Krzysztof Penderecki; Witold Lutosławski - String Quartets (Royal String Quartet)

Information

Composer: Krzysztof Penderecki; Witold Lutosławski

1. Penderecki - String Quartet No. 1
2. Penderecki - String Quartet No. 2
3. Penderecki - String Quartet No. 3 'Leaves of an unwritten diary'
4. Lutosławski - String Quartet: 1. Introductory
5. Lutosławski - String Quartet: 2. Main

Royal String Quartet

    Izabella Szałaj-Zimak, violin

    Elwira Przybyłowska, violin

    Marek Czech, viola

    Michał Pepol, cello

Date: 2013

Label: Hyperion

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

Review

After their impressive traversal of the Górecki quartets (6/11), the Royal Quartet return with two further seminal Polish figures. Penderecki’s string quartets throw the distinction between his earlier and later output into sharp relief. The initial two works are brief one-movement pieces reflecting current European developments: the First (1960) explores a wide range of timbres and textures over its series of unrelated ‘panels’, while the Second (1968) deploys the ‘sonorism’ then prevalent in Poland in music whose formal coherence is achieved almost in spite of its expressive fragmentation. Four decades on and the Third Quartet (2008), also in a single movement, reflects the pluralist idiom its composer had steadily been evolving – the more extended span taking in alternately elegiac and sardonic elements with an underlying sense of ideas being developed and transformed that places this work in a closer relationship to the classical archetype.

If none of these pieces ranks among Penderecki’s most significant, the same is hardly applicable to Lutosławski’s String Quartet (1964) which, coming after a period of overt experimentation, adopts a ground-plan of ‘introductory movement’ and ‘main movement’ that was to serve the composer well over the ensuing three decades. Moreover, its realisation as a sequence of four interdependent ‘mobiles’ (there being no actual full score) tests the ensemble’s powers of co ordination to the limit – the initial teasing out of subtle detail leading straight into music whose powerful expressive charge is then carried over into a prolonged leave-taking, with its vestigial allusion to previous and now only dimly remembered events.

Whatever this music’s challenges, the emotional disparities of Penderecki or the relative abstractions of Lutosławski, the Royal Quartet meet them head on. In the former composer, the Dafô Quartet offer more visceral if less refined listening while, in the latter, the Silesian Quartet offer comparable technical finesse but a less involving experience. Spacious and immediate sound, along with informative booklet-notes: those for whom the present coupling appeals should not hesitate.

— Richard Whitehouse

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

Krzysztof Penderecki (23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer. After graduating from the Academy of Music in Kraków, he began teaching there and gained international recognition. His innovative compositions, characterized by experimental sonorities and distinctive orchestral techniques, include Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, St. Luke Passion, Anaklasis, Utrenja and Polish Requiem. His output also include 5 operas, 8 symphonies, concertos, chamber works and numerous choral compositions. Penderecki received many prestigious honors, including 4 Grammy Awards.

***

Witold Lutosławski (25 January 1913 – 7 February 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. Educated in Warsaw, he initially drew inspiration from Polish folk music, gaining international recognition with works such as Concerto for Orchestra (1954). From the late 1950s, he developed innovative compositional techniques involving controlled aleatoricism, carefully structured musical materials and distinctive harmonic systems. Despite political pressure under postwar Stalinist rule, Lutosławski maintained his artistic independence. His major works include four symphonies, concertos and chamber compositions.

***

The Royal String Quartet, founded in Warsaw in 1998, is an ensemble known for combining classical masterpieces with contemporary and lesser-known Polish music. The Quartet gained international recognition through BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists scheme and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. It has performed at leading concert halls and festivals worldwide, including Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, BBC Proms and the Warsaw Philharmonic. Collaborating with distinguished musicians across genres, the ensemble also organizes Warsaw's Kwartesencja festival and has held prestigious residencies.

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