This is the second release in the Chandos Bacewicz series featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. Listeners who have collected the three CDs in the competing CPO series with the WDR Sinfonie-Orchester and Łukasz Borowicz know it does not include solo/instrumental works, whereas this Chandos album has the Piano Concerto (played with panache by Peter Donohoe). And Chandos already has fabulous recordings of the complete violin concertos in its catalogue, played by Joanna Kurkowicz, the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and by Łukasz Borowicz.
Reviewing Volume 1 of this Chandos cycle, I preferred Oramo’s readings to those by Borowicz, and the same is true of this new album. Oramo’s reading of the second symphony is just as lyrical as the earlier CPO recording, but he finds greater tartness in the orchestral coloring. In the outer movements, Borowicz strives to establish an organic connection between the various sections, whereas Oramo embraces Bacewicz’s quirky, disjunct transitions. While both interpretive approaches reveal different facets of the symphony, I feel Borowicz is unnecessarily smoothing out gruffer elements of the writing. The second symphony’s Scherzo, for example, has an acerbic mood (strikingly like the same movement in Walton’s first symphony). Perhaps because the BBC players are familiar with that music, their reading of Bacewicz’s Scherzo has a menace and bite that makes the WDR/Borowicz performance overly cautious by comparison.
Bacewicz’s Piano Concerto, written in 1949, is virtuosic without being bombast: she has little use for the Romantic conception of soloist versus orchestra, Instead, she embraces the classical model of cooperative interaction between soloist and ensemble. This appears to be the work’s third recording: the first, featuring pianist Julia Kociuban and the Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra under Paweł Przytocki (DUX) is significantly slower in first and second movements compared to this new performance, and in the slow movement there are moments that lack focus and energy. Ondine’s more recent album with Peter Jablonski and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Nicolas Collon, is more compelling, with a lean orchestral sound and somewhat objective interpretation. This latest recording (aided by Chandos Super Audio sound) captures the most passionate, playful and compelling reading of the three.
Grażyna Bacewicz (image: ©️ Irena Jarosinska / Forum)
The album ends with Concerto for Large Symphony Orchestra. In four movements (Allegro – Largo – Vivo – Allegro non troppo), the work is arguably a symphony in all but name, especially because the solo writing that is an integral component of the Concertos for Orchestra by Bartók and Lutoslawski is not heard in this work. But the writing is substantially different – angrier, more severe and agitated.
There is a greater use of dissonance, melodies are more angular, rhythms more complex and driven. The orchestration is experimental, especially in its use of percussion. This is one of the composer’s first ‘Sonorist’ works, in which the music is defined by texture and sound color rather than structural procedures. Its scoring is indeed fascinating, but this is not easy music to listen to – and surely that is the intent. Again, despite the excellence of the WDR/Borowicz performance, Oramo and the BBC are finer still, realizing the music’s ominous atmosphere through playing of greater urgency and harshness.
Chandos’ ancillary materials are excellent in every way, especially for Katarzyna Naliwajek’s exceptionally thorough notes on the composer and her music. The Chandos engineering is fabulous, with an almost perfect mix of warmth and clarity.
This is music fully deserving of our attention, and I hope the greater availability on recordings will encourage conductors and orchestras to bring it into concert halls. While I am more inclined to Oramo’s interpretations, I am quite happy to have both cycles in my library and would recommend collecting both cycles. This is music that warrants – and benefits from – differing interpretations.
Recommended Comparisons
Borowicz (Concerto For Orchestra) | Plowright (Piano Concerto) | Jablonski (Piano Concerto)
Top image: ©️ Benjamin Ealovega
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Album Details |
|
|---|---|
| Album name | Bacewicz – Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 |
| Label | Chandos |
| Catalogue No. | CHSA5345 |
| Artists | BBC Symphony Orchestra & Peter Donahue, piano Sakari Oramo, conductor |
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