Sinfonia Varsovia - monografia GB

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ISBN 978-83-06-03317-5

(Discography, Concert Calendar – in Polish only)

25 years of the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra

The book includes a free CD

Grze gorz Wi Êniew ski

This is a unique orchestra, there is no one like it in Poland. It came into being spontaneously, as it were, and developed in large measure by itself, from the start programmatically without a permanent directormanager. It has invariably represented the highest level of performance, inherited from its predecessor and honed by successive generations of its musicians. It is a highly professional and responsible ensemble, ever ready for new challenges.

25

years

of the

1984− −2009

Orc hes tra Grze gorz Wi Êniew ski

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1984− −2009

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Grze gorz Wi Êniew ski

25 years of the 1984− −2009

Orchestra

State Publishing Institute

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Contents Culture in War sa w in 1984 7 Bi r t h and the Parents 1 3 Maksymiuk’ Or kiestra Maksymiuka s Orc hestra 19 W y b raƒ c zy k 2 7 Menuhin 2 9

Down the Year s 33 T he Image 3 6 Oblicze Epoka Menuhina Menuhin’ s Era 3 9 Pe n d e re c k i 4 3

T he Musicians 47 C on cer ts 55 Re per toire 67 C on duc tor s 75 Pa r t ner s 79 Re cordings 87 In the Hometown 97 A t the End Closeofofa aQuar Quar tert e rC eCnt e nt urur y 105 Autonomy 109 Minkowski 1 1 1 Ho m e 1 1 4

Po st sc ript – Today and To m o r ro w 1 1 7 Chopin 2010 1 1 9 ‘Crazy Days’ 1 2 3 Premises 1 3 5

Members of the Polish Chamber Orchestra 140 at a Concer t at the National Philharmonic, 27 April 1984

Employees of Sinfonia Varsovia 142 August 2011

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This is a unique orchestra, there is no one like it in Poland.

It came into being spontaneously, as it were, and developed in large measure by itself, from the start programmatically without a permanent director-manager. It has invariably represented the highest level of performance, inherited from its predecessor and honed by successive generations of its musicians. It is a highly professional and responsible ensemble, ever ready for new challenges.

The orchestra has always enjoyed much artistic and administrative freedom and has been able to make use of it wisely. Travelling extensively and willingly, it soon became one of the prominent ambassadors of Polish performing arts all over the world. Applauded by the public and highly acclaimed by critics, it has successfully capitalised on its status for the promotion of works by Polish composers. Warsaw-based by birth, so frequently and vividly present especially in the European Union Member States, it quickly became a citizen of uniting Europe.

Having learned the world and letting itself be known, it has not neglected its obligations to the city it is named after.

While it did not have its own nest here, it invariably returned to perform and hold its festival here. Today the ties with Warsaw acquire a new meaning and new colours – the dream of having its own seat in Warsaw with a perspective of a permanent artistic season in the capital is becoming reality before our very eyes. Sinfonia Varsovia at the dawn of the second quarter of a century of its existence looks into the future with optimism and hope.

The orchestra’s first twenty-five years, however, is justifiably a cause for pride.

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Culture in Warsaw in 1984

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Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, State Higher Sc hool of Music, Wa r s a w 1979

Culture in Warsaw in 1984 1984 was the fortieth year after Warsaw shook off the Nazi occupation, the second year after the suspension and the first one after the revocation of martial law; only half a decade later the Round Table talks would pave the way for the transformation of the political system. In the field of culture, the year was memorable for the nation’s capital first of all because of the completion of the reconstruction of the Royal Castle. The project, lasting thirteen years and seven months, was financed entirely from funds gathered during a public collection in Poland and abroad. On 31 August, the civic reconstruction committee announced the conclusion of the works, and on the morning of 6 September the Castle was reopened for visitors; despite the rain people started to line up as early as 6 am. The exhibitions held in the Royal Castle that year included one commemorating the 400th anniversary of Jan Kochanowski’s death, celebrated in Warsaw also during a significant international symposium. On 5 August, the Wilanów Palace began its 180th year of ‘service for the public’ (since the time of making the holdings available to visitors). On 22 February, the Anna and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz Museum was set up in Stawisko n. Brwinów, while on 22 May in Polna Str., the Maria Dàbrowska Museum, a branch of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature, was opened. The seat of the Museum of Literature in the Old Town Market Square, in turn, held e.g. an exhibition dedicated to Krzysztof Kamil Baczyƒski. In the spring of that

Culture in Warsaw in 1984

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Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, the National Philhar monic, Wa r sa w, ca. 1982

year Stanisław Lorentz celebrated his 85th birthday and in autumn Juliusz Wiktor Gomulicki turned seventy-five.

In 1984 Warsaw-based publishing houses issued books as important as Wiesław MyÊliwski’s Stone upon Stone (State Publishing Institute), Teodor Parnicki’s The Secret of the Third Isaiah and Władysław Terlecki’s A Literary Huck (Czytelnik Publishing House), Tadeusz Siejak’s A Test (Iskry Publishing House). State Publishing Institute also issued the famous debut by Eustachy Rylski, a novel diptych Stankiewicz and The Return. Clandestine publishers issued, e.g. a volume of poetry by Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz’s Ordon’s Grave and other Verse from 1979–1984. Czytelnik Publishing House publishing office turned forty. After a two-year break, 11th Warsaw Poetry Autumn took place. Tu i Teraz social and cultural weekly from Warsaw led by Kazimierz Koêniewski was soon (in mid-1985) to be replaced by Kultura, with Klemens Krzy˝agórski as editor-in-chief.

The National Theatre prepared, e.g. the premiere of Juliusz Słowacki’s Lilla Weneda directed by Krystyna Skuszanka; these were the last months of the Theatre’s activity before the tragic fire which broke out on 19 March the following year, and which eliminated the stage from operation for a full eleven years. Among the premieres in other Warsaw theatres, of special importance were Stanisław Wyspiaƒski’s The Wedding directed by Kazimierz Dejmek in Polish Theatre, Tadeusz Ró˝ewicz’s The Trap directed

by Jerzy Grzegorzewski, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Affabulazione directed by Tadeusz Łomnicki, himself in the lead role, in the Studio Arts Centre, and Music – Radwan staged

by Zygmunt Hübner in Common Theatre. Thanks to the work of Teatr Rzeczypospolitej,

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Warsaw residents saw, e.g. Where Are the Snows of Yesteryear by Tadeusz Kantor from Krakow-based Cricot 2, Panopticum ∫ la Madame Tussaud and The End of Europe by Janusz WiÊniewski from New Theatre in Poznaƒ. Warsaw was visited e.g. by the Gorky Bolshoi Drama Theatre from Leningrad.

In the area of music this was the third year without Kazimierz Serocki (the 1st International Composers Competition dedicated to Serocki fetched around three hundred music scores!) and Tadeusz Baird. The International Festival of Contemporary Music ‘Warsaw Autumn’ the two had initiated took place for the twenty-seventh time, with world premieres of new compositions by Rafał Augustyn, Ryszard Bukowski, Jan Fotek, Włodzimierz Kotoƒski (Terra Incognita), Andrzej Krzanowski, Zygmunt Mycielski, Jan Oleszkowicz, Zbigniew Penherski, Bogusław Schaeffer, Paweł Szymaƒski, Tadeusz Wielecki, Zbigniew Wiszniewski, as well as performances of Tadeusz Baird’s Voices From Afar, Eugeniusz Knapik’s Islands, Krzysztof Meyer’s Symphony No. 6 (Polish Symphony), Witold Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 3 and Chain 1, fragments of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Polish Requiem, and À Varsovie by Bronisław Kazimierz Przybylski. The symphony and chamber compositions of the Festival were supplemented with new Polish opera renditions: Sergey Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel from the Stanisław Moniuszko Grand Theatre from Poznaƒ and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck from the Grand Theatre in Warsaw, conducted by Robert Satanowski and directed by Marek Grzesiƒski (both national premieres). The Teatr Wielki in Warsaw worked intensively under Satanowski (who became its director in 1981). In 1984, apart from Wozzeck, the Theatre staged premieres of, e.g. a medieval liturgical drama Ludus Danielis, an opera Beelzebub’s Sonata by Edward Bogusławski and an evening of ballets by John Neumeier Lieb’ und Leid und Welt und Traum. For the Warsaw Chamber Opera 1984 meant the end of its many years of wandering, as on January 1 it received its own seat at 76 Âwierczewskiego Str. (former premises of the Student Satirical Theatre). However, the Opera was able to stage its first performances only after the completion of necessary renovation and conversion works, in October 1986. In the meantime, it performed a premiere of the Vilnius version of Moniuszko’s Halka in Brighton. Warsaw was visited by the famous Bolshoi Theatre from Moscow with three performances of Russian opera classics, and by the Komische Oper from Berlin with the fascinating Lear by Aribert Reimann directed by Harry Kupfer.

In the National Philharmonic, since 1977 led by Kazimierz Kord, the season of 1984/1985 was inaugurated with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and 1984 concluded with the First International Encounters of Symphony Orchestras of capitals of socialist countries, attended by ensembles from Berlin, Sophia, Prague, Moscow, Budapest, and Warsaw. The most outstanding international soloists visiting the National Philharmonic that year were Mieczysław Horszowski, Dang Thai Son, and – during the Warsaw Autumn – Sviatoslav Richter with Yuri Bashmet. Finally, the group of luminaries of world music visiting Warsaw that year included Yehudi Menuhin.

