Legacy of Polish Music Abroad at Three Glances
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LEGACY OF POLISH MUSIC ABROAD AT THREE GLANCES PRESENTED BY ARTISTIC FOUNDATION CONCENTUS PRO ARTE , POLISH LANDSCAPES October 2, 2018 | 8 PM Joanna Okoń Katarzyna Glensk ,‚ LANDOWSKA IN MEMORIAM October 3, 2018 | 8 PM Władysław Kłosiewicz ,,‚ LOVE WILL FOREGIVE YOU ANYTHING October 4, 2018 | 8 PM Kuba Stankiewicz American Trio MARKING 100 YEARS OF POLISH INDEPENDENCE The goal of the INVITATION Festival is to showcase the music of forgotten artists associated with Poland from the first half of the twentieth century, in all its diversity and richness. Three insights into the Polish musical life of this period allow us to become aware of the role and importance of Polish heritage in the field of „contemporary” music, in the researching and popularizing of „old music”, and the discerning of Jazz as the „music of the future”. The name of the project is taken from the Jazz composition by Bronisław Kaper of the same title. Bronisław Kaper, along with Henryk Wars and Victor Young (a Jazz protégé, a graduate of the Warsaw Conservatory of Music, and a legendary composer of standards), all of whom are artists whose works are performed by some of the world’s greatest jazz musicians. However, in popular perception, these Jazz artists are rarely associated with Poland. Instead, they are simply linked with really smart Jazz standards. Meanwhile, this beautiful music is not only a part of Polish culture, but a source of inspiration for future generations: the basis for artistic exploration; and a Polish contribution to the world’s cultural heritage. There are more examples, such as the fine compositions for violin and piano of little-known Polish composers from the first decades of the 20th century; largely forgotten names such as Godowski, Poldowski, Achron, Mistowski, Adamowski, Niemczyk and Weinberg - lost pearls of chamber music. Wanda Landowska, who was an outstanding Polish harpsichordist, laid the foundations for research into Old music, coupled with an informed conception of its recital. Her pioneering activities, together with her development of the „historically informed performance” of Renaissance and Baroque music, are rarely linked. What is more, Landowska’s associations with Poland have also been largely forgotten, even though Lewandowska would always emphasise her Polishness, particularly whenever she played the works of 17th-century Polish composers in the US. It is hoped that our INVITATION Festival, held over the course of three concerts, will allow for an in-depth presentation and promotion of the hidden treasures of Polish culture in what is one the world’s most prestigious concert venues. During this festival, we shall celebrate the best of Polish culture, with Polish music that is awaiting rediscovery. What a beautiful paradox! We look forward to Carnegie Hall resounding with the melodies of the very best of Poland’s musical traditions. Financed from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, within the scope of the Multiannual Program INDEPENDENT 2017-2021, as part of the “Cultural Bridges” subsidy program of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute , POLISH LANDSCAPES Joanna Okoń violin Katarzyna Glensk piano October 2, 2018 | 8 PM Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall PIOTR MASZYNSKI ( 1855- 1934 ) ROMANS ZOFIA OSSENDOWSKA ( 1887-1943 ) HILDAGO E GITANA WACŁAW NIEMCZYK ( 1907 -? ) VALSE CAPRICE STANISŁAW LIPSKI ( 1880-1937 ) IMPROVISATION OP. 10 ALFRED MISTOWSKI ( 1872- 1964 ) GIGUE LEOPOLD GODOWSKI ( 1870- 1938 ) ALT-WIEN ( ARR. JASCHA HEIFETZ ) ADAM WIENIAWSKI ( 1879- 1950 ) ORIENTALE POLDOWSKI ( REGINE WIENIAWSKI ) ( 1879-1932 ) TANGO TYMOTEUSZ ADAMOWSKI ( 1858-1943 ) MAZUR JOSEPH ACHRON ( 1886-1943 ) HEBREW MELODY MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG ( 1919-1996 ) RHAPSODY ON MOLDAVIAN THEMES OP 47 NR 3 It is hard to account for the reason why some music pieces are remembered when others are forgotten, or indeed why sometimes composers fall out of favour with performers, whereas others remain lights forever shining in the firmament. No ready explanation will ever fully account for this injustice. And perhaps it is better left like this. Without delving into what is a complicated mechanism which directs the collective memory, when it comes to music, states of forgottenness or restoration ebb and flow. Indeed, in terms of this evening’s concert, the entire exploration of old music grew out of the dreams of revival. This was the dream of one person being able to „mine” the „neglected” canon, looking to do away with the cliché of the so- called „fixed repertoire”. Tonight celebrates the neglected canon, and many such gems are also awaiting discovery. When on 29 April 1943 Joseph Achron died at the age of 57, Arnold Schoenberg in his obituary referred to Achron as „one of the most underrated composers of our time”. He expressed the hope that Achron’s music would remain a part of the living repertoire. However, precisely the opposite obtained. Achron’s works would remain forgotten for several decades. A