Zygmunt Noskowski - Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 (José Maria Florêncio; Łukasz Borowicz)

Information

Composer: Zygmunt Noskowski

• Symphony No. 3 in F major 'From Spring to Spring'
• From the Life of the Nation
• Livia Quintilla: Prelude to Act II
• Elegiac Polonaise

Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra / José Maria Florêncio, conductor

Polish Radio Orchestra Warsaw / Łukasz Borowicz, conductor

Date: 2013

Label: Sterling

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

Volume 3 and Symphony No. 3. This is another four-movement lanky disquisition shaped around the turning seasons and ending in a winter movement that embraces the stormily bursting buds of spring. It's a work that may be familiar to night owls as it has been broadcast in what I suspect is this very performance by BBC Radio 3's Through the Night - the home of many neglected glories and discoveries.

This pictorial Symphony progresses via a melancholically predestined Mahlerian route from spring to winter. We start with Spring in what is a sweet-tempered pastoral yet with a taut symphonic tension about it. Here is a skilled mature composer well able to mobilise deep-pile romantic orchestration. Listen at 8:51 to the sunny chipper wind writing This dates from the same year as the Paderewski Symphony which is a quite different and more darkly clouded work, though ultimately self-indulgent. Summer is memorable for the sweet work of solo harp and cor anglais and shares a mood with Suk's A Summer Tale of 1907 if not his much later Ripening of 1917. There are some very inventive soloistic moments including a long and piercing violin solo (6:23) rising to a swaying summery royalty worthy of the warmest moments in Glazunov's The Seasons. Autumn conveys a sort of harvest-home - rather like the folk suites of Ludolf Nielsen or Goldmark's Rustic Wedding. I mentioned Glazunov earlier but if this movement has any parallels with that composer it is with the Seventh Symphony - The Pastoral. Winter tightens the tension again with some lovely writing: the glorious and masterful silver cackle of the violin at 6:10 and at 8:30 a conventional optimistic striding march. This romps along, achieving a joyous ending. Overall this indulgent work is more pictorial cavalcade than tense symphony. Its optimism is reflected in the title: Noskowski was not going to end with the tragic wastes of Winter.

From the Life of the Nation is in 18 separately-tracked segments. Behind this title stands a set of orchestral variations on Chopin's Prelude in A Minor Op. 28 No. 7. The Prelude itself is very warmly stated. The lustrous variations are nicely pointed and variegated, limned in by ripe, chattery gumbootedly playful woodwind (6-7-8), Brahmsian sidling (9) and Tchaikovskian gallantry (10). The music is given the grand ballroom treatment (13), sentimentality (14) and a romantic winter shiver (15-16). An episode sports some very romantic soft focus work for a sweet-toned solo violin (18). Other variations encompass the stately and the serene with some delicate balletic magic (20) and some rompingly confident jollity (21). This work would contrast well with the Enigma Variations as well as the Tchaikovsky suites, especially Numbers 3 and 4.

The Prelude to Act II of the 1898 opera Livia Quintilla is a quality piece - dense with lyrical Tchaikovskian succulence and poignant melancholy. Noskowski's way with wisps of melody is most impressive and in this case there is no crashing drama or thunder and lightning. I wonder what the chances are of hearing this opera not to mention his Wyrok (The Judgment) and Zemsta za mur graniczny (Revenge for the Boundary Wall). There are also said to be several operettas, vaudevilles and ‘folk pictures’. The placidly rounded, kindly and dignified Elegiac Polonaise is similarly pleasing.

Despite the variety of forces and locations the sounds across this last disc's 78 minutes is agreeable if hardly brilliant. That said it's richer among the last three works on volume 3 than in the Symphony No. 3.

 

— Rob Barnett

-----------------------------------------------------------

Zygmunt Noskowski (2 May 1846 – 23 July 1909) was a Polish composer, conductor and teacher. Born in Warsaw, he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory under Stanisław Moniuszko before continuing his education in Berlin with Friedrich Kiel. After working as a conductor in Konstanz, he returned to Warsaw in 1880 and remained there, holding important positions at the Warsaw Conservatory, Warsaw Music Society and Warsaw Philharmonic. His students include Karol Szymanowski and Grzegorz Fitelberg. Although renowned for orchestral works, he also composed operas, chamber music, sonatas and vocal works.

***

José Maria Florêncio (born 2 June 1962) is a Brazilian-born Polish conductor, violist and composer who has lived in Poland since 1985. He studied music in Brazil and later attended masterclasses at Juilliard and the Musikhochschule in Vienna before graduating in conducting from the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. Florêncio has held numerous prominent positions, including music director of the Wrocław Opera, Poznań Philharmonic and Baltic Opera in Gdańsk. He has conducted major premieres and recorded contemporary and Brazilian music, earning several awards, including five Diapason d'Or prizes.

***

Łukasz Borowicz (born 25 September 1977) is a Polish conductor. A graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin Academy in Warsaw, he studied with Bogusław Madey and Antoni Wit and won four international conducting competitions between 1999 and 2004. From 2007 to 2015 he was Chief Conductor of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw. Borowicz has also conducted major orchestras and opera companies across Europe while championing neglected Polish repertoire through acclaimed recordings. His discography has received numerous international awards, including the Diapason d'Or and Fryderyk Prize.

-----------------------------------------------------------