Culture in Warsaw in 1984

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Yehudi Menuhin and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, the National Philhar monic, Wa r s a w, 28 A pril 1984

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Birth and the Parents

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Po s t e r fo r c on c e r t a t the National Philhar monic, War sa w, 28 A pril 1984

Birth and the Parents The legendary violinist, at that time also often performing as a conductor, came to Warsaw (and Krakow) for four concerts with a similar program with Jerzy Maksymiuk’s Polish Chamber Orchestra he had already known well. The string section of over twenty musicians was because of the concerts extended by twelve musicians playing wind instruments, selected in a national competition. The first of the four concerts, held on 27 April in the crowded National Philharmonic, was later described by Józef Kaƒski as follows: I have not heard in a long time such an intriguing and so powerfully dramatic interpretation of Bartók’s Divertimento. Equally beautiful was Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, not too often performed here, and even more charming was Mozart’s Haffner Symphony, which Yehudi Menuhin conducted with unique imaginativeness and charm, attaining with the Polish Chamber Orchestra a softness of sound that even this otherwise 1 perfect ensemble rarely executes.n

Birth and the Parents

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The concerts with Menuhin took place at a very difficult moment in the twelve-year history of the Polish Chamber Orchestra, when the future of the ensemble was at stake. Its founder and charismatic leader, conductor Jerzy Maksymiuk, wanted to pursue new career avenues and after some hesitation decided to accept the directorship of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow. He no longer had time and enthusiasm for regular work with the Polish Chamber Orchestra. He was in two minds, trying to choose between the dissolution of the orchestra and a periodic continuation of its operation during his stays in Poland. In the meantime, Franciszek Wybraƒczyk, deputy artistic director of the orchestra and a music manager greatly devoted to it, was determined to assure a permanent, steady operation and development of the ensemble. As he later recalled, there were two ways out, either to downscale the orchestra, play without a conductor and limit the repertoire to Baroque and few Classical compositions, or to enlarge it, extend the repertoire and employ guest conductors (he had also thought of the name for such an orchestra – Sinfonia Varsovia). Unexpectedly, Menuhin’s arrival helped to solve the dilemma. Before the artist left Warsaw, the two gentlemen talked for a short time and the conversation was pregnant in consequences. In a later interview with Anna Grzejewska, Wybraƒczyk accounted for the conversation as follows:

1

Józef Kaƒski, ‘Menuhin drugi raz w Polsce’, Ruch Muzyczny 1984, No. 12, p. 18.

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Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, the National Philhar monic, Wa r s a w 1979

I said to the violinist, whom we were saying our goodbyes to at the airport: ‘The orchestra you conducted is usually smaller, we extended it for the duration of your stay here’.

He was surprised why an orchestra in its present composition should not be able to continue working. ‘Because it has no conductor’, I replied. ‘And what about me?’, he asked.

‘Would you like to conduct it?’, I could not possibly say anything else at that moment apart from that kind remark. When I heard his ‘Naturally’, without much ado I produced a sheet of paper and wrote: ‘Sinfonia Varsovia Principal Guest Conductor Yehudi 2 Menuhin, April 30, 1984’. And he signed it.n Waldemar Dàbrowski, director of the Studio Arts Centre, to which the Polish Chamber Orchestra was at that time affiliated, recalls this a bit differently. The idea that Menuhin could be the principal guest conductor of the orchestra was not originally the violinist’s idea but Wybraƒczyk’s, as the latter had talked about it earlier with Dàbrowski himself. In turn, years later Menuhin described it in the 1996 revised and updated edition of his famous book Unfinished Journey as follows:

Birth and the Parents

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Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, the National Philhar monic, Wa r s a w, ca. 1983

Finally there was a day when the orchestra, now under the name Sinfonia Varsovia, invited me to Warsaw for the inauguration of season 1984. On this occasion the composition of the chamber orchestra was extended and when I heard them play, I was very much tempted to accept the offer of its indefatigable director, Franciszek Wybraƒczyk, and to become its permanent conductor. This was a great temptation. However, if I had accepted the position of the orchestra’s conductor, I would have been tied up for the better part of the season and would have had to give up other avocations and obligations I had been involved with and which had become too numerous to allow me to devote my time to only one organisation. All the same, I accepted the much-honoured title of the principal guest con3 ductor of the orchestra.n

2

3

Anna Grzejewska, Ten wariat Maksymiuk..., Białystok: Twoja Ksià˝ka, 1994, p. 86.

Yehudi Menuhin, Niedokoƒczona podró˝: DwadzieÊcia lat póêniej [Polish trans., Unfinished Journey: Twenty Years Later,

by Rafał Âmietana], Warsaw: Felberg, 2003, p. 414.

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Jerzy Maksymiuk, 1979

Maksymiuk’s Orchestra Birth and the Parents

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Birth and the Parents

Maksymiuk’s Orchestra The phenomenon of the Polish Chamber Orchestra was indispensable for the emergence of the phenomenon of Sinfonia Varsovia. The level attained and retained by Maksymiuk’s orchestra facilitated the later accomplishments of its successor and continuator. In 1994, the inheritance of this tradition was defined by Jerzy Klocek as follows: What we learned when working with Maksymiuk is extremely constructive for the presentday Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, which includes a whole group of former Polish Chamber Orchestra musicians. ... The old guard of well-trained commandos ready for action sits at the first stands of Sinfonia Varsovia. The new orchestra members must adapt to our 4 way of performing.n Sinfonia’s predecessor and ‘parent’ grew within the Warsaw Chamber Opera, the other local opera theatre apart from Grand Theatre. The Chamber Opera was set up (first as the Chamber Hall of the National Philharmonic) by Stefan Sutkowski still in 1961. In the early 1970s Sutkowski toyed with an idea of establishing a new small opera orchestra within the institution he led, and invited as the conductor a thirty-odd-year old Jerzy Maksymiuk (born in 1936 in Grodno). Maksymiuk was a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw (with three diplomas, in composition under Piotr Perkowski, in piano under Jerzy Lefeld and in conducting under Bogusław Madey). He had also won a number of competitions, such as the National Paderewski Piano Competition in Bydgoszcz and the National Competition for Improvisers in Katowice. As a composer, he had authored over ten works for the orchestra, choir, and chamber ensembles as well as written music for a few dozen cinema and television films (including feature movies, e.g. Black Wings and Copernicus by Ewa and Czesław Petelscy). He had worked for two years as a conductor in Warsaw’s Grand Theatre, where he had run the world premieres of ballets by Zbigniew Bargielski and Bernadetta Matuszczak and of his own ballet Metaphrases.

Maksymiuk started to work with a vengeance. This bore fruit in the autonomy of the new ensemble which, assuming in 1973 the name ‘Polish Chamber Orchestra’, gradually began to concentrate on independent performances. Let us admit right away that in time this led to the emancipation of the orchestra from the Warsaw Chamber Opera. Since early 1979, the Polish Chamber Orchestra operated within Stołeczna Estrada – Cultural Institution of the Capital City of Warsaw and ultimately, in September 1982, became part of the Studio Arts Centre (Theatre-Gallery). Since May 1982, after the departure of the great Józef Szajna, the Studio was run by the aforementioned Waldemar Dàbrowski, who transformed it into an artistic combine of theatre, visual arts and music, a unique place in Warsaw. The technical requirements expected by Maksymiuk of his musicians were extremely stringent and the work methods he started to employ bordered on forced labour. The orchestra’s artists of that time recalled later: ‘We were simply trained by him. After over ten hours of travelling by bus, we checked into a hotel and all at once everybody took out their instruments and practised in rooms, because he would walk down the lobby and listen in’ (Ewa Mysiƒska). ‘He was once able to devote one whole rehearsal to practising two bars, and on another occasion we worked for four hours on eight bars’ (Andrzej Mysiƒski). Maksymiuk unscrupulously dismissed musicians who were not able to meet his expectations. Before long, however, the results of the superhuman efforts became obvious: ‘At one moment, the hard work was offset by the pleasure of playing and a unique air of performing many concerts, when often

4

Anna Grzejewska, Ten wariat Maksymiuk..., pp. 57–58.

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Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, ca. 1976

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Pos t e r

Jerzy Maksymiuk, Polish Chamber Orc hestra , de s i gn by Waldemar Âwierzy, 1982

Maksymiuk’s Orchestra Birth and the Parents

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we as performers got the shivers’ (Grzegorz Kozłowski). ‘We ultimately reached a level 5 of instrumental play which no other ensemble had’ (Władysław Kłosiewicz).n The new orchestra became famous after the memorable performance of Adam Jarz´bski’s Tamburetta at the National Philharmonic in 1973. Ever since, the orchestra began to gradually win the recognition of critics and the public, both domestically and abroad.

Maksymiuk himself saw one of the 1975 concerts as a watershed. In a review Janusz Ekiert described it as follows: ‘A new quality, a new world of sounds, and a sensational 6 The performing style execution usher in a new era, a new understanding of perfection.’n of the Polish Chamber Orchestra was summed up by Adam Neuer: Maksymiuk imposed on the ensemble a new sound aesthetics of the orchestra; he made the group of second violins and violas more vivid, broke stereotypes in the manner of articulating sound, developing a phrase, and dynamics, while the prestos reached the absolute limits of human capabilities ...; at the same time he enriched the character of sound ... of

T he Polish Chamber Orc hestra du r i n g B a c h ' s B ra n de n bu rg C on c e r t os a n d H aydn s y m ph on i e s re c ordi n g s e s s i on s, EMI Abbey Road Studios, London, 17-26 Jul y 1978

5

Ibid., pp. 25, 33, 49, 55.

6

Quoted from: Jerzy Maksymiuk, Maksymiuk na Maksa, Ewa Piasecka (ed.), Izabelin: Âwiat Literacki, 2002, p. 36.

