Do we remember tales of the Grimm brothers, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen? The title of the album and of the work by Krzysztof Herdzin refers to literature, and old folk tales are in fact fairy tales.

With their multi-layered nature, moral code, and search for an ethical compass, they are very much worth reading. In the presented works, the composers reach for the musical past – Baroque idioms, folk melodies, jazz. Combining tradition with their own ideas, they create their musical stories. And we, reading fairy tales, should learn life lessons from them and, after all, believe in people and do good. May the whisper of dying fairy tales wake us up.

Polish Stories is already the seventeenth album of the Chamber Philharmonic in Łomża, and the fifteenth implemented under the baton of its current director, Jan Miłosz Zarzycki. At the same time, it is the first album recorded mostly in the thoroughly renovated concert hall of the Philharmonic.

Looking at the discography of the ensemble, one can get the impression that the orchestra follows in the footsteps of its patron, an outstanding 20th-century Polish composer – Witold Lutosławski, since the Łomża Chamber Philharmonic records mainly domestic contemporary music.

This also applies to this new release from DUX. Polish Stories features Polish Reminiscences (2018) by Mikołaj Hertel, Elegy (2015) by Mikołaj Piotr Górecki, Cascades (2020) by Alicja Gronau, and Fairytale Stories (1995) by Krzysztof Herdzin.