Grażyna Bacewicz - Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 3 & 7 (Joanna Kurkowicz)

Information

Composer: Grażyna Bacewicz

• Violin Concerto No. 7
• Violin Concerto No. 3
• Violin Concerto No. 1
• Overture

Joanna Kurkowicz, violin

Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Łukasz Borowicz, conductor

Date: 2009

Label: Chandos

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Review

This welcome release marks the centenary of a Polish composer who is no mere "missing link" between Szymanowski and Lutoslawski but a distinctive creative presence in her own right. Grazyna Bacewicz wrote too much too quickly for everything to be on the same level. But this group of concertos for violin - an instrument Bacewicz herself played professionally - reveals a strong personality allied to a special skill in designing un-hackneyed yet workable form-schemes.

No 1 (1937) shows her resourceful and not un-sceptical way with the kind of neoclassicism she encountered when studying in Paris, the orchestra challenging as well as supporting the soloist in ways which are often overtly dramatic. Eleven years and a cataclysmic world war later, Concerto No 3 has a deeper expressiveness, not without its folk-like tinges, and although the drama is still vivid there is a tendency, at least in the slow movement, to fall back on a rather featureless fervour just when strength of focus is most needed. Eighteen years on, and reacting to such new Polish initiatives as Penderecki's "sonorism", Concerto No 7 (1965) is especially memorable for the way in which Bacewicz avoids the pitfall of featurelessness, with a new blend of eloquence and austerity.

It's tantalising to sense here the kind of innovations which the composer might have worked with even more productively had she lived further into her sixties. As it is, the value and originality of what she did achieve is very well conveyed by Joanna Kurkowicz's polished yet passionate playing, backed to the hilt in slightly over-resonant but texturally lucid recordings, made in Warsaw, by Lukasz Borowicz and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

— Arnold Whittall

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Grażyna Bacewicz (5 February 1909 – 17 January 1969) was a Polish composer and violinist of Lithuanian origin. Educated in Łódź, Warsaw and Paris, she studied composition with Kazimierz Sikorski and Nadia Boulanger and violin with prominent teachers including Carl Flesch. She achieved early recognition as a performer and later devoted herself primarily to composition and teaching. Bacewicz produced a substantial body of neoclassical music, with particular emphasis on violin and string repertoire, including seven violin concertos and seven string quartets. Her works received numerous international and national awards.

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Joanna Kurkowicz is an award-winning Polish-American violinist. Trained in Poland and the United States, she has performed internationally with leading orchestras and at prestigious venues and festivals. Kurkowicz served as concertmistress of the Boston Philharmonic for 25 years (1998–2023) and currently holds the same position with the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra. A dedicated advocate of contemporary music, she has premiered works by numerous prominent composers. Her acclaimed recordings, particularly of Grażyna Bacewicz's violin concertos, have earned international recognition and prestigious awards.

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