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Sinfonia Var sovia, the Palace of Culture and Science, Wa r s a w, ca. 1984

Sinfonia Var sovia, t h e S t u di o A r ts C e n tre (t h e Pa l a c e of C u l tu re a n d Science), Wa r s a w, ca. 1984

Maksymiuk’s Orchestra Birth and the Parents

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Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, the National Philhar monic, Wa r sa w 1975

the ensemble and extended the emotional 7 zone of a work’s interpretation.n

Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, 1981

In 1977 Maksymiuk’s ensemble received the Orpheus Award for the best performance of a work by a Polish composer (Zbigniew Bujarski’s Musica Domestica) during the Warsaw Autumn, the Festival the orchestra took part in numerous times. That year the orchestra had its first international tour. Its success, especially in the United Kingdom, led to a contract for recordings with EMI. In 1979 the Polish Chamber Orchestra first performed in Carnegie Hall, and in 1981 had another great tour of Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Germany. The reviews called it ‘a master ensemble’ (Die Presse), ‘a true gem’ (Die Welt), and pointed to its ‘characteristic virtuoso play and expressive power’ (The Daily Telegraph). Recordings made at that time included works by Vivaldi, with The Four Seasons, Tartini, Haydn, Mozart, Rossini, and

by Polish composers – Jarz´bski, Janiewicz, Bacewicz, Baird, Lutosławski, and Górecki. In 1984, immediately after the aforementioned concert with Menuhin, the Polish Chamber Orchestra had a concert tour in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, subsequently visited Germany and Switzerland, and finally took part in the Polish Cultural Festival in the Soviet Union, performing in Moscow (a hall of the Gniesin Institute) and Leningrad. Olga Levtonova, a famous musical critic, wrote then that ‘the mastery of the ensemble makes an impression even in comparison with the best contemporary orchestras; at times it feels there is only one soloist, precisely recreating not only the characteristic sound idiom of a particular kind of music, but also the 8 Grigori Zhyslin observed that entire atmosphere of the era it was written in.’ n 9 When Maksymiuk’s orchestra is ‘the best chamber ensemble in the world.’ n Maksymiuk moved to Glasgow and the Polish Chamber Orchestra was transformed into Sinfonia Varsovia, contacts between the conductor and the ensemble did not cease, of which later.

7

Adam Neuer, ‘Maksymiuk Jerzy’, in El˝bieta Dzi´bowska (ed.), Encyklopedia muzyczna PWM: Cz´Êç biograficzna, [vol. 6], Krakow: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 2000, p. 43.

8

Olga Levtonova, ‘Dni polskoj kultury v SSSR’, Sovetska muzyka 1984, No. 9, p. 100.

9

Grigori Zhyslin, statement published in Przyjaêƒ 1984, No. 18, p. 4.

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Fra n ci s ze k W yb ra ƒ c z y k

Wybraƒczyk Birth and the Parents

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Birth and the Parents

Wybraƒczyk

Fra n c i s ze k W ybraƒczyk, Gran Canaria 1992

Since 1975, Maksymiuk was able to use the assistance of Franciszek Wybraƒczyk in everything that concerned the everyday functioning of the orchestra. Two years Maksymiuk’s senior, the clarinet player Wybraƒczyk, for many years a musician of the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra in Warsaw, came to the Polish Chamber Orchestra directly from a seven-year contract in Beirut, where he played in the local orchestra and taught in the conservatory, honing his knowledge of foreign languages and studying the intricacies of the operation of the music market. Employed by Sutkowski as the orchestra’s speaker, he was soon promoted to deputy director. Wybraƒczyk’s merit lay in the introduction of necessary order and good logistics into an ensemble that worked hard and travelled a lot. He set out the principles of work ethics and organisation of the orchestra in the regulations, later known as the ‘Constitution’. The document defined in great detail the requirements and expectations of all the members of the orchestra, starting with all that concerned the instruments, music scores, stands, and clothes through work discipline, including in particular the requirement of absolute punctuality; tardiness and other misdemeanours were punished in the regulations with penalties paid to a joint pool. Resistant at first, the musicians quickly accepted the requirements and got used to them, subjecting to them to the degree they had previously subjected themselves to the director’s work methods. This is how Maksymiuk recalled later his cooperation with Wybraƒczyk: His unsurpassed logistical inventiveness and intuitive gift of controlling the ensemble consolidated what seemed at any time prone to shatter into outstanding individualities, just like the colours of the kaleidoscope can shatter into varicoloured crystals. What remained 10 is the memory of great concerts, countries, images.n After Maksymiuk’s departure and the establishment of Sinfonia Varsovia, encouraged by Dàbrowski, Wybraƒczyk accepted the position of its director and artistic manager, adding to his previous obligations also the care of the artistic level, the selection of conductors and soloists and the organisation of tours. Jan Krenz summed up Wybraƒczyk’s work as follows: ‘His activity concerned everything related to the orchestra ...; he demanded much from the musicians but at the same time was as a fa11 ther, friend and patron.’n In 2001 Wybraƒczyk put forward an idea for, set up and led the annual Festival Sinfonia Varsovia for Its City. When he retired in 2003, the ensemble made him their honorary director. He died on 31 May 2006; those who paid their last respects to him in the Warsaw Powàzki Cemetery (where he is buried next to Jerzy Grzegorzewski) knew that he had played a unique role in Polish music.

10

Jerzy Maksymiuk, statement published in the programme for a concert given in the National Philharmonic on 19th April 2004.

11

Jan Krenz, ‘O Franciszku Wybraƒczyku wspomnienie poÊmiertne’, Ruch Muzyczny 2006, No. 18, p. 4.

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Pos t e r

Yehudi Menuhin, Polish Chamber Orc hestra , de s i gn by Waldemar Ă‚wierzy, 1984

Menuhin Birth and the Parents

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Yehudi Menuhin, Wa r s a w 1984

Birth and the Parents

Menuhin When in 1984 Yehudi Menuhin made a decision to accept the honour of the principal guest conductor, thus determining the establishment of Sinfonia Varsovia, he had for years been regarded as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century and his name had already been a legend. Nearly seventy years of age (born into a family of Russian Jews in New York in 1916), he had enraptured audiences for six decades, as his first public performance took place when he was barely seven, and he first played with an orchestra (in Lalo’s Spanish Symphony) only two years later. 1927 saw his debut in Carnegie Hall (with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto), and the next year he made his first records, after which he quickly became one of the most frequently recorded musicians of his time. In 1929 during one evening in Berlin, under the baton of Bruno Walter he played three violin concertos, Bach’s, Beethoven’s and Brahms’. In 1932 he performed and recorded Elgar’s Violin Concerto under the baton of the seventy-five-year old composer. Menuhin’s performances were sensational and the reception of his interpretations was nearly frenetic. According to some, he would never again reach the level of performance of that time. During the Second World War he gave over five hundred concerts for the Allied Forces. After the war he was the first musician to perform as a soloist in the Paris Opera and also the first Jewish artist to play under Wilhelm Furtwängler, accused of collaborating with the Nazis. In the course of time, the artist developed problems with his right hand and experienced mental crises, which he nevertheless bravely managed to overcome. At that time he became fascinated with Indian culture, which led, e.g. to joint concerts and recordings with a virtuoso of the sitar, Ravi Shankar. Apart from recognised masterpieces of violin literature, Menuhin performed less famous or forgotten works (e.g. he was the first performer of Mendelssohn’s Concerto in D Major, which the composer wrote in his youth and which Menuhin unearthed).

In addition, he willingly played contemporary music, including works dedicated to him by Bartók (Sonata for Solo Violin), Walton and Panufnik (Violin Concerto). This is how Janusz Ł´towski wrote about his recordings in the early 1980s:

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Yehudi Menuhin, War sa w 1984

Menuhin Birth and the Parents

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Yehudi Menuhin, Jerzy Maksymiuk and the Polish Chamber Orc hestra visting Pope John Paul II, Castel Gandolfo 1983

Menuhin’s performance is not so much thrilling as it is convincing. His interpretations on records usually gain with each successive listening; they are meticulously constructed, 12 consistent, chiselled, there being nothing accidental or slick there.n

Pope John Paul II after a concer t by the Polish Chamber Orc hestra, from the left: Fra n c i s ze k W y bra ƒ c z y k

In time, apart from performing and recording, Menuhin embarked on other music-related projects. In the Swiss town of Gstaad where he settled in the mid-1950s (he had a second home in London), he organised an annual music festival in 1956; for a time he was also a director of festivals in Bath and Windsor. In 1963 he set up a school for children with exceptional music abilities from different countries in Stoke d’Abernon near London; the school was patterned on the Moscow Central School of Music. He also set up a competition of string quartets and a contest for young violinists of his name. In 1979 he held workshops with seventeen thousand violinists in China. In the period 1969– –1975 he was president of the UNESCO International Music Council. He combined an authority in music with a moral one, as a humanist and philanthropist, speaking out for national minorities and human rights. In 1977 he founded an association which organised concerts of young musicians in hospitals, prisons, and schools for special ability students, and defended persecuted men of culture, e.g. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Mstislav Rostropovich and the Argentine pianist Miguel Angelo Estrella.

Since 1947, parallel with his concerts as a violinist, he worked as a conductor. His first performance in this capacity was a concert with Dallas Symphony Orchestra; twelve years later he founded the Bath Festival Orchestra, with which he made nearly one hundred recordings. In 1966 he made a debut as an opera conductor in Così fan tutte, and in subsequent three decades conducted in Germany and Austria all of Mozart’s mature operas except Le nozze di Figaro. When he started his permanent cooperation with Sinfonia Varsovia, he had also been the director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Menuhin the conductor never reached the level and fame of Menuhin the violinist, but was nevertheless an absolutely professional conductor of an unquestionable authority.

He was conversant with Polish music since childhood. Already during his second public performance he played Paderewski’s Minuet; his early repertoire included also works

by Wieniawski. In 1957 he paid his first visit to Poland as an artist, playing solo in the National Philharmonic Bach’s Sonata in C Major and Partita in D Minor and Bartók’s Sonata (even if his Bach was far from ideal at that time), and then Beethoven’s and Brahms’ concertos with an orchestra. In 1983, his festival in Gstaad was attended once again by the Polish Chamber Orchestra, with whom he had recorded two LPs as a violinist; when later, together with the orchestra he was on his way to Castel Gandolfo to perform for John Paul II, Wybraƒczyk encouraged him to come to Poland once again, this time also as a conductor. And this is how the memorable concerts in late April the following year originated...

a n d J e r z y Ma k s y m i u k w i t h h i s w i fe, Castel Gandolfo, 7 A ugust 1983

12

Janusz Ł´towski, Magia czarnego krà˝ka: ABC kolekcjonera płyt, Krakow: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1981, p. 160.

