Diapason d’Or, the award of the prestigious French magazine Diapason dedicated to classical music has just been given to an album recorded by one of the best orchestras in Europe: Bamberger Symphoniker led by Łukasz Borowicz. It is another Diapason d’Or for the Chief Guest Conductor of Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra.

The album with the music of Nikolai Tcherepnin (Narcisse et Echo, Op. 40, La Princesse lointaine, Op. 4) was recorded in Konzerthalle in Bamberg in May 2018 and released by German record label cpo.

Nikolai Tcherepnin, forefather of the Tcherepnin musical family, was the student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He cooperated as a conductor with the ballet of Sergei Diaghilev, which influenced his artistic output. After the success of the ballet “Le Pavillon d’Armide” he received a commission for “Narcisse et Echo” (1911) with the choreography of Mikhail Fokin and Vaslav Nijinsky. The Bamberger Symphoniker and Łukasz Borowicz brought the ballet out from the oblivion it fell into (unfairly) due to the tremendous success of Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” staged two months later.

The review published on the pages of the Diapason magazine accentuated that Borowicz explored the textures and often received an unbelievable clarity of sound, at the same time bringing Tcherepnin’s music closer to the influence of the French (Dukas, Debussy, Ravel, Schmitt) without overlooking the impact of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov or Anatoly Lyadov. According to the reviewer, the impressionist interpretation of this music fills in the gap after the recording of Giennady Rozhdestvensky.