Dobrzyński: Overture to ‘Monbar’, Piano Concerto & Symphony No. 2

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It's engagingly tuneful, soundly constructed and unashamedly home-grown in flavour, each movement taking its cue from a Polish national dance...Madey proves an uncommonly deft and sympathetic... — Gramophone Magazine, July 2013 More…

Release Date: 29th Apr 2013
Catalogue No: CHAN10778(2)
Label: Chandos
Length: 96 minutes

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Dobrzynski, I: Monbar, Op. 30, "The Filibusters": Overture

Work length10:53

$1.60

$1.95

Lukasz Borowicz, Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Krakow
Recorded: 9 October 2009
Recording Venue: Witold Lutoslawski Concert Studio, Polish Radio, Warsaw, Poland

Dobrzynski, I: Piano Concerto in A-Flat Major, Op. 2

Work length40:34

Album only

Lukasz Borowicz, Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Krakow, Emilian Madey
Recorded: 9-12 March 2010
Recording Venue: Witold Lutoslawski Concert Studio, Polish Radio, Warsaw, Poland

I. Allegro moderato

Track length17:55

Album only

II. Andante espressivo

Track length10:04

$1.60

$1.95

III. Rondo. Vivace ma non troppo

Track length12:35

$2.15

$2.60

Dobrzynski, I: Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 15, "Characteristic"

Work length45:13

$8.00

$9.75

Lukasz Borowicz, Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Krakow
Recorded: 5-8 October 2009
Recording Venue: Witold Lutoslawski Concert Studio, Polish Radio, Warsaw, Poland

I. Andante sostenuto - Allegro vivace

Track length13:33

$2.15

$2.60

II. Elegia. Andante doloroso ma non troppo lento

Track length6:55

$1.05

$1.30

III. Minuetto alla Mazovienna. Allegro ma non troppo

Track length8:42

$1.60

$1.95

IV. Finale all Cracovienna. Vivace assai

Track length7:22

$1.60

$1.95

II. Andante graziozo

Track length8:41

$1.60

$1.95

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About

The name of Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński is still not well known outside his native Poland, but there was a time when he vied for attention in Warsaw’s musical circles with his near-contemporary Fryderyk Chopin who went on to become the country’s most famous composer. The career of Chopin flourished after he left Poland. Dobrzyński on the other hand remained in Warsaw and saw his own compositional ambitions thwarted by the difficulty of working in Russian-occupied Poland.

The works on these discs date from a time when Dobrzyński was a young man. He was only seventeen when, in 1824, he wrote his Piano Concerto. With this work Dobrzyński followed in the footsteps of composers such as Hummel and Field, associated with the style brillant, but made more than a passing nod to Weber and to late eighteenth-century idioms.

The Second Symphony followed in 1834. Revising the symphony much later, Dobrzyński wrote a new slow movement for the piece in 1862, and it is in this version that the symphony has since been performed. Uniquely, both slow movements are included on this disc. The tone that Dobrzyński adopted for the music is urgent and impassioned, probably a reflection of the occupied and divided Poland of the 1830s.

Dobrzyński considered the opera Monbar, or The Filibusters his masterpiece. Setting a pirate tale, the work displays plenty of orchestral swashbuckling, offering throughout clearly depicted themes, such as tropical storms, fighting, love, and, of course, treason. The opera had to wait twenty-five years for its complete premiere, under the composer’s baton, in Warsaw, in January 1863. Even then the opera only had three performances before the break-out two weeks later of the January Uprising, a Polish protest against the occupying forces. Monbar was subsequently shelved and not heard again until a concert performance in Warsaw in 2010.

Łukasz Borowicz was appointed Artistic Director of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw in 2007; he has appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras including the Konzerthausorchester in Berlin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Philharmonic Orchestra, and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The Polish-born pianist Emilian Madey is also active as a composer, conductor, and lecturer at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.

Reviews

July 2013

It's engagingly tuneful, soundly constructed and unashamedly home-grown in flavour, each movement taking its cue from a Polish national dance...Madey proves an uncommonly deft and sympathetic soloist in the concerto, and Łukasz Borowicz draws some nicely tuned and consistently bright-eyed playing

22nd July 2013

The pirate-painting Monbar Overture is of a generally Rossinian nature - cheerful, catchy, with an exuberant finale...The best work of the three is, ironically, the Piano Concerto. Ironically, because Dobrzyński was only seventeen when he wrote it...Emilian Madey, himself a composer, gives a suitably heroic performance of this epic work.

11th July 2013

[in the Symphony] his real voice emerges...It's a very convincing early romantic symphony that's well worth a place in the repertoire

Offer,Dobrzyński: Overture to ‘Monbar’, Piano Concerto & Symphony No. 2

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