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Down the Years

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Fra n c i s ze k

Wal d emar

W y b ra ƒ c z y k

Dà b ro wski

Down the Years The development of a new orchestra, the third symphony ensemble in Warsaw aside from the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra, was naturally a long-term process. The name ‘Sinfonia Varsovia’ did not come into circulation right from the start; officially the orchestra first performed under this name in the autumn of 1985. Still, performing from time to time as a chamber ensemble, they have used the name ‘Polish Chamber Orchestra’ until now. Occasionally, Sinfonia Varsovia has performed as the Menuhin Festival Orchestra or the Penderecki Festival Orchestra.

The creation of conditions conducive for the work and development of the new ensemble would not have been possible but for the indefatigable efforts of the directors of the Studio Arts Centre led by Waldemar Dàbrowski, who had previously been instrumental in the Centre’s taking over Sinfonia’s predecessor. In his efforts Dàbrowski successfully sought the support of the Culture and Arts Department of the Capital City of Warsaw Municipal Office headed by Edward Krasowski. At that time this Office directly supervised the Centre’s activity. Within a relatively short time Dàbrowski managed to obtain from relevant authorities permission for setting up a separate foreign relations division within the Centre, with an in-house storage of passports, which facilitated immensely the organisation of the ensemble’s international tours.

At the moment of its birth, Sinfonia Varsovia employed twenty-one musicians, former members of the Polish Chamber Orchestra – thirteen violinists, three violists, three cellists and two bassists. Two and a half years later, at the close of 1986, its staff included thirty-two artists, and two years later, at the end of 1988 there were thirtyseven musicians. The number of musicians resembling the current representation was

Down the Years

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Krzysztof

Jan u sz

Ko sm a l a

Mar ynowski

reached already at the end of 1993, with forty-eight full-time instrumentalists.

Employment of new orchestra members was always by means of a competition.

In 1990, after the departure of Waldemar Dàbrowski, appointed President of the Board of the Cinematography Committee, the Studio Arts Centre (since 1985 named after Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz) was directed by Jerzy Grzegorzewski. After his appointment as the head of the drama stage of the National Theatre, the Centre was directed in 1997 by the longstanding deputy director, an experienced promoter of culture, Krzysztof Kosmala, who was able to efficiently combine the care of the existence of the ensemble with a respect of its artistic autonomy. In 1998, the Studio Arts Centre became an institution of culture supervised by the government of the newly established province of Mazovia; this state of affairs continued until the end of 2004.

All these years Wybraƒczyk was supported in running the orchestra by his assistants or heads of the music division of the Centre; these were, in succession, Hanna Kozłowska, Maria Karwowska, Mariusz Stowpiec, Teresa Staniszewska, Janusz Czy˝ewski, and Wojciech ŁygaÊ. In 2000 Wybraƒczyk established the Sinfonia Varsovia Foundation, which works for the benefit of the orchestra, organises and finances concerts, festivals, recordings, and competitions for master classes, as well as provides scholarships for young instrumentalists. In 2005 the Foundation was granted the status of a public benefit organisation.

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Down the Years Sinfonia Var sovia, the Lutosła wski

The Image

C o n ce r t S tu di o of Polish Radio, Wa r s a w, ca. 1999

The Image Down the Years

From the very beginning Sinfonia Varsovia has occupied an exceptional place among Polish symphony ensembles. Without the burden of artistic and educational obligations for a particular community or target audience, under no obligation to give regular concerts in a permanent seat, it was able to freely develop it artistic image, repertoire and geography of its performances, naturally taking into account the expectations of the organisers of its audiences. Sinfonia took advantage of this substantial degree of freedom and autonomy perfectly well, becoming the most versatile and mobile Polish symphony orchestra, able to take up virtually any artistic challenge all over the world. The outstanding skills inherited from its predecessor, which it developed and honed throughout the years, have quickly made it a true hallmark of Polish performance music, recognised and admired in a few dozen countries in nearly all continents. This, in turn, created a unique opportunity for efficiently promoting Polish composers, especially twentieth-century ones, in concert halls all over the world.

The exceptional character of Sinfonia Varsovia in the world of music in Poland and abroad is likewise determined by the fact that since its inception it developed without a

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Sinfonia Var sovia, A u ditorium of the Adam Mic kiewicz Uni ver sity, Poz n aĆ’ 1988

permanent conductor-director, even if it has had full-time conductors (albeit for a short time), principal guest conductors, and music and artistic directors. Sinfonia has become used to work with conductors of different nations and schools, to draw inspiration and experience from contacts with a possibly large range of conductorsindividualities (even the most eminent ones did not evade these contacts).

Besides, every now and then, especially after its birth and especially as a chamber ensemble, Sinfonia has played without a conductor, and sometimes the instrumental concerts were led by its own concertmasters performing as soloists.

Sinfonia Var sovia, the National Philhar monic, War sa w 1989

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Ye h u d i Menuhin

Menuhin’s Era Down the Years

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Yehudi Menuhin, Wa r s a w 1984

Down the Years

Menuhin’s Era The close cooperation of Sinfonia Varsovia and its first principal guest conductor, Yehudi Menuhin, continued for one and a half decades, until the death of the great musician during a tour with his ensemble in Germany, of complications after bronchitis. Within the fifteen years until the sad day of 12 March 1999, Menuhin conducted Sinfonia, mainly in a classical and Romantic repertoire, three hundred and eleven times; nearly half of the performances (one hundred and forty-six) took place in three years 1996– –1998. During forty-nine of the over three hundred concerts with his orchestra, he simultaneously played as a solo violinist violinist (in 1984 and in the period 1987– –1988).

According to Anna Skrzyƒska, especially memorable concerts of Menuhin and Sinfonia in Poland included those in the S1 Studio of Polish Radio in Warsaw: in January 1993 (the program included works by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven), in April 1996 to commemorate the artist’s 80th birthday (Beethoven’s and Brahms’ works) and in January 1997 (when apart from Schubert’s Unfinished and Great Symphonies they played Marta Ptaszyƒska’s Concerto Grosso for Two Violins and Orchestra, a world premiere of a work 13 Among Menuhin’s numerous international tours with Sinfonia dedicated to Menuhin).n there were large ones, as that including thirty-two concerts in Italy, United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, United States, and Canada in January and February of 1987, crowned by a performance in Carnegie Hall, where our musicians played e.g. Gra˝yna Bacewicz’s Concerto for String Orchestra. Other special events with Menuhin and his ensemble included a concert during the Schlezwig-Holstein Music Festival in August

13

See Anna Skrzyƒska, ‘Menuhin Yehudi’, in El˝bieta Dzi´bowska (ed.), p. 185.

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Yehudi Menuhin's t h a n k you n ot e t o t h e m u s i c i a n s of S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a after the recording of Fra n z S c h u be r t ' s c om pl e t e s y m ph on i e s for the G .I.B. Music record la bel, War sa w, Hotel Bristol, 29 Januar y 1997

1993 in Flensburg, a premiere of another version of Ptaszyƒska’s Holocaust Memorial Cantata, arranged by the composer for the orchestra and extended with fragments written for Menuhin’s text; this work was later performed in Warsaw. As a conductor, Menuhin and Sinfonia recorded close to twenty records, among others all of Beethoven’s and Schubert’s symphonies. The 1994 recording of a Beethoven symphony in Strasbourg was filmed in a documentary movie available on DVD. In 1991 the legendary musician described his relations with the orchestra and evaluated it as follows: Work with no other orchestra has given me as much satisfaction as my work, as conductor and soloist, with the Sinfonia Varsovia. I can say with full conviction that for many years of working together with this orchestra, the many recordings we have made together, the numerous concerts we have played, spanning a vast repertoire of classical and contemporary music, it has always maintained the highest levels of performance. Musicians have never started a rehearsal ill-prepared. They have always been full of enthusiasm, involved in their work with precision and elegance. Music is their way of life. Such an approach is a real delight for the audience. I congratulate the musicians and their magnificent manager Mr Franciszek Wybraƒczyk for their achievements, unparalleled in 14 the history of music-making as a company.n Moreover, in the aforementioned second edition of his Unfinished Journey Menuhin observed: It is with genuine joy that I tried to spend as much time as possible with Sinfonia Varsovia, deriving great satisfaction from our joint performances. The musicians of the orchestra Menuhin’s Era Down the Years

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Ewa – Ewa Wasiółka, a cellist in Sinfonia Varsovia.

Eleanor – Eleanor Hope, Yehudi Menuhin’s agent. the tour – a series of concerts in Germany which began on 1 March 1999 (Frankfurt, Munich, Mannheim, Cologne, Duisburg, Wuppertal, Düsseldorf). The eighth concert was to take place on 9 March in the Berlin Philharmonie, but was cancelled due to Yehudi Menuhin’s sudden illness. It was decided to postpone the other concerts.

Yehudi Menuhin's l ast l etter to th e mu si ci an s o f Sinfonia Var sovia, written in London on 11 Marc h 1999, o n e d ay b efo re h i s de a t h

take pride in being always perfectly well prepared. Their ear for music and technical perfection allow them to play in any tempi with understanding and expressiveness. The conductor can only model and develop this pliable material. They do not squander time or forget, since even after a few months’ break you can start working from the note you 15 finished with during the last rehearsal.n Menuhin had an impact on Sinfonia Varsovia not exclusively as a conductor, but first and foremost as a charismatic artistic personality and a great moral authority. His privileged position in the international music life, and not only in the area of music, was reflected also in the position of the orchestra he conducted; the contacts he had and placed at the ensemble’s disposal led to ever new and more attractive concert invitations. Polish artists paid their last respects to him as to someone who, as Kaja Danczowska defined 16 In the history of Sinfonia it, ‘was unique and irreplaceable, and his art united nations.’n Varsovia the fifteen-year period of cooperation with the artist can safely be called ‘Menuhin’s era’.

