Bacewicz: Complete Symphonic Works, Vol. 1

Album review

The music of Grażyna Bacewicz has benefited from expanding popularity, not only in her native Poland but elsewhere, especially in Britain, but this release marks the beginning of what is apparently the first complete cycle of her symphonic works. On this album are the Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 4 from the early '50s, a period when Bacewicz had to worry about the encroachment of Communist aesthetic principles in the creative sphere. She follows Shostakovich, already adept in dealing with the problem, enlivens his harmonic world with a dash of Bartókian rhythm, and slims the whole thing down most attractively with the economy of French neoclassicism. The Symphony No. 4 of 1953, which won the Polish Ministry of Culture Prize, is an especially cohesive piece, taking the government-favored monumentality and making something sharp out of it. These works were recorded some years ago by the Kraków Philharmonic, but the present readings by Łukasz Borowicz and the WDR Sinfonieorchester are superior, not only sonically but in terms of catching the currents in Bacewicz's music. CPO's timing on this release was good, and it delivers artistically, with the result that it landed on classical best-seller charts in early 2023.
© James Manheim /TiVo