Grażyna Bacewicz - Works for Violin Solo & Violin with Piano (Kinga Augustyn; Alla Milchtein)

Information

Composer: Grażyna Bacewicz

• Sonata No. 1 for Solo Violin
• Polish Capricci for Solo Violin
• Violin Concertino in G Major
• Melody for Violin & Piano
• Stained Glass for Violin & Piano
• Partita for Solo Violin
• Scherzo for Solo Violin
• Capriccio for Violin & Piano
• Lullaby for Violin & Piano
• 4 Capriccios for Solo Violin

Kinga Augustyn, violin

Alla Milchtein, piano

Date: 2022

Label: Centaur Records

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Review

Grażyna Bacewicz is receiving more and more interest from soloists. As she was herself a violinist and recorded a swathe of her own violin music for the Muza label, it’s right that this should be a primary focus for contemporary performers. In Centaur’s disc we have a wide-ranging ‘Portrait’ that moves from 1932 to 1968, the year before her death when she was still in full spate and moreover includes two claimed world première recordings.

Kinga Augustyn has selected with acumen, ensuring that larger Sonatas and Partitas take their programmatic place alongside small Melodies, Scherzos and Caprices to create a balanced picture of the composer-executant’s range of influences in her position as a bridge between Szymanowski, by whom she was clearly influenced (and one of whose pieces she also recorded) and the later post-60s generation of Polish composers. The Sonata No 1 for example is a restless wartime piece, whose withdrawn, vaguely neo-baroque elements fuse with a contemporary use of variation form in the finale, where one finds a seamless flow of invention. Augustyn plays this with eloquent refinement at a steady tempo; for a more incisive reading – though not necessary a superior one – try Annabelle Berthomé-Reynolds on Muso MU-032.

The Partita for violin solo dates from 1945 and is one of the two première recordings. It’s in three movements and is a crisp demanding piece that takes the soloist very high up the fingerboard in the central section, a rather aloof Andante. The finale is a quirky ‘baroque’ dance replete with pizzicati – which, as befits a performer she never - either here or elsewhere - overdoes. Bacewicz knows that such devices should serve the performer selectively. In the same year she composed a very different work, the Concertino for violin and piano, played by Alla Milchtein. This is an avowedly neo-baroque piece, almost a total retrenchment from the abrasive elements to be found in the Partita. The Four Caprices (1968) are very late works couched in her own accommodation with atonality, fast and virtuosic.

The small-scale violin and piano pieces reflect her wide assimilation of her native country’s folkloric elements. The Polish Caprice for solo violin dates from the early post-war years, played by Augustyn with fast bowing and relish for its vitality. The Polish Caprice No 2 is a slower and more expressive work, less intense, though still lively in its outer sections. In the very early Stained-glass Window, written in 1932, one can feel the influence of Szymanowski – refined, quizzical and atmospheric. The other world premiere recording is the Scherzo for solo violin (1935) which is a moto perpetuo type of affair but full of geniality. Another fast and fiery piece is the little-known Capriccio for violin and piano whilst the Cradle Song is full of dappled intimacy.

Approaches to Bacewicz’s solo violin music on disc divide into the completists and the selectives and Augustyn and Milchtein belong firmly to the second camp. They have chosen wisely and well, have found two previously unrecorded works, of which the Partita is especially interesting and important, and have been finely recorded in two different locations. Centaur and their artists can be proud of this recording.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

More reviews:

https://www.wtju.net/grazyna-bacewicz-a-portrait-flattering-and-accurate/

https://artmusiclounge.wordpress.com/2022/07/25/augustyn-plays-bacewicz/

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Grażyna Bacewicz (5 February 1909 – 17 January 1969) was a Polish composer and violinist. She is only the second Polish female composer to have achieved national and international recognition after Maria Szymanowska in the early 19th century. Bacewicz studied with teachers such as Nadia Boulanger and Carl Flesch, among others. After completing her studies, Bacewicz took part in numerous events as a soloist, composer, and jury member. Many of her compositions feature the violin. Among them are 7 violin concertos, 5 sonatas for violin with piano, 3 for violin solo and 4 numbered symphonies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grażyna_Bacewicz

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Kinga Augustyn is Polish-born, New York-based violinist who has recorded for Naxos, GPR, Roven, Albany and Centaur Records.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinga_Augustyn

https://kingaaugustyn.com/

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Alla Milchtein is a Russian-born pianist who has enjoyed an international career as a collaborative artist to emerging musical stars.

http://www.allamilchtein.com/

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