similar fate was met by other artists who should today occupy a prominent place among the assemblage of Poland’s most renowned composers; figures such as Mieczysław Weinberg, and the group „kleine Meister”, whose outstanding achievements should be remembered because of the challenging historical context in which they forged their artistic lives. The fates of these „Pleiades of the compositional world” were also mixed. Indeed, their fates reflected both the personal calculations that people made at the time, and the historical turmoil in which they lived. Joseph Achron, born near Suwałki, and Leopold Godowski, born in Żoślach in Lithuania, grew up in a time when the tsarist rule of Russia had spread from the Vistula to Vladivostok. They would both emigrate in later life to the United States. Tymoteusz Adamowski, a Warsaw native, chose a similar path. Wacław Niemczyk distinguished himself as an insurgent and cultural activist in occupied Poland only to flee to England in 1946, keeping his intentions a secret even from his closest family. Mieczysław Weinberg, whereas, in the dramatic circumstances of September 1939, fled the Nazi onslaught to the Soviet Union. The youngest daughter of the great Henryk, largely unconcerned with totalitarian ideologies, Irena Regina Wieniawski led what could be described as an unfettered and serene life in the West. The activities of her cousin, Adam, saw his life being led along diametrically opposite lines, living as he did in a time before Poland had regained its independence, and then having lived through the interwar period and the early post-war ‘PRL’ years. Stanisław Lipski and Piotr Maszyński, in turn, made their mark by developing music pedagogy and building their reputation as concert performers during the Second Polish Republic. Alfred Mistowski and Zofia Ossendowska also added to the artistic exuberance of those times, although we happen to know relatively little about their lives. The eleven composers whose pieces make up this evening’s concert program do not belong to one stylistic group. That said, they do share traits and features: a clear rooting in nineteenth-century traditions, and a musical language which steers clear of revolutionary and avant-garde gestures. Nonetheless, there is no over-arching individual virtuosity that may be noted. After all, they are representatives of different generations. The oldest of them, Piotr Maszyński, was born in 1855, during the period when Liszt performed his first Piano Concerto under the direction of Hector Berlioz for the first time. The youngest of our composers, Mieczysław Weinberg, was born six days before Ignacy Jan Paderewski had assumed the office of Prime Minister of the reborn Polish Republic. And so, they were shaped by various creative schools, educational profiles, artistic and life experiences. Yet maybe one trait holds sway over the rest, and which is readily discernible in these eleven songs, which is their having drawn on the traditions of folk music, in all its variety and possibilities. Tymoteusz Adamowski and Stanisław Lipski are forever linked to the rhythms and formulas of Polish national dances, and also the melodic and harmonic phrases known from folk stylizations. The lively Mazurian dance of Adamowski rolls along at a brisk tempo. It could even be described as fiery. The composer emphasized in his Mazurian dance the characteristic features of the Polish national dance; the tone gives the music a rhythm, shifting the accent to the second part of the bar, and with a line that is sharply outlined with respect to the opening motif. The middle part of this stylized miniature gives a strong sense of the lulling and melancholic Kujawiak dance. The spirit of the Mazurian dance, in turn, is guided by the central framework of Stanisław Lipski’s Improvisation, Opus 10. Following an enigmatic beginning, in this unbound composition by the student of Władysław Żeleński, the mood of an inspired „romance” is proposed, one that is both sweet and idyllic. Lipski harmoniously guides the listener along a path that sometimes turns quite violent, and then veers off in an unexpected direction. But at the end of this path (at the center of Improvisation), the song of the Polish Mazurian dance is to be found. A sentimental, sweet and carefree spirit dominates the gentle romance of Piotr Maszyński. Consistently, the melodic narrative of this miniature is led by the violin, although the piano contributes to the specific „splendor” of the whole. What is more, the composer looked to balance the early sweetness of the piece with a slightly more serious, opaque fragment; but at the end of the original, a sentimental motif reasserts itself, one which accords with the repertoire of that period. When in 1923 Irena Wieniawska (going by the artistic pseudonym of Poldowski) composed her Tango, little did she realise the impact it would have on the world of music. Since it had originated from the dubious dens and joints of Montevideo and Buenos Aires, it was associated mainly with the entertainment of the urban proletariat; as such, introducing tango to ballrooms was controversial and widely questioned.