Katherine Gowers - Music for Viloin & Piano - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Arthur Sullivan is best remembered today for his Savoy Operas with W.S. Gilbert, but during his lifetime Sullivan was also famed for his church, concert hall and stage works. These three sets of incidental music show his versatility in the genre. The music for The Merry Wives of Windsor has a joviality and lightness that matches it's pantomime mood, while the concert suite for MacBeth weaves together nervous tension and impending tragedy. By contrast, King Arthur required one of Sullivan's specialties, a sequence of choruses, edited after his death into this evocative suite.

Violinist Dominika Przech and pianist Adam Mikolaj Gozdziewski present a repertoire of Polish music created throughout the 20th century, extremely ambitious in terms of performance and interpretation. All works presented on the CD refer to the output of Karol Szymanowski, whose early Sonata in D minor, op. 9 opens the album. Original references to Szymanowski's music in the works of Pawel Klecki and Zbigniew Bargielski are perceptible on the purely musical level, especially when one is aware of the artistic development path and inspiration of both artists. The thread connecting Bargielski with Szymanowski goes back to his teenage years and his studies under the supervision of the following composers Piotr Perkowski, Tadeusz Szeligowski, Boleslaw Szabelski and Nadia Boulanger, two of whom were Szymanowski's students, one was his friend and Nadia Boulanger was the person to whom Szymanowski directed his students for further education. Testimony of his [Szymanowski's] students, who were my teachers, embellished my ideas and intuitionsInch - the composer himself admits.

Katherine Kemler - Sonatina [COMPACT DISCS] date 03/15/2000