Karlowicz: Stanislaw and Anna Oswiecim, Op. 12

“The folksong-driven Lithuanian Rhapsody, composed in 1906, is the most straightforward of the three [symphonic poems]; Stanislaw and Anna Oswiecimowie, completed the following year, is the most structurally cogent; while Episode at a Masquerade is the most problematic: it was unfinished, and whether the completed work fulfilled Karlowicz's intentions remains unclear. The full-blooded performances under Antoni Wit leave no room for doubt, though the Chandos versions with the BBC Philharmonic are more refined.” The Guardian, 1st August 2008 ***

“In warmly robust recordings, these performances of three of his opulent orchestral works are every bit the equal of those in Chandos's acclaimed Karlowicz series, with the addition of some winningly characterful playing from the Polish musicians, especially the woodwind. Antoni Wit lovingly shapes the music, a mixture of grand gestures and memorable themes, and brings out all the colour of Karlowicz's luminous orchestral writing.” The Telegraph, 2nd August 2008

“Antoni Wit takes the Lithuanian Rhapsody and Episode at a Masquerade a little more broadly than his counterparts on Chandos, and there is certainly an attractive raw energy in the Polish playing. But Tortelier and Noseda have nothing to learn from anyone about communicative immediacy...” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“Antoni Wit handles the dynamics of Karlowicz's musical language with flexibility and unerring insight, and the Warsaw Philharmonic is clearly passionately engaged…” BBC Music Magazine, March 2009 ****

“What a fine composer Mieczyspaw Karpowicz might have become, had he not died at the age of 32 in an avalanche in the Tatra mountains. He had already produced a clutch of symphonic poems in a post- Wagnerian style, strongly pantheistic in outlook and, in the case of Stanispaw and Anna ofOs´wiecim, with a dash of illicit love thrown in.
These luxuriant works set him broadly beside such near-contemporaries as Rachmaninov, Zemlinsky or Suk, and there are even signs in the 'Song of Eternal Being' (third and last of the Eternal Songs) of an individuality that might one day have become as powerful as Janácek's. This is, for the most part, sultrily ecstatic music, that hangs fragrantly or ominously in the air and seems to be constantly about to break through to some visionary realm. Even the relatively jaunty Lithuanian Rhapsody eventually turns wistful in a rather moving way.
If you've a taste for lush late-Romanticism but haven't yet encountered Karpowicz, you've a treat in store, not least because these are fine performances.
His music has never been more than fleetingly represented in the catalogue. Back in 1990 there was a two-disc Chant du Monde compilation of the symphonic poems from the Silesian Philharmonic; but their courageous efforts are easily outclassed by the BBC Philharmonic and Yan Pascal Tortelier, as is the recording by Chandos's customary rich sound-stage.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010