The music of Michal Spisak was much more recognizable and available to a wide audience during the composers lifetime than nowadays. This album contains three compositions of this artist: the Piano Sui t e (a piece with a transparent texture in which Spisak clearly refers to the Baroque tradition), Sonata for violin and piano (for a change, very rich, diverse texture, full of violin dyad passages, varied in terms of harmony and sound colour) and Concerto for two pianos (very spectacular work, extremely diverse, as far as the sound is concerned; highly demanding for the pianists). The aforementioned pieces are a cross-section of the compositional techniques typical of Michl Spisaks musical language; they also introduce a whole range of neoclassical features confirming the composers stylistic affiliation.
“The album title ADELA comes from a song by Rodrigo which constitutes the emotional culmination of our duo’s programme. What counts is not the name, but the person we love and long for. Everyone certainly has such a person, and so we hope that each listener will find something close to his or her heart on our album.
On March 14, 1849, 24-year-old Anton Bruckner finished his first major vocal composition. The only Requiem of the composer who would later become the architect of big symphonic “castles in the sky” was still created during his work in St. Florian. Some references to older models and some stylistic incongruities in musical stature still refer to the phase of self-discovery of the young composer. But those who listen closely will certainly discover the passages in which the mystical aura and sublimity of the large orchestral scores shine through already, be it in the gently glowing tone of the Benedictus, the intimate creed of the Agnus Dei or the powerful and masterfully conceived double fugue of Quam olim Abrahae. It is essentially “Bruckner on the way to Bruckner”.
During his lifetime, Hugo Alfvén became known as one of Sweden’s principal composers of his time, with works that struck a chord with a wide audience. As a result of his popularity, a nationwide collection was held in celebration of his 70th birthday in 1942, with the proceeds used to build Alfvéngården, the composer’s home during his final years. Now, 80 years later, Elin Rombo and Peter Friis Johansson are releasing their tribute to Alfvén’s 150th anniversary, recorded at Alfvéngården using the composer’s own piano. Alfvén is primarily known for his orchestral music – including the ubiquitous Swedish Rhapsody No. 1 – and as a composer of choral music. As befits the setting, the focus of the present disc is on more intimate works, however – namely songs and piano pieces. Some of the pieces are closely related to the venue – Fyra låtar från Leksand (Four Tunes from Leksand) is a piano version of folk tunes collected from a local fiddler and Så tag mit hjerte (‘So take my heart’), Alfvén’s most frequently performed song, was composed there in 1946 as a present to his wife.
It will not be an exaggeration to say that what holds the compositions presented on this album together is the fascination with movement. However, the sources of that interest must always besought in the way the creators perceive the world and in the place where they see music. Moreover, each of the authors of the compositions pays great attention to unique sound, timbre and harmony. Chronologically speaking, the oldest composition is Le Merle noir/The Blackbird by Olivier Messiaen.
This 59th volume of the Romantic Piano Concerto series features Jonathan Plowright, whose brilliant and utterly idiomatic performances of Romantic Polish piano music have confirmed him as a master of this repertoire. Here he collaborates with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Lukasz Borowicz to perform three very obscure but fascinating works. The music of Zelenski has already been championed by Plowright in a disc of Polish chamber music; now he performs his Piano Concerto in E flat major, which was written in 1903 and dedicated to the young Ignacy Friedman, who gave the premiere the following year.