Polish Music Scene

Nemesis Quartet, photo: Alina Birjuk Today’s concert in the Polish Music Scene series offers a synthesis of Classical forces with Romantic and twentieth-century repertoire strongly rooted in romanticism. A small ensemble of wind instruments (Harmonie) was typical of music primarily from the eighteenth century, becoming less common in the following century with the expansion of works for string instruments or mixed forces, often with piano. Thus the nineteenth-century saxophone in a quartet line-up is a kind of link between the historical type of performance ensemble and more recent repertoire, the main thread of which consists of dances and the melodies of Polish folk songs. Alongside Chopin’s Mazurkas (de rigueur in such a concert), we will hear an early krakowiak by Zygmunt Noskowski and compositions by his most distinguished pupils: mazurkas by Karol Szymanowski and Ludomir Różycki. There will also be Szymon Laks’s Quartet No. 3, an emanation of the folk trend in neoclassicism, and a miniature by Lutosławski. A very interesting item on the programme is the virtuosic Fantasia on themes from Moniuszko’s Halka by the still too rarely performed Józef Nowakowski. This saxophone take on such diverse repertoire is certainly worth listening to! The Polish Music Scene is a programme of music organised by the National Institute of Music and Dance in collaboration with the Warsaw Philharmonic and financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. We present Polish artists and Polish compositions – particularly works not often performed. We wish to promote the performance of Polish music, inspire musicians to turn to this repertoire and generate interest among audiences in Polish musical output as broadly understood. The programme is open to instrumentalists and singers, soloists and chamber ensembles. The programmes featuring Polish music, selected via a competition, will be performed in the Chamber Music Hall of the Warsaw Philharmonic and at other concert venues around Poland.