Messages: Chamber Music for Strings

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ANDRZEJ PANUFNIK / ROZANNA PANUFNIK
Messages: Chamber Music for Strings
Brodsky Quartet

[ CHANDOS / CD ]

Release Date: Tuesday 2 December 2014

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2014 marks the centenary of Polish-British composer Andrzej Panufnik. Here the Brodsky Quartet joins in this year of reminiscence and celebration with Messages, a recording of works both by Andrzej and his daughter Roxanna Panufnik.

String sextets begin and end the disc. In the first, Modlitwa, both father and daughter have composed sections, Roxana Panufnik having contributed to what was originally a vocal work and subsequently made this sextet arrangement.

Andrzej Panufnik's Song to the Virgin Mary also began life in a vocal setting, for a cappella chorus, and was dedicated to his wife, Camilla. Andrzej Panufnik's three string quartets showcase his innovative and expressive musical language. The first contrasts dynamic conversations between individual instruments with beautiful unified quartet textures. String Quartet No. 2 - Messages is inspired by childhood memories of listening to the eerie sounds of a wooden telegraph pole in the wind. String Quartet No. 3 - Wycinanki takes its title from a traditional Polish folk art formed of intricately cut paper. Its movements, five miniature studies, each represent a uniquely shaped and coloured paper-cut from a different corner of Poland.

Separating these quartets are the two movements of Memories of My Father. Commissioned by the Brodsky Quartet especially for the centenary, it represents a highly personal reflection from Roxana Panufnik on the life and music of her father.

"The meat of the programme is the set of three string quartets written by the elder Panufnik, superbly performed here by the Brodsky. I think that the second movement of Quartet No. 1, 'Transformations', is one of the finest things the composer ever wrote, and the performance here does it full justice, balancing to perfection its combination of fragility and extreme tension." (Gramophone)

Tracks:

Panufnik, A:
String Quartet No. 1
String Quartet No. 2, 'Messages'
String Quartet No. 3, 'Wycinanki'

Song to the Virgin Mary
for string sextet
with Robert Smissen (viola) & Richard May (cello)

Panufnik, R:
Memories of my Father
Modlitwa (sextet)