14

Yehudi Menuhin, ‘O orkiestrze Sinfonia Varsovia, 29 sierpnia 1991’, Studio 1992, No. 1, p. 8.

15

Yehudi Menuhin, Niedokoƒczona podró˝, p. 415.

16

Kaja Danczowska, statement published in Gazeta Wyborcza, 13–14 March 1999.

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Pos t e r

Krzysztof Penderec ki, Sinfonia Var sovia Wor ld Tour , de s i gn by Waldemar Ă‚wierzy, 1990

Penderecki Down the Years

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Krzysztof Penderec ki, A r ti stic Director of the Sinfonia Var sovia Orc hestra du r i ng rehear sal at the National Philhar monic, War sa w, Se ptember 2007

Down the Years

Penderecki Still during Menuhin’s lifetime Sinfonia Varsovia decided to establish a position of a permanent music director, offered in 1997 to Krzysztof Penderecki. Penderecki, already a giant of international music, extremely influential in the latter half of the 20th century, apart from a large and significant set of compositions (some figures: around twenty works for an orchestra and over a dozen for a solo instrument with an orchestra, over ten monumental vocal and instrumental works, four operas), had had over twenty-five years of experience as a conductor. He debuted as a conductor in 1971 in Donaueschingen, initially leading the performance of his own compositions. Later he extended the group of works he conducted to include works by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartók, Dvorˇák, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven. He performed with the most renowned orchestras of the world, being also the principal guest conductor of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Orchester in Hamburg. His background included also fifteen years as rector of the State Higher School of Music in Krakow and three years as artistic director of the Krakow Philharmonic. As Menuhin once, Penderecki, over sixty by that time, started

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Concer t poster from the Krakow State Philhar monic, 23 Se ptember 1998

permanent and formal cooperation with Sinfonia in September 1997. As Menuhin, he was at the height of fame. As Menuhin, too, he did not confine himself to music exclusively, often engaging himself in all sorts of extra-artistic projects (even if not to the extent the violinist did). Finally, as in the case of Menuhin, his great international fame and acclaim derived from an area of activity different from the one he embarked on in Sinfonia.

The orchestra knew well his oeuvre and manner of conducting. While they played the first work by the composer relatively late, in November 1989 (Viola Concerto performed with Grigori Zhyslin as a soloist under the directorship of Jerzy Swoboda), later their contacts developed fast and were extremely interesting. The first performance of Sinfonia with Penderecki as the conductor took place as early as February 1990 in Poznaƒ, followed in the same month by their first international tour of seven countries in Western Europe. Until Penderecki accepted the position of the permanent director in Sinfonia, he had led an ensemble playing his and others’ compositions as many as ninetyfive times. Later, until the orchestra celebrated its 25th anniversary, he had another one hundred and thirty-two concerts with it; since July 2003 he has been its artistic director. Penderecki’s greatest achievements in work with Sinfonia are linked in large measure with performances of model interpretations of his own oeuvre. As in the case of Menuhin, Penderecki’s fame and splendour are reflected in the orchestra, strengthening its status and acclaim and helping acquire new eminent collaborators.

At the threshold of the 21st century, for a short spell (2001–2003) Menuhin as the principal guest conductor of Sinfonia was succeeded by José Cura, born in 1962 in Argentina, known first of all as a great lyrical tenor, a soloist of the Covent Garden and La Scala, even if his career as a conductor began fifteen years earlier than his singing career. For the duration of this cooperation, Cura performed ten concerts with Sinfonia. In September 2002 the position of the artistic manager of Sinfonia’s chamber ensemble was entrusted to a former student of Menuhin’s school in Stoke d’Abernon, a protégé of the great artist (who paid his tuition), Nigel Kennedy. Born in 1956, through his domicile and family life tied among others with Poland, he is a renowned British violinist, popular also due to his non-standard repertoire, including classical music, jazz and rock. His records have for years been extremely popular. For instance,

Penderecki Down the Years

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N i gel Kenned y

Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons recorded by him were entered into The Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling album of classical music of all times (over two million copies!). He was also highly appreciated for records with violin concertos by Elgar, Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, and others. Kennedy directed Sinfonia’s chamber ensemble until 2008.

During this period, as a conductor (and violinist at the same time) he performed with the ensemble as many as sixty-three times (and as a soloist – starting from 2000 – he played with it ninety-three times).

Concer t poster from the National Philharmonic, Wa r s a w, 30 Se ptember 2002

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The Musicians

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The Musicians In general, during the first twenty-five years of Sinfonia, one hundred and eighteen instrumentalists worked full-time with the ensemble from a few months through the entire period. At the close of the twenty-fifth year of work, in April 2009 the orchestra employed fifty-five artists – twelve in the group of first violinists, eight in the group of second violinists, seven violists, six cellists, four bassists, two flute players, two oboists, three clarinettists, two bassoon players, two trumpeters, three horn players, three trombonists, and one timpani player. Nine of the musicians were former members of the Polish Chamber Orchestra, playing there from a few to ten years. Two others were admitted to the ensemble in the second half of 1984. All in all, as many as eleven of them have every right to celebrate all of Sinfonia’s anniversaries as their own. Eleven other present-day members of the orchestra began their full-time employment in it within the first five years of the establishment of the ensemble, no later than in April 1989. On the day of Sinfonia’s 25th birthday, as many as twentytwo of its musicians, forty per cent of the composition, had played in it for at least two decades.

Out of the nine musicians who at one time contributed to the fame of Maksymiuk’s orchestra, the senior of seniors was the violinist Grzegorz Kozłowski, an artist who started work in the Polish Chamber Orchestra on 1 September 1973. Kozłowski, a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw and Henryk Palulis’ class of 1975, was a member of the second violin section. He was often been entrusted with major functions, being in charge of the archives and later of the music library. The second in seniority of work in both orchestras was the violinist Andrzej Staniewicz, who joined the Polish Chamber Orchestra in 1974. Staniewicz was likewise a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw, which he completed as a student of Zenon Brzewski; he was a member of the first violinists in Sinfonia and has performed with the orchestra over ten times as a soloist (we record such performance if Sinfonia’s artists have had at least ten of them). Three years after Staniewicz the Polish Chamber Orchestra was joined by the violinist Paweł Gadzina, currently a member of the second violins section, also a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw, which he completed as a student of Zenon Bàkowski. Staniewicz and Gadzina were also for a time Sinfonia’s orchestra speakers. In 1979 the cellists Jerzy Klocek and Ewa Wasiółka joined the ensemble. Klocek, a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Krakow in Józef Mikulski’s class, was initially a soloist and concertmaster of the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra in Krakow (1965–1979), cooperated with the Masterplayers Orchestra in Lugano; at one time he co-founded famous chamber ensembles: Baroque Trio (with El˝bieta Stefaƒska and Barbara Âwiàtek), Wawel Trio (with Kaja Danczowska and Jerzy Łukowicz), Polish Trio (with Wanda Wiłkomirska and Andrzej Ratusiƒski), Ensemble MW2. In Sinfonia he has since the first years of its existence he was the principal of the cello section, and since 1993 a concertmaster; he performed with the orchestra as a soloist close to sixty times. A native of Wrocław Ewa Wasiółka, a student of Zdzisław Butor, completed in 1978 the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Natalia Gutman’s class. The violinist Zbigniew Wytrykowski, a laureate of chamber music competitions in Łódê and Gdaƒsk, a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Gdaƒsk in Tadeusz Kochaƒski’s class, was later an assistant of his professor; in Gdaƒsk he led the Gdaƒsk Quartet ’67 for five years and played in the Baltic State Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, and in the years 1972–1979 worked in orchestras in Teheran

The Musicians

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and lectured in the local conservatory. Admitted to the Polish Chamber Orchestra in 1980, in Sinfonia he was for years the principal of the group of second violins. Equally long as a member of the ensemble and the head of the section has was the double-bass player Krzysztof Mróz, who apart from a diploma of the State Higher School of Music in Krakow (1977) also holds a degree in mechanical engineering (from Krakow University of Technology, 1972); a laureate of the Ciechaƒski Competition in Poznaƒ, in the 1970s a musician of the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra in Krakow, of the Krakow Opera and Operetta and of Capella Cracoviensis. The violist Włodzimierz ˚urawski, a 1976 graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Poznaƒ (where he later taught) and a laureate of the local Rakowski Competition, joined the Polish Chamber Orchestra in 1981; at that time he had worked for nine years first in the Zielona Góra Philharmonic Orchestra, and then in Poznaƒ ensembles of the Philharmonic and the Chamber Orchestra of Polish Television.

Admitted to the Polish Chamber Orchestra still in 1977, the violinist Robert Dàbrowski graduated from the State Higher School of Music in Wrocław under Krzysztof Bruczkowski and took post-graduate studies in the Moscow Conservatory under Leonid Kogan; a member of the second violin section, he had a longer break with Sinfonia (1985–1995), when he was e.g. the concertmaster of the Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw.

Of the twelve artists who in 1984 transferred from the Polish Chamber Orchestra to Sinfonia Varsovia, and in 2009 did not play in Sinfonia, the first violinist Józef Kolinek, for a longer time also the orchestra speaker, played here the longest – for over twenty years.

