Kolja Lessing dedicates this recording to Krzysztof Meyer on the occasion of the composer’s eightieth birthday in 2023. Meyer, one of the most important Polish composers of his generation, taught for many years as professor of composition at the Cologne College of Music and numbers among the important bridge-builders between Polish and German cultural life. As a pupil of Krzysztof Penderecki and Nadia Boulanger, he remarkably manages to integrate important communicative elements into an avant-garde musical language of great suggestive power and narrative charm. In the works written over a period of more than 40 years, Meyer proves himself to be an expert with profound knowledge of the technical possibilities of the violin. Kolja Lessing and Rainer Maria Klaas’s interpretations, developed with the composer, captivate by means of their authenticity, by dint of their deep understanding of a music that is both expressive and euphonious, and through which a distinguished, deeply humanistic personality speaks.

Central works from the composer’s different creative periods interpreted by a musician who has intensively occupied himself with Meyer’s work and who numbers among his most esteemed interpreters. The Second Sonata for solo violin, dedicated to Lessing, can be heard here as a world-premiere recording, as also the cycle Geigenkrämchen, a fantastic compendium for young violinists in the tradition of Bartók’s Mikrokosmos.

The booklet contains an insightful personal conversation between the performer Kolja Lessing and the composer, who have been friends for decades.