Stephen Chatman - Vancouver Visions - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Various Artists - Quatuors a Cordes [COMPACT DISCS] date 12/15/1996

EUGENIUSZ MORAWSKI - A SINGER OF LOVE, MELANCHOLY AND FIGHTING. Eugeniusz Morawski (1876-1948) is a composer remembered mainly for ousting Karol Szymanowski as vice-chancellor of the State Conservatory of Music in Warsaw during the inter-war period. In recent years, however, we have witnessed a distinct renaissance in the compositional output of this forgotten, yet outstanding artist. During his composition studies in Warsaw with Zygmunt Noskowski and at the Academy of Fine Arts, before his forced emigration to France (in 1908, he was banished from the territory of tsarist Russia, which included Poland at that time, for planning an attack on the police), Morawski was the closest friend of the Lithuanian composer and artist Mykalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis. He also soon proved to be - something that the critics of the day largely failed to recognise - a symphonist on a par with both Karol Szymanowski and Mieczyslaw Karlowicz, as is evidenced by his three extant symphonic poems Don Quichotte (1909), Nevermore (1911) and Ulalume (c.1914). Additionally, Morawski's two monumental ballet scores, dating from the end of the 20s and the first half of the 30s - Milosc [Love] and Switezianka - allow us to see him as a serious rival in that domain to Szymanowski, the composer of Harnasie. Unfortunately, a full appraisal of the oeuvre of Morawski, who was not just a composer, but also an eminent and energetic figure in musical life, will probably never be achieved, because during the Warsaw Rising (1944) as much as seventy per cent of his unpublished scores (during his lifetime, just a single song was published!) were lost. In light of this catastrophic fact, we can only speculate that he may have been Szymanowski's equal as a composer... The present disc represents the first ever attempt at reviving an important part of Morawski's oeuvre - his songs with piano accompaniment. Be

This album of rarely heard piano music by Mendelssohn displays the composer's wide emotional range and features two youthful sonatas, composed when he was just eleven years old. Pianist Christopher Williams has previously recorded acclaimed albums of music by Semyon Barmotin for Grand Piano (GP799, 865, 866)and makes his Naxos tag debut with this album.