Music for Clarinet by 20th Century Polish Composers
Mariusz Barszcz; Piotr Saciuk; Jacek Michalak
Dux DUX 1258 dux.pl
This collection could be renamed music by Mid-20th-Century Polish Composers, roughly following as it does a chronology of three decades beginning in the early 1950s. One finds in many of the selections a homogenous tonal and stylistic range, possibly reflecting the somewhat insular world of Polish composition during the Communist era. Happily, one also hears committed and honest performances by clarinetist Mariusz Barszcz and pianist Piotr Saciuk. While tending sharp in some of the slower and quieter selections, Barszcz has a peckish and puckish articulation, and the rhythmic agreement in the very challenging Dance Preludes by Witold Lutosławski is admirable.
This work, along with Krzysztof Penderecki’s Three Miniatures, are the only ones likely to be performed with any frequency in North America, so it is welcome to hear some of the more avant garde selections toward the end of the disc. Music for magnetic tape and solo bass clarinet by Andrzej Dobrowolski (1980) comes out of the dark corners of one’s psyche and invites itself in for a terrifying and confusing visit. Barszcz can manage the bass clarinet’s registers well and gives a fine accounting of the extended techniques required by the composer. Not Sunday afternoon listening by any stretch, but excellent rainy Monday fare. Krzysztof Knittel’s Points/Lines (for clarinet, tapes and slides, 1973) steps back into the laboratory, a controlled and tidy experiment carried out by a harried researcher.
Wedged between these two works is a Trifle (in two parts), for accordion and bass clarinet by Andrzej Krzanowski (1983).
