The collection of the Polish Radio Archive is one of the highlights of Poland’s national musical culture. DUX is pleased to present selected recordings of Roman Jabłoński, one of the most recognisable Polish cellists, from this very collection.

The album contains two masterpieces of the 20th-century Polish music. The Cello Concerto no.2 by Grażyna Bacewicz was created in 1962 at the request of world-famous Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassadó. The piece is a clear nod to sonorist music. Although Bacewicz clearly turned towards Romanticism or even Neoclassicism at some point, the work is dominated by varied sound clusters, highly chromatic episodes, and simultaneously developing, autonomous narratives of selected instrumental groups.

In turn, the Concerto for cello and orchestra no.2 by Krzysztof Penderecki was composed in 1982, commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich and the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic. This is one of the most original and extensive concert works of the Polish artist, in which elements equivalent to the composer’s quasi-Romantic thinking and strongly dissonant sonorist episodes are constantly interwoven.