Ludomir Różycki - Violin Concerto; Works for Violin & Piano (Ewelina Nowicka)

Information

Composer: Ludomir Różycki

• Violin Concerto, Op. 70 (Unfinished)
• 2 Melodies for Violin & Piano, Op. 5
• 2 Nocturnes for Violin & Piano, Op. 30
• Pan Twardowski, Op. 45 (Excerpts)

Ewelina Nowicka, violin

Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra / Zygmunt Rychert, conductor

Pola Lazar, piano

Michał Krężlewski, piano

Date: 2021

Label: CPO

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Review

Ludomir Różycki’s Violin Concerto Op. 70 has appeared in two guises in recent years, remarkable considering the unfinished score spent some three years buried in a back garden in Warsaw after the composer fled the brutally sadistic Nazi suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. This version, recorded in 2010 by Ewelina Nowicka and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Katowice, was constructed in 2000 by Zygmunt Rychert from an orchestral fragment and a full piano reduction, and predates the 2018 orchestration, recently released, by Janusz Wawrowski.

Różycki, a peer of Symanowski, was a Romantic in 20th century garb. Likened to Korngold, he studied under Engelbert Humperdinck, although he was very much his own man, as demonstrated in this rendering of his joyous Violin Concerto, from the bittersweet, magical Andante to the unselfconsciously flamboyant Allegro Deciso, opening with ballroom-like pomp and flair, seguing to ecstatic, virtuosic violin – no problem for Nowicka. Resolutely positive despite the circumstances surrounding its creation, the skilful, occasionally heavy orchestration is intuited from Różycki’s early works.

It stands in interesting contrast to the skeins that are his Deux Melodies and Deux Nocturnes for violin and piano – melancholic or dance-like, these quiet little pieces are movingly played by Nowicka and pianist Pola Lazar.

Michał Krężlewski is the pianist for Nowicka’s excellent transcriptions of four pieces from Różycki’s once much-loved ballet, Pan Twardowski (1912-20). Lively, descriptive, and like the rest of Różycki’s music, much deserving of wider note, the pieces range from the earthy ‘Apparition de Lucifer’ to the darkly infectious ‘Danse entre les Poignards’, sharply played by both soloists.

— Sarah Urwin Jones

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Ludomir Różycki (18 September 1883 – 1 January 1953) was a Polish composer, conductor and educator. A graduate of the Warsaw Institute of Music, he continued his composition studies in Berlin under Engelbert Humperdinck. Różycki composed symphonic works, operas, ballets and piano music, achieving recognition for works such as King Kofetua, Apollo and the Maiden, and Eros and Psyche. He taught and conducted in Lviv, Warsaw and Katowice. Despite losing many manuscripts during World War II, he reconstructed his works after the war and received numerous national and international honors.

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Ewelina Nowicka (born 1982 in Gdańsk) is a Polish violinist, composer and educator. Since her solo debut at sixteen, she has performed extensively with major European orchestras and earned numerous international competition awards, scholarships and prestigious nominations. Recognized for championing underperformed works, she premiered and recorded rare concertos by Polish composers like Ludomir Różycki and Mieczysław Weinberg. As an active composer whose pieces are widely published and recorded, Nowicka regularly performs her own compositions while also teaching violin and chamber music in Hamburg.

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