on BR ES01). Nowhere is the Bôłt approach more appropriate. Schaeffer has been an iconoclastic figure throughout his career and much of his experimental output was intentionally open to new versions. These six CD issues, comprising eleven discs in all, uniquely combine archival and live performances which promise to bring an important repertoire of the Polish avant-garde to the attention of new audiences.
Jakub Ciupiński presented two short guest selections during Muzyka Nowa and was without doubt its star broadcaster. He studied at the Music Academy in Kraków, then at the Birmingham Conservatoire in the UK before moving on to the Juilliard School in New York, where he now lives. He has two compositional personalities. As (Jakub) Żak, he’s composed pop-electronica-world albums, the most recent of which is Dezyderata (2011). As Jakub Ciupiński, he has a wide range of output, from chamber and orchestral to live electronics. His elegant website has audio samples – including 
Jacaszek, as he prefers to be known, is the best known, and oldest, of these five Polish composers. I know nothing about his background, except that he was trained as an art restorer and that his first compositional foray was to rip a recording by Jack DeJohnette and Keith Jarrett on the family’s PC in the mid-90s (source: a 2011 interview for the Czech radio station ‘Wave’: 
Mateusz Ryczek is the youngest of this selection of Polish composers. He studied at the Music Academy in Wrocław and has already produced a sizeable body of work, ranging from chamber and orchestral pieces to music for the theatre. His works have been played at the Composers’ Union Youth Circle concerts at the ‘Warsaw Autumn’, from whose 2009 Sound Chronicle his NGC 4414 (2008) was played during Muzyka Nowa. Perusing his website, I came to the conclusion that he is energetic and rather good-humoured – as witnessed by his brief birthday salute to Lutosławski three days ago (
Krzysztof Wołek’s interests embrace chamber, orchestral and electronic mediums; he also works in dance collaborations and with video. He has the most artful and informative of all the websites, including plentiful samples from his wide range of compositions, although I could find only looped excerpts lasting about 2′ each rather than complete works. This was a bit frustrating, as the excerpts whetted the appetite, from the early (A)Symmetrics for orchestra (1999) to Elements (2008), which was played during Muzyka Nowa (admittedly under the misapprehension that his surname was Wolef). Wołek’s complete Mobile Variations for six-channel tape (2005) is, however, on his myspace site and is a fresh take on an electronic soundworld that dates back to the 1950s. Educated initially at the Music Academy in Katowice, Wołek subsequently studied at the University of Chicago and now teaches at the University of Louisville.
If the photo on the homepage of her website is anything to go by, Agata Zubel is the most exuberant of the five in this selection. She studied both voice and composition at the Music Academy in Wrocław and she continues to combine both activities. As a singer, she performs music from Augustyn to Zubel, taking in classics like Berio’s Sequenza III along the way. As a composer, she works in a wide range of media, including music theatre, electronics and orchestral music (she already has three symphonies to her name). She tends to set modern poetry in her vocal works, particularly Beckett, as in Cascando (2007) which was broadcast during Muzyka Nowa. Her most recent piece What is the word, already dated 2012, is another Beckett setting. Like Wołek, Zubel has put only extracts on her website (they’re even shorter than Wołek’s), but her music has been released on several CDs, including the monographic Cascando (2010), and on DVD. Here she is in action as vocalist in her own Parlando for voice and computer (2000), recorded in Moscow last October.
On Polish Music 