Mielczewski

The fifth volume in this highly acclaimed series, conducted by The Sixteen’s Associate Conductor, Eamonn Dougan, celebrates the music of Polish composer Marcin Mielczewski. Together with Bartłomiej Pękiel, Mielczewski was amongst the most notable of 17th-century Polish composers and was recognised as a leader among his contemporaries. Influenced by the many Italian composers who graced the Polish courts in the 1600s, Mielczewski was a prolific composer. The cross-section of works recorded here shows an exceptionally accomplished musician at work, one whose music deserves a wider audience and who can confidently stand alongside the maestri who came before him and from whom he learnt his craft.

Italy was a reference point for the cultural élite of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which looked to Venice for its republican system, and to Rome for its Christian heritage. Seventeenth-century Polish singers, players and composers soon adopted Italian manners, both at home and abroad, and many courts established Polish-Italian ensembles, to which the all-female Ensemble Giardino di Delizie is a unique modern counterpart.

Alla Polacca is an invitation to delve into the world of sounds, scents and flavours of Poland and Polish folklore. What is presented here is a journey through Poland and Polish culture through the eyes of various European and Polish composers who lived, worked or traveled to Poland in the seventeenth and eighteenth century and whose compositions present elements of the Polish style.

Les Traversées Baroques continues its exploration of the great repertory of sacred music from northern Europe. After Marcin Mielczewski, the ensemble has decided to turn to Mikołaj Zieleński for its new recording, thus rehabilitating this Polish Baroque composer whose biography is no more than a long series of question marks, but whose magnificent music amply compensates for the gaps in our knowledge.