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21 December 2021 PIZZICATO ABOUT THE WORLD PHONOGRAPHIC PREMIERE OF POZNAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

On a prestigious music website, ”Pizzicato”, a review has appeared of the album with the works of Ste-fan Bolesław Poradowski recorded by Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra led by Łukasz Borowicz and featu-ring soloists from our orchestra: Marcin Suszycki and Piotr Czerwiński. The CD, released this autumn by DUX label, is a world phonograpic premiere of Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra. The album received as many as four notes from the author of the review!

We invite you to read the review.

Stefan Bolesław Poradowski (1902-1967) was a Polish composer. He studied in Poznan and in Berlin with Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek. He was professor of music theory and composition at the Poznan Conservatory and after 1945 he taught at the Wroclaw Academy of Music. He composed an opera, eight symphonies, solo concertos, chamber music works, piano and organ pieces, an oratorio, and two masses and songs.

The Contrabass Concerto and the Third Symphony are closely related in their dates of composition. While the concerto is still neo-Romantic in style, the symphony already shows the first modern elements and elements taken from folk music. His Violin Concerto shows the stylistic transition, since it is shaped in three movements as usual and orchestrated in a neoclassical manner, but harmonically it subscribes to twelve-tone theory. The solo part refers to Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Szymanowski in its technical requirements.

Because of Stefan Boleslaw Poradowski’s personal relationship with Poznan, the city’s orchestra offered itself as a partner for the recording. And the conductor Lukasz Borowicz came into contact with the work during his studies, which has occupied him ever since. With the concertmaster and the solo bassist of the orchestra, accomplished artists were found who accepted the task with joy. The result is an exciting recording that casts this composer, hardly known even to the orchestra beforehand, in a nuanced light.

Uwe Krusch