Bacewicz: Complete Orchestral Works Project

courtesy of Naxos of America

The German label cpo is beginning the New Year by launching its latest multi-album project. The objective will be to provide an account of the complete orchestral works of Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz in a single (presumably) unified series of performances. The composer’s Wikipedia page lists sixteen compositions in this category, composed between 1943 and 1967.

Only four of those pieces are numbered symphonies. There are two concertos, one for string orchestra and the other for symphony orchestra. Other genres include an overture, the “Polish Capriccio” for violin and orchestra, a partita, a set of variations, and a divertimento. The remaining works have distinctive titles with different degrees of description.

As I consult my archives, I see that my interest in Bacewicz dates back to 2015, the year in which Naxos released a two-CD account of all of her string quartets. Since I made the move from Examiner.com to The Rehearsal Studio, I have encountered a second “complete” release. This also involved a two-CD album for the complete violin sonatas. Two CDs will probably also account for the four symphonies, but that will amount to a moderate fraction of the orchestral works enumerated by Wikipedia.

This state of Bacewicz’ repertoire left me wondering this morning about the viability of the symphony as a genre. That genre played a major part in the works of all four of the First Viennese School composers (Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert). However, interest in the genre tended to decline during the nineteenth century. Both Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms each composed only four symphonies. By the current count, Antonín Dvořák composed nine, which matches Anton Bruckner’s numbered symphonies. (There is also one given the number zero, which is known as “Die Nullte,” along with two other symphonies without any number.) By the time of the twentieth century, it is hard to find any [updated 1/3, 4:05 a.m.: strong commitment to the genre other than the ten symphonies of Gustav Mahler and those of Dmitri Shostakovich, who composed fifteen between 1923 and 1971.]

The first cpo release accounts for the third and fourth of Bacewicz’ symphonies. This is the fourth of the five albums that will be released this Friday; and, like the albums already discussed, there is an Amazon.com Web page for processing pre-orders. Łukasz Borowicz conducts the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne.

The fourth symphony comes across as the more ambitious, particularly in its approach to instrumentation. One encounters parts for piccolo, cor anglais, E-flat and bass clarinets, contrabassoon, and harp. Nevertheless, as a result of my past listening experiences, I have to admit that I am more drawn to the breadth of sonorities that emerge from the Bacewicz string quartets than I am from the instrumental colors of that fourth symphony.

Thus, I find myself more interested in where cpo will lead me next in its journey through Bacewicz’ orchestral repertoire than I was in my early encounters with the two symphonies released to date.