05.02.1907 Łódź - 17.01.1969 Warszawa
Grażyna Bacewicz was a remarkable and impressive composer. Trained as a violinist and conductor, she was simultaneously an accomplished pianist, and she herself performed the premiere of her Second Piano Sonata. Bacewicz has always emphasized her independence in her composing. Striking is the change in style she underwent over the course of her life; comparing her Piano Concerto of 1949 with her Concerto for 2 Pianos from 1966 illustrates this, a fact she herself describes:
"I divide my music into three periods: 1) youth – very experimental, 2) what is here inappropriately called neoclassical but is in fact atonal, and 3) the period in which I find myself now. I have arrived in today's period through development and not through revolution."Bacewicz 1969
(source: Polish Music Center https://polishmusic.usc.edu)
Among the highlights of Bacewicz’s piano music are, alongside the two piano concertos, the 10 Concert Etudes (1956) and the Second Piano Sonata; in her chamber music, the two wonderful Piano Quintets (1952 & 1965) and numerous works for violin and piano.
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PIANOVERSAL listening tips : Grażyna Bacewicz
"I walk very much alone because in my compositions I am concerned primarily with form. Because I believe that if one places things haphazardly or throws stones onto a pile, that pile will always collapse. In music, therefore, there must be construction rules that enable the work to stand on its feet. Of course, the laws need not be old – God forbid. Music can be simpler or more constructed – that is irrelevant, it depends on the language of a particular composer – but it must be well constructed."
[Letter to Vytautas Bacevicius, 21 March 1947]
Source: Polish Music Center https://polishmusic.usc.edu
Piano Concerto (1949)
Pianist : Magdalena Grzelak Dir : Mieczysław Nowakowski, Orchestra unknown
Second Piano Sonata (1953)
Magdalena Baczewska, piano
Live in Recital, New York City 2003
First Piano Quintet (1952)
Silesian Quartet
Wiaczeslav Nowikow, piano
Humoreske (1953)
Piotr Plawner - violin, Ewa Kupiec - piano
Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra (1966)
Jerzy Maksymiuk & Jerzy Witkowski - piano,
National Philharmonic Orchestra (Warsaw); Witold Rowicki - conductor
Oberek (1949)
violin: Grażyna Bacewicz
piano: Kiejstut Bacewicz (older brother of Grażyna)
10 Concert Etudes for Piano (1956)
Ewa Kupiec, piano
You can find more about Grażyna Bacewicz here: Polish Music Center: https://polishmusic.usc.edu
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Grażyna Bacewicz: Composer of the Week Nr. 33 / November 2019
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