Paderewski’s Polish Fantasy is a four-movement piece for piano and orchestra in which one can hear rhythms of several Polish folk dances.
It was premiered in Norwich, England, in 1893 with the composer as soloist, and was often performed by Paderewski to remind audiences of the plight of his homeland, until 1918 partitioned between the three neighbouring powers.
The other work on the CD is the Piano Concerto in D flat major by Jerzy Gablenz, Paderewski’s contemporary, whose output has fallen into obscurity. Some of his works were left incomplete or never performed.
He died at the age of 49 in a plane disaster. As Jeremy Nicholas writes in the liner notes: “On 11 November 1937, the aircraft in which he was flying from Kraków to Warsaw became engulfed in low-hanging clouds, hit a high-tension pylon and crashed. Of the twelve passengers on board, eight survived; Gablenz was one of the four who did not.”
The soloist in both works is British pianist Jonathan Plowright, who has done a great deal to promote music by such Polish composers as Zygmunt Stojowski, Juliusz Zarębski, Władysław Żeleński and Ludomir Różycki.
Born in 1977, Łukasz Borowicz is one of the most versatile conductors of his generation. He regularly leads major European orchestras and has received numerous prizes for his recordings. From 2007 to 2015, he served as music director of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw.
(mk/pk)