Slightly less, over eighteen years in all, spent here the violinists Jan Stanienda and Wiesław KwaÊny. Stanienda, a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw under Krzysztof Jakowicz, since the start of Sinfonia its concertmaster (apart from playing in the orchestra, he conducted it as many as forty times and additionally almost fifty times performed with it as a soloist, mainly in the 1980s), later he focused on leading the Wratislavia Chamber Orchestra. Wiesław KwaÊny, a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Krakow under Eugenia Umiƒska, also a concertmaster in Sinfonia (many times as a soloist – close to sixty times as a violinist and occasionally as a violist), returned later to Krakow, where he took the post of the head of the Department of Violins and Viola in the school he himself graduated from and became a concertmaster of the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra.

Two artists who joined the orchestra in 1984 are the violinists Łukasz Turcza and Anna Gotartowska; both in the group of the first violins. Turcza graduated from the State Higher School of Music in Krakow under Kaja Danczowska and before moving to Warsaw he had been for five years a concertmaster of Capella Cracoviensis; in Sinfonia also performed over ten times as a soloist. Gotartowska (Gotartowska-Sienkiewicz), a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw (diploma in 1985), still as a student set up and led the Mazovia quartet. In 1985 Sinfonia was joined by the violist Artur Paciorkiewicz, for years the principal of his section. A student of Stefan Kamasa at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw (which he completed in 1968 and where he later taught for two decades), supplemented his education in Siena and at Yale; a laureate of competitions in Geneva (viola), Vienna, Bordeaux, Munich, Warsaw, and Evian (string quartet); before joining Sinfonia, he was a soloist of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw Orchestra and a member of the Wilanów Quartet and the Varsovia Quartet.

Since 1986 the staff of Sinfonia included three musicians playing woodwinds. A former musician of the Polish Chamber Orchestra (where in 1982 Jerzy Maksymiuk began to set up a permanent, part-time woodwinds section), Dariusz Wybraƒczyk took his first clarinet lessons from his father and then graduated from the Academy of Music in Warsaw; a soloist with Sinfonia over ten times. The same school was finished in

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Bogumił Gadawski’s class by the bassoonist Wiesław Wołoszynek, a laureate of numerous national and international competitions, including the 2nd prize in Vercelli.

The first oboist of Sinfonia, Bolesław Słowik, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Wrocław under Karol Fiala, initially worked for the Sudety Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Philharmonic Orchestra; close to fifty times a soloist with Sinfonia.

Many musicians employed in 2009 by the ensemble were those of the over twentyperson group who began to work full-time in the years 1988–1989. The first horn player Paweł Szczepaƒski, also cooperating with the Polish Chamber Orchestra since 1982, studied in the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw under Jan Je˝ewski; a prize-holder of competitions in Bydgoszcz, Gdaƒsk and Warsaw, he played close to thirty times as a soloist with Sinfonia. In the second violin section there was Krystyna Walkiewicz, a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw in Zenon Brzewski’s class, with an honourable mention in a competition in Barcelona (1984), at one time a member of the Polish Orchestra Jeunesses Musicales. The violist Janusz Bie˝yƒski graduated from the Academy of Music in Łódê in Zbigniew Friemann’s class; a laureate of national competitions of chamber music held in Łódê, worked for a few years in the Łódê Chamber Orchestra ‘Pro Musica’. Another student of Jan Je˝ewski at the Academy of Music in Warsaw (1986), the horn player Roman Sykta initially played for a time in the National Philharmonic Orchestra; a laureate of national and international competitions, for a time an orchestra speaker in Sinfonia. The group of first violins included a native of Krakow Edyta Czy˝ewska, a graduate of the local Academy of Music in Wiesław KwaÊny’s class (diploma in 1990) and a laureate of an international competition of chamber music in Łódê. The cellist Piotr Krzemionka, who later continued his interest in chamber music, was also a laureate of the competition, a graduate of the local school of music, later a postgraduate student in Bern. The first clarinettist of the orchestra Aleksander Romaƒski, a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw under Ryszard Sztajerwald (1986), a laureate of many competitions (Włoszakowice, Warsaw, Bydgoszcz, Prague), since 1993 he was also active as a music manager of the Folk Dance Ensemble ‘Promni’ at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences; in 1988 was a recipient of the Stanisław Wyspiaƒski Award for Young Artists. Romaƒski played with Sinfonia over fifty times as a soloist. Sinfonia’s first bassoonist Zbigniew Płu˝ek had over thirty soloist performances with the orchestra (where for a decade he was the artistic coordinator); a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Wrocław in Stanisław Lech’s class (1974) and a laureate of many competitions (Włoszakowice, Ancona, Geneva), he was for a time employed in the Polish Chamber Orchestra; before he started working fulltime in Sinfonia, he had played in the Great Symphony Orchestra of Polish Radio and Television in Katowice and in the National Philharmonic Orchestra; then he was also a member of the Warsaw Wind Quintet ‘Da Camera’ and a professor of the University of Music in Warsaw. A member of the second violin section, Bogusław Powichrowski, a former student of Stanisław Kawalla and Franciszek Jurys at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw (1981), has worked in ensembles Con Moto Ma Cantabile, Capella Arcis Varsoviensis, Concerto Avenna, and the Warsaw Chamber Opera. The flutist Hanna Turonek, also a graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw (1989), in El˝bieta Gajewska’s class, later a lecturer in the School, a laureate of competitions in Rome, Barcelona, Duino, and Krakow, apart from working in Sinfonia gave concerts and made records as a soloist (over ten times with her orchestra), performed with ensembles Essentia Musica and Duo Estrella and specialised in playing the piccolo.

The Musicians

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The violist Grzegorz Stachurski, a former student of Zygmunt Jochemczyk at the Academy of Music in Katowice (where he later taught) and a laureate of the Rakowski Competition in Poznaƒ (1985) was an associate principal in Sinfonia. Of those admitted to the orchestra in the period 1988–1989 and no longer working here when Sinfonia turned twenty-five, the violinist Krzysztof Bzówka, the violist Dariusz Kisieliƒski and the flutist Urszula Janik, worked full-time the longest, close to or over fifteen years (Kisieliƒski returned to the orchestra in mid-2009).

Employed in Sinfonia in 1991, the violinist Artur Konowalik graduated from the Academy of Music in Warsaw under Zenon Brzewski and Mirosław Ławrynowicz; he played in the group of second violins, since 2005 he was the 1st orchestra speaker and later also an artistic coordinator. In 1992 Sinfonia was joined by the trumpeter Andrzej Tomczok and by the violinist Artur Gadzała, another former student of Zenon Brzewski at the Academy of Music in Warsaw (1990), later a lecturer at the school; in the first violin section, he had the status of an associate principal, and gave more than ten solo performances with his orchestra in his life. The three trombonists of Sinfonia have worked with it since 1993; all three were graduates of the Academy of Music in Warsaw. The first trombonist and artistic coordinator of the orchestra, Marek ˚wirdowski, a former student of Roman Siwek (diploma in 1990) and a laureate of a competition in Bydgoszcz, began his professional career in the Warsaw-based Polish Radio Orchestra; he was also a soloist and leader of the Warsaw Trombone Quartet he himself founded and lectured in the Academy of Music in Warsaw. Tomasz Âwiatczyƒski, likewise a former student of Roman Siwek, a recipient of awards in Bydgoszcz and Düsseldorf, initially collaborated with the orchestra of Grand Theatre in Warsaw Orchestra, played in the Warsaw Trombone Quartet and the Nonstrom quartet. Mariusz Opaliƒski (diploma in 1994) was the co-founder of Chamber Brass and played in the Grand Theatre in Warsaw Orchestra. Two artists from the first violin section also joined the orchestra in 1993: Katarzyna Gilewska-Zagrodziƒska, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw under Paweł Łosakiewicz (1991) and a laureate of a chamber music competition in Łódê, and Krzysztof Oczko, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Gdaƒsk under Henryk Keszkowski, later a musician of the National Philharmonic Orchestra. The timpani player, Piotr Kostrzewa, also joined Sinfonia in 1993; a graduate (where later he became a lecturer) of the Academy of Music in Warsaw, a former student of Edward Iwicki and Henryk Mikołajczyk (diploma in 1989), later played e.g. in the Grand Theatre in Warsaw Orchestra, the Camerata Academia Orchestra, Warsaw Percussion Group, a collaborator of many theatres; since 2007 he was the President of the Sinfonia Varsovia Foundation. Of over ten musicians joining the ensemble in 1993 and no longer working in Sinfonia in 2009, the violinist Anna Wybraƒczyk and the cellist Janusz Olechowski played the longest, nearly fifteen years; the latter for a time was the orchestra speaker and President of the Sinfonia Varsovia Foundation.

In 1995 Sinfonia was joined by the bassist Marek Bogacz, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Katowice in Stefan Nowak’s class, later a musician of Capella Cracoviensis and the Silesian Chamber Orchestra. One year later, the oboist Adam Szl´zak came to Sinfonia in 1996; a graduate of the Academy of Music in Katowice, a laureate of competitions in Opole, Łódê and Krakow, formerly working in the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Polish Chamber Philharmonic. Since 2000 the cellist Kamil Mysiƒski, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw in Andrzej Zieliƒski’s and Tomasz Strahl’s class was a member of the orchestra.

Moreover, in the period 1998–2004 Piotr Tarcholik was a musician with Sinfonia and was its 2nd concertmaster, over ten times performing with the orchestra as a soloist.

