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Bacewicz - Orchestral Works Vol.1: Symphonies 3 & 4, Overture

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Label: Chandos

Cat No: CHSA5316

Barcode: 0095115531624

Format: Hybrid SACD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 17th November 2023

Works

Bacewicz, Grazyna

Overture
Symphony no.3
Symphony no.4

Artists

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Sakari Oramo

Works

Bacewicz, Grazyna

Overture
Symphony no.3
Symphony no.4

Artists

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Sakari Oramo

About

The three works on this album were all composed between 1943 and 1953. Despite the extreme experiences and difficulties she faced during this undoubtedly most tragic time in Poland’s history, Grażyna Bacewicz managed to compose outstanding works which constitute splendid testimony to the vibrant creative potency for which she was renowned. Until 1939 her career as a virtuoso violinist and an emerging composer evolved naturally. Trained by the best Polish pedagogues at the Warsaw Conservatory, she went on to acquire an international education thanks to an Ignacy Paderewski Scholarship, which allowed her to pursue her studies in Paris: composition with Nadia Boulanger, violin with André Touret (1932–33) and Carl Flesch (1934–35). In spite of her soloistic successes she decided to join the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra as its leader, in order that an improved knowledge and understanding of an orchestra should inform her composition. Poland then suffered terribly at the hands of Hitler and Stalin, before coming under the control of the Soviet Union.

This album was recorded and released in collaboration with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, a state cultural institution promoting Polish culture around the world and actively participating in international cultural exchange.

Sound/Video

Paused

1

Symphony No. 3. I. Drammatico
2

Symphony No. 3. II. Andante
3

Symphony No. 3. III. Vivace
4

Symphony No. 3. IV. Finale
5

Symphony No. 4. I. Appassionato
6

Symphony No. 4. II. Adagio
7

Symphony No. 4. III. Scherzo. Vivace -
8

Symphony No. 4. IV. Adagio mesto
9

Overture for Orchestra

Europadisc Review

The music of Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969), one of the leading Polish composers of the 20th century, has received a welcome boost in recent years. Although hitherto far less well-known than the works of her male compatriots, it has benefitted from notable releases on a wide range of labels, among which the support of Chandos Records has been particularly strong. From chamber works including violin sonatas and the complete string quartets to the violin concertos, Bacewicz’s works for her own instrument (she was a distinguished professional violinist) have featured prominently. Now Chandos expands its reach to her other orchestral music, with a fine new album featuring her Third and Fourth Symphonies (1952 and 1953 respectively), and the somewhat earlier Overture for orchestra of 1943.

None of these works is new to disc, but these performances by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor Sakari Oramo demonstrate a level of commitment and technical excellence that is entirely merited by music that was written under the most testing of circumstances. The two symphonies were composed at the height of postwar Stalinism, the Overture during the darkest days of World War II and the Nazi occupation. Yet you’d hardly guess it from the vibrant musical content of these works. In her excellent accompanying booklet notes, Katarzyna Naliwajek highlights Bacewicz’s keen sense of humour and irony, and this – combined with her early experiences as a budding composer in interwar France and her years of experience in Grzegorz Fitelberg’s Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra – helped her negotiate the fine line between officially approved ‘music for the masses’ and the banned ‘formalist’ music during the postwar Communist ascendancy.

Bacewicz seems to have been naturally drawn to the spicy modernism of Bartók, and both these symphonies contain more than a nod toward the Hungarian master’s music while bearing witness to a sardonicism less oppressive than that of Shostakovich, a combination that is uniquely engaging. Both are tautly organised around well thought-through motivic cells and longer-range architecture, and both are superbly orchestrated. The Third Symphony starts with an arresting introduction marked Drammatico before progressing to a main Allegro of considerable energy. There are echoes of Sibelius’s Second Symphony in the pizzicato opening to the Andante second movement, while the scherzo-like Vivace third movement is wonderfully quick-witted, and the Finale builds from a lowering introduction with anguished dissonances to an exhilarating close.

Though superficially more concise, the Fourth Symphony is even more imposing, thanks to some lushly evocative large-scale orchestration (hinting at an unspecified programme, like a soundtrack without a story). There are references to folk song, some startlingly original touches of scoring (especially harp), a feeling of unease tempered with wit, an impassioned slow movement, and a ‘layered’, Hollywood-style opening to the urgent Scherzo. The Adagio mesto introduction to the final movement carries hints of Shostakovich’s contemporaneous Tenth Symphony, but the driven Allegro furioso that follows is quite different, and splendidly realised by Oramo and the BBC forces at the top of their game. Indeed, the depth and luxuriance of string tone, outstanding wind playing, and general rhythmic incisiveness raise these works to altogether staggering heights.

The disc ends with the surprisingly buoyant Overture, a concert genre which seems to have provided a haven of distraction in concise form for a number of Polish composers during the war years. There are moments of gentle reflectiveness (nostalgia without regret, if you will), but it is the dazzling animation of the outer sections – and the virtuosity with which they are realised here – that makes this performance the icing on the cake to a very special release. The recording, made in Croydon’s Fairfield Hall, matches the vivid immediacy of the playing. Whether you’re a paid-up Bacewicz fan or completely new to the composer, this is a disc that ticks all the right boxes: enthusiastically recommended!