The first post-war decade was a difficult period for Polish music due to political circumstances, which limited the concert presence of works by composers like Panufnik, Bacewicz, and Lutosławski.
Composer Biography
Grażyna Bacewicz's Little Triptych, her last work for piano, was composed in 1965, four years before her premature death.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Witold Lutosławski's Bucolics are arrangements of folk melodies, modeled on how Béla Bartók, a Hungarian master, treated folk material.
Composition History
Three of the five piano cycles on this album were composed in 1952, a period when Polish composers sought ways to avoid the aesthetics of socialist realism imposed by the regime.
Composer Biography
Andrzej Panufnik, a composer featured on this album, made a living during the German occupation by playing in a piano duo with Witold Lutosławski in Warsaw cafés.
Performer Biography
Gabriela Szendzielorz-Jungiewicz, the pianist on this album, is a professor at the Karol Szymanowski Music Academy in Katowice and has performed at numerous international contemporary music festivals.
Compositional Technique
Andrzej Panufnik's Circle of Fifths, a cycle of twelve etudes, conceptually harks back to the etude cycles of Bach and Chopin, with successive pieces organized by tonalities separated by a fifth.
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