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Seventeen of the musicians who played in the orchestra in 2009 were admitted already in the 21st century. The first to join Sinfonia, in 2003 appointed its concertmaster, was the violinist Jakub Haufa, a graduate of Jadwiga Kaliszewska in the Academy of Music in Poznaƒ, later a lecturer of the Academy, since 2008 as a Ph.D. holder, a laureate of numerous competitions in Lublin (Serwaczyƒski competition), Poznaƒ (Jahnke competition), Łódê (chamber music), with an honourable mention at the Szymanowski International Competition in Łódê and the Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Poznaƒ (2001); Haufa played as a soloist over ten times with Sinfonia. In 2003 work in Sinfonia, at the position of an associate principal, was resumed by the cellist Katarzyna Drzewiecka (formerly playing here for a short time in the early 1990s), a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw in Kazimierz Michalik’s and Stanisław Firlej’s class, the winner of the competition in Poznaƒ and a recipient of an honourable mention in Hamburg, a member of the trio Consonare per Varsavia. In 2003 Sinfonia was joined by the violists Małgorzata Szczepaƒska, a former student of Zygmunt Jochemczyk at the Academy of Music in Katowice, a laureate of a competition in Krakow, a recipient of an honourable mention in Radziejowice, especially committed to contemporary music, and Jacek Nycz, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw in Bła˝ej Sroczyƒski’s class, later a Ph.D. student of Grigori Zhyslin in the Royal College of Music, a laureate of competitions in Poznaƒ (Rakowski competition) and London, for a time working in orchestras in Liverpool, Valladolid and Lisbon. In 2004 the ensemble was joined by the first flutist Andrzej Krzy˝anowski, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Krakow in Barbara Âwiàtek-˚elazna’s class, later a student of Jean-Claude Gérard in Stuttgart, also a laureate of a few international and domestic competitions; who was an orchestra speaker. In 2005 Sinfonia admitted its first trumpeter Jakub Waszczeniuk, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Wrocław in Igor Cecocho’s class, a laureate of a competition in Kalisz, also playing jazz and entertainment music. Since 2006 the group of first violins has included Agnieszka Zdebska, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw in Krzysztof Jakowicz’s class (1994), later cooperating with Concerto Avenna and the Grand Theatre in Warsaw Orchestra. In 2007 the first violin section admitted Magdalena Pokrzywiƒska (Krzy˝anowska), a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw in Jan Stanienda’s class (2007), with post-graduate studies under Friedemann Eichhorn in Weimar.

A large group of nine artists were admitted to Sinfonia in 2008. The clarinettist, a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw under Mirosław Pokrzywiƒski (2005)Radosław Soroka, received awards and honourable mentions at national competitions. The bassist Karol Kinal was a graduate of the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz in Piotr Kurzawa’s class (2001), later also studied in Cologne; a laureate of a few competitions in Poland and abroad, worked for some years in orchestras in Essen and Wuppertal. The horn player Henryk Kowalewicz graduated, as a student of Jan Je˝ewski, from the Academy of Music in Warsaw in 2006 (where he later taught), later took a postgraduate course in Bern; a laureate of a number of competitions (e.g. in Łódê, Gdaƒsk and Warsaw), used to play in the National Philharmonic Orchestra, and in the Warsaw Brass Trio. A diploma of the Academy of Music in Warsaw was also received – in 2004 in Ryszard Duê’s class – by the violist Michał Zaborski, a laureate of a few competitions (e.g. Poznaƒ, Porschach, Bled). The position of the principal in the double-bass section was entrusted to Michał SobuÊ, who after completing the Academy of Music in Warsaw studied in California, later playing in orchestras in the United States and Poland, working the longest in Grand Theatre in Warsaw Orchestra. The group of the first violins was joined by Maria Machowska who also performed as a 2nd concertmaster, already a student of Konstanty Andrzej Kulka at the Warsaw Academy,

The Musicians

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yet a winner of valuable laurels at international violin competitions in Lublin (Lipiƒski and Wieniawski competitions), Wrocław (Paganini competition), Augsburg and Poznaƒ (Wieniawski competitions, 2006, 5th prize). Only for a short period of time, as appeared later, Sinfonia was joined by cellist Konrad Bukowian as well as violists Maria Kominek and Paweł MaÊlanka.

All in all, in the composition of Sinfonia in the year 2009 the largest number of thirtythree musicians were graduates of the Academy of Music in Warsaw.

From 1988 until 2005 the orchestra included bassist Janusz Marynowski, for a short time simultaneously an assistant of Franciszek Wybraƒczyk, whom he succeeded in 2003. Marynowski met Wybraƒczyk nearly in his childhood – before he decided to play the double-bass, he took lessons of the clarinet from his future boss in the Szymanowski Secondary Music School in Warsaw. He became a double-bass player under the supervision of Andrzej Jekiełek (secondary music school) and then of Tadeusz Pelczar (Academy of Music in Warsaw, where he also taught for a few years); he received, e.g. an honourable mention at the Ciechaƒski Competition in Poznaƒ. Before he became assistant to the director and then director of the orchestra, he had been its orchestra speaker for a decade.

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Pos t e r for c on c e r t s i n the Lutosła wski S t u di o of Polish Radio i n Wa r s a w a n d a t the Lublin Philhar monic, 22−23 Febr uar y 2003

Concerts

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Concerts The number of two thousand six hundred and ninety-one concerts performed by Sinfonia Varsovia within the first twenty-five years of its existence, i.e. until the end of April 2009, is greatly impressive, indeed. This means that on average the musicians performed close to one hundred and ten times a year and so had at least two concerts per week. In the best years there were one hundred and thirty and more concerts annually, with a record year of 1993 with one hundred and thirty-seven concerts. In the lean years there were fewer than ninety performances (the lowest number of eighty-four in 1991). In particular periods of the orchestra’s activity, a marked and longer drop in the number of concerts was observed in the years 1999–2002 (with an average of eighty-nine concerts annually for the four-year period), which was no doubt connected with Menuhin’s death. In contrast, more recent years of the period described here were very intense (an average of one hundred and twenty-three performances annually within the period 2005–2008).

The vast majority of the nearly two thousand seven hundred concerts, for reasons discussed above, were performed abroad. Sinfonia Varsovia, an ambassador of Polish music, gave as many as two thousand eighty concerts abroad (over seventy-seven per cent of the total number), with six hundred and eleven concerts in Poland. It was also mainly abroad that the number of concerts in the years 1999–2002 declined and came close to the number of domestic concerts. In general, over the twenty-five years of Sinfonia’s activity described here, concerts in Poland were clearly on the increase; in the second half of the period there were nearly twice as many of them as in the first half.

Out of Sinfonia’s over six hundred concerts in Poland more than half, three hundred and fifty-five to be precise, took place in Warsaw. We will discuss at length these concerts later; let us now have a look at the concerts performed in Poland outside the capital city. The orchestra performed in as many as seventy-two centres, ranging from major to very small ones. Sinfonia performed relatively frequently in Poznaƒ (twenty-seven times), Wrocław (twenty-six times) and Krakow (twenty-five concerts); in Poznaƒ, among others, it performed extraordinary concerts accompanying successive editions of the Wieniawski International Violin Competition, in Wrocław it often participated in the International Festival Wratislavia Cantans, in Krakow it performed during the Easter Beethoven Festival, Festival of Polish Music and Sacrum Profanum Festival. The orchestra played fourteen times in Bydgoszcz, also during the International Festival Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis and the Bydgoszcz Music Festival. From five to ten times Sinfonia performed in Gdaƒsk, Łódê, Lublin, Białystok, Cz´stochowa, Toruƒ, D´bica, Łaƒcut, Płock, Pszczyna, and Szczecin, from two to four times in Bielsko-Biała, Cieplice, Tarnów, Busko-Zdrój, Ciechanów, Katowice, Kielce, Płoƒsk, Radom, Siedlce, Jelenia Góra, Nowy Sàcz, Mi´dzyzdroje, Mikołów, Olsztyn, Ostrów Wielkopolski, Radzymin, Wieliczka (Wieliczka Salt Mine), Zakopane, and ZamoÊç. Many of these concerts took place as part of prestigious festivals, to mention only those in Łódê (Alexander Tansman International Competition of Musical Personalities), Łaƒcut, Pszczyna (Evenings with Telemann) or Ostrów Wielkopolski (International Festival ‘Chopin in Autumn Hues’). Sometimes the concerts were part of celebrations of major non-musical events, such as the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liquidation of Litzmannstadt Ghetto in Łódê (2004). The cities and towns visited only once included, e.g. Ciechocinek, Konin, Łom˝a, Otwock, Raszyn, Sandomierz, Sanok, Wàgrowiec, Zielona Góra, and ˚yrardów. Out of the cities being currently provincial seats, Sinfonia did not play in Opole only.

Sinfonia’s concerts abroad took place most often in Western Europe. Germany was the most frequent destination of concert tours. Sinfonia played there (in both parts when Germany was

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Po s t e r fo r c on c e r t a t the Stadthalle, Kassel, 8 Febr uar y 2000

Concerts

divided and in the united German state) seven hundred and eighty-five times in over two hundred and thirty cities and towns; concerts in Germany were more numerous than those in Poland, and the number of German towns visited exceeded that in Poland over three times. The tours included both major metropolitan areas and small provincial towns.

It is precisely such a small town of Seesen in Lower Saxony at the foot of the Harz, with twenty thousand inhabitants, that has proved the place where Sinfonia played the most frequently when in Germany – thirty-four times. This place has unique musical traditions; it was there that around 1825 one Heinrich Steinweg, who later in America changed the surname into Steinway, founded his first piano factory. Munich is next in line (with thirty-two concerts) and a small town in southern Lower Saxony again, a popular spa resort Bad Pyrmont (twenty-six concerts).

These are followed by Frankfurt-am-Main, Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, and Düsseldorf – the orchestra performed over twenty times in each of these important music centres, in Berlin among others in the Philharmonic and in the Schauspielhaus. Between ten and twenty concerts were held in Stade (Lower Saxony), Bad Kissingen (Bavaria), Holzminden (Lower Saxony), Stuttgart, Würzburg, Diepholz (Lower Saxony), and Lüneburg (Lower Saxony); ten concerts in Bonn, Brema, Essen, Oberhausen, and Uelzen (Lower Saxony) each. Nearly ten concerts in, e.g. Dresden (in the Semperoper) and Duisburg. Sinfonia participated in many significant German music festivals, first and foremost in Schlezwig-Holstein (Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival), and also in Würzburg (Mozart Festival), Frankfurt-am-Main (in the Alte Oper), and in the Eberbach Abbey (Rheingau Music Festival).

