Description
This new release from DUX presents Feliks Nowowiejski's Piano Concerto in D Minor Op 60, and Slavic Cello Concerto, Op 55, performed here by Jacek Kortus (piano), and Bartosz Koziak (cello). Written in 1938, the Cello Concerto is dedicated to the Polish cellist, Dezyderiusz Danczowski. The very extensive, three movement work is a very rare example of such a composition in the Polish music of the inter-war period.
Stylistically, the piece belongs to "Slavic Modernism": it combines liltingness, lyricism, and inspiration drawn from the Slavic body of motifs with the symphonic accomplishments of Albert Roussel. Full use of the orchestra and monolithic tutti are juxtaposed with chamber moments (here, the influence of German Modernists, whose music Nowowiejski also followed very closely, is easily discernible).
Bartosz Koziak, the soloist, performs the concerto on the instrument that once belonged to Dezyderiusz Danczowski, the piece's first performer.
The Piano Concerto was composed in 1941 and presents something of a sum of Nowowiejski's oeuvre: fascination with modernism, which imbues the Cello Concerto and Symphony No. 2 (Praca i rytm - Labour and Rhythm), yields to the previous Slavic liltingness and the Neo-Romantic idiom.
