Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej - Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles - D'orients [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/01/2012

A large part of Feliks Nowowiejski's work, especially his larger works, remained in manuscripts and soon after the composer's death in 1946, he was forgotten. As if he'd faded into oblivion. This state of affairs lasted until the last few years, when part of the Polish music community began to notice severe gaps in knowledge about the work of the composer. The Opole Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Przemyslaw Neumann has also played a big role in decoding Felix Nowowiejski's music. The testimony of this is a smaller album that gathers the symphonic works of Rota's creator, previously only rarely performed and almost absent in phonography. These are extremely interesting, selected symphonic works, composed with incredible impetus, full of melodic invention, pathetic culminations and deep romantic aesthetics.

Currently, Feliks Nowowiejski is recognisable mainly as the author of music to Maria Konopnicka's Oath, alternatively as composer of organ and oratorio music. His symphonic output, overshadowed by the works of Karol Szymanowski, who was composing at the same time, is rarely performed and has not been presented to the wider audience yet. The present album, thanks to the efforts of the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Lukasz Borowicz, fills this gap in the image of the Polish music of the interwar period. We display on it the symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 by Nowowiejski (the Symphony No. 1 is lost). The first of the pieces, with extended percussion parts, is a genuine apology of rhythm, while the Symphony No. 3, dedicated to Iris, the goddess of rainbow, enchants us with ingenious instrumental solutions - colors of the orchestra.