Laks; Weinberg; Nowicka - Works for Violin & Chamber Orchestra (Ewelina Nowicka)

Information

Composer: Mieczysław Weinberg; Szymon Laks; Ewelina Nowicka

• Weinberg - Three Pieces for Violin & Chamber Orchestra
• Laks - Poème for Violin & Chamber Orchestra
• Nowicka - Kaddish 1944 for Violin & Chamber Orchestra
• Laks - Symphony for Strings

Ewelina Nowicka, violin

Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio

Anna Duczmal-Mróz, conductor

Date: 2023

Label: CPO

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

Description

Ewelina Novicka came across Weinberg's traces while researching Shostakovich, and Laks was brought to her attention by pianist friend Milena Antoniewicz, with whom she recorded her own composition "Kaddish" in the version for violin and piano in 2011. The Polish-born violinist Ewelina Novicka was not only deeply touched by the fact that Laks and Weinberg had escaped the Shoah, but above all by the connection with the fate of her own family, which gave rise to her desire to place her artistic work in the service of the works of these two composers. Service, in this case, means not only re-creative interpretation, but also quite concretely adaptation and continuation through her own creation. Ewelina Nowicka describes her "Kaddish 1944", written in 2007, as "a kind of psalm dedicated to the victims of the Lodz ghetto, the last ghetto in the occupied Polish territories, which was liquidated in August 1944." The composition was prompted by a 1948 letter from her great-aunt Ewelina Widell, nee Szykier, in which she documented the story of her survival, and the story of the murder of much of her family. The three juvenile works by Weinberg arranged for string orchestra by Ewelina Nowicka lead us into the workshop of a brilliant, precocious - Polish - composer. "Scherzo", "Sen o Lalce" (The Dream of a Doll) and "Nocturne" for violin and piano are among the few surviving pieces from Weinberg's Warsaw period; he composed them in 1934/35 at the age of 15 or 16. This already shows his brilliant talent for exploiting the potential of a narrowly limited musical material or a simple structural idea to the maximum. One of the few works written before the 1960s, when Laks was once again able to build on his pre-war successes, is the Poeme for violin and orchestra from 1954, which Ewelina Nowicka arranged for violin and string orchestra for the present recording. With this work, Laks places himself in the tradition of the single-movement "tone poem" for one or more solo string instruments and orchestra founded by Ysaye. More intimate in expression and not bound by the formal conventions of the multi-movement instrumental concerto, virtuosity sees itself placed entirely at the service of the poetic statement.

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

Szymon Laks (1 November 1901 – 11 December 1983) was a Polish Jewish composer and violinist. After studying mathematics at Vilnius University, he pursued music at the Warsaw Conservatory and composition at the Paris Conservatory. Arrested by the Germans in 1941, Laks survived three years in Auschwitz and Dachau, where he serve the camp orchestra. After returning to Paris in 1945, he resumed composing and promoted Polish music among émigré communities. His neoclassical works include chamber music, symphonic suites and songs, addressing war, suffering, Jewish heritage and Holocaust trauma.

***

Mieczysław Weinberg (8 December 1919 – 26 February 1996) was a Polish-born Soviet and Russian composer and pianist. Born in Warsaw to a family connected with Yiddish theatre, he fled Poland in 1939 following the German invasion and settled in the Soviet Union, where he gained the support of Dmitri Shostakovich. Weinberg became a prolific and respected composer, particularly during the 1960s, when his concert and film music achieved considerable recognition. His later years were marked by declining health and reduced official support. International appreciation of his music grew significantly in the 1990s.

***

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.

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