In France, which comes second on the list of Sinfonia’s international tours with regard to the number of concerts, the orchestra performed three hundred and six times in over seventy venues during the first twenty-five years of its activity. Paris belonged to one of the European cities most often visited by Sinfonia; the twenty-eight concerts there (including Versailles) were held, e.g. in the Salle Pleyel, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre de la Ville (and in Versailles in the Royal Opera). The biggest number of concerts in France (as many as ninety-two) was given by Sinfonia in Nantes. Nearly all of them were related to the renowned ‘crazy days of music’ – La Folle Journée Festival, conceived in 1995 by René Martin, who has been head of it ever since.

The festival concerts, each year dedicated to another artist or other artists, take place during five days from morning to evening in one building (Cité des congr¯s) in a few different halls at the same time. They last no longer than one hour and the whole event enjoys substantial popularity (e.g. in 2004, one hundred and thirteen thousand tickets – always cheap here – were sold), being for a large number of listeners the first contact with classical music. Sinfonia has travelled to Nantes since 1996 until today (with a break in the period of 1998–2001), performing in each edition of this winter festival from a few to up to twenty concerts; since 2004 the orchestra performed in concerts organised within the framework of this event in other cities of the Pays de la Loire region, e.g. in Cholet, Challans, Laval, Saumur, and Saint-Nazaire, with a total of twentyeight concerts. Other major French festivals attended by Sinfonia for years, but not

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every year, include the piano festival in La Roque d’Anthéron (a total of twenty-three concerts here), festival in Strasbourg (fourteen concerts in all) and in Menton (seven concerts), occasionally also during festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Sully-sur-Loire, Touraine, Epau, and Colmar. Other bigger cities visited by Sinfonia include Montpellier and Toulouse (seven concerts in each), Dijon (four concerts), and Cannes (three concerts).

Spain was third in the group of European countries with the biggest number of Sinfonia’s concerts, also to a large extent thanks to the La Folle Journée Festival, which since 2000 has been held also outside Nantes, with editions in other countries. In Spain the festival is organised by Bilbao, which Sinfonia had visited a few times before, and where it performed since 2003 every year; in total the orchestra played fifty times in the principal city of the Basque Country. Sinfonia gave twenty concerts in Madrid, nine in Valencia, and five in San Sebastian. One of the two concerts in Seville was held during the Polish Day at Expo ’92. Many concerts took place outside mainland Spain, in the Balearic Islands (ten) and in the Canaries (twelve). Sinfonia played an aggregate of one hundred and fifty-two concerts in close to fifty different locations in Spain.

The orchestra visited almost fifty places in the United Kingdom, with a total of one hundred and twelve concerts. Sinfonia played the most often in London (fifteen times), among others in the Barbican Centre, Royal Albert Hall, Drapers’ Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall; it performed eight times in the small Cheltenham, seven times in Sheffield, in Birmingham and Inverness five times each, and e.g. in Belfast, Glasgow and Oxford, three times each. Italy accounted for seventy-five concerts in over thirty cities and towns. Again, the capital city prevailed with nine concerts (e.g. in the Academia di Santa

Pos t e r for c on c e r t a t the Philhar monie im Gasteig, Munic h, 7 Febr uar y 1998

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Pos t e r for c on c e r t at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, 24 June 1997

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Poster for concer t

Tou r pos t e r for

at the Halle aux Grains,

the Polish Chamber Orc hestra

Toulouse, 6 December 1996

w i t h N i ge l Ke n n e d y, France, Jul y 2005

Poster for concer t at the Mercator-Halle, D u i s burg, 28 Febr uar y 1998

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Cecilia and Teatro dell’Opera); Rome was followed by Milan (seven concerts), Ravenna (five) and Brescia (four); three concerts were given e.g. in Naples (here also in the Teatro San Carlo). The orchestra played seven times in Sicily. Sinfonia performed a total of one thousand four hundred and thirty concerts in the five biggest European Union Member States – Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain. This accounted for over fiftythree per cent of the total number of concerts and nearly sixty-nine per cent of international ones.

Austria and its eight locations heard sixtyone concerts by Sinfonia. The capital city again dominates here, more markedly, however; Sinfonia gave forty-one concerts there (e.g. in the Musikverein, Schönbrunn, Theater an der Wien). The orchestra performed eleven times in Salzburg, including during the famous festival. An identical number of concerts was performed in Switzerland, but in twice as many locations. The biggest number of concerts were played at a festival led by and then commemorating Menuhin, in a luxury resort town of Gstaad (two thousand five hundred inhabitants) and the neighbouring Saanen, situated east of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Bernese Alps. Sinfonia performed in Gstaad as many as twenty-eight times (sixteen times during Menuhin’s lifetime and twelve times after his death, most often in 2001, a year of five concerts), and in Saanen seven times. The orchestra played six times in Zurich; twice at the music festival in Montreux and Vevey, and also twice in Bern.

Sinfonia performed almost as many times in Portugal, giving fifty-four concerts in six locations; forty-six of these concerts took place in Lisbon. Most of them were also connected with the Portuguese edition of La Folle Journée, organised in Lisbon for some years.

The other countries of Western Europe were not as frequently visited. The orchestra performed in the Netherlands only fifteen times in eleven locations (including three

Pos t e r for c on c e r t s a t the T héâtre des Champs-Él ysées, Paris, 9–10 Januar y 1994

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concerts in Amsterdam), and gave nine concerts in three locations in Belgium (including six concerts in Brussels, e.g. as part of Europalia ’01 at the Palais des BeauxArts). Sinfonia played seven concerts in five locations in Greece (once in Athens), five times in Ireland (including four times in Dublin), four times in Luxembourg (three times in the capital city). The orchestra visited the Nordic Countries relatively rarely.

It gave five concerts in Denmark (two concerts in Copenhagen), also five in Sweden (three times in Stockholm), two in Norway, eleven in Finland (five at the Naantali Music Festival). It played one concert only in Andorra, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Malta, and Monaco.

In comparison to Western Europe, the number of Sinfonia’s concerts in Eastern and Central Europe was rather modest, which reflected the general loosening of cultural ties between the states of this region after the transformation of the political and economic system. The orchestra performed nine times in the Czech Republic (seven times in Prague, including the Prague Autumn International Music Festival and twice in Brno), three times in Slovakia (exclusively in Bratislava), seven times in six locations in Hungary (twice in Budapest). There were three concerts in Bulgaria (one in Sofia), one in Romania (Bucharest). The orchestra performed twice in Croatia (Zagreb and Dubrovnik), once in Slovenia (Ljubljana) and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo).

Sinfonia gave a mere three concerts in Russia, performing twice in Moscow and once in St. Petersburg (the last concert took place in the freshly renovated Grand Yard of the Winter Palace, where three thousand listeners heard Seven Gates of Jerusalem by Penderecki with the composer as the conductor). There were only two concerts in Ukraine (both in Lviv), four concerts in Latvia (twice in Riga) and three in Lithuania (twice in Vilnius).

In Asia the orchestra performed most often in Japan, with as many as one hundred and eight concerts in forty locations. Tokyo was the most frequent destination, with as many as fifty-four concerts (e.g. in the Suntory Hall), mostly during the Japanese editions of the La Folle Journée Festival (which was established here in 2005; it is in order to add that the aggregate number of Sinfonia’s concerts during this festival, in Nantes and the environs, Lisbon, Bilbao, and Tokyo was two hundred and forty-two! during the first twenty-five years of its activity). Sinfonia played in Osaka and Kobe four times, three times in Yokohama. With regard to China, Sinfonia performed only in Hong Kong (four times, before the British conceded the island and afterwards) and in Taiwan (nine times).

In the Far East it performed in Malaysia (four times, exclusively in Kuala Lumpur) and in South Korea (once in Seoul). In the Middle East in turn the orchestra performed in Turkey (four times, in Istanbul and Pergamon), Israel (seven times in seven locations, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem) and Lebanon (twice, once in Beirut).

Africa in chronicles of Sinfonia’s twenty-five years means first of all the Republic of South Africa (nine concerts in four locations, including four in Johannesburg), as well as Morocco and Libya (two concerts in each country). In Australia the orchestra performed four times in three locations (twice in Melbourne).

In those years Sinfonia made many trips across the Atlantic, the main destination being the United States, where the orchestra had as many as ten tours and where it gave a total of one hundred and eleven concerts in close to ninety different locations. These were primarily New York (eight concerts, including those in Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall), Worcester, Massachusetts (five concerts) and Washington (four concerts).

In 2001 the orchestra paid homage to Ignacy Jan Paderewski on the 60th anniversary of his death with two special concerts in New York and Washington. In Canada Sinfonia performed three times in three locations, as it did in Mexico (with one concert in the

Concerts

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capital city). The orchestra gave as many as fifteen concerts, primarily in connection with the Casals Festival, in Puerto Rico (including ten times in San Juan), and performed twice in the Dominican Republic and once in Haiti. Finally, in South America Sinfonia visited Argentina (ten concerts in four locations, including six in Buenos Aires, e.g. at the Teatro Colón; in Argentina it received an award of the local music critics ‘for the best foreign chamber orchestra in the artistic season 1997’), Brazil (eight concerts in four locations, including five in São Paulo and one in Rio de Janeiro), as well as Uruguay and Columbia (one concert in each country).

Unique in the history of Sinfonia Varsovia are the orchestra’s concerts at sea, during five cruises aboard the French ship Mermoz in the years 1986–1994. Aboard the ship, carrying eight hundred passengers, the orchestra performed thirty-four times, many a time with eminent partners. Sinfonia performed also during a similar cruise on a different ship in 2007. It also played literally in the air: on the last day of 1991 one of German tour operators organised a flight from Frankfurt to Majorca, with a short symphony concert on board, televised to many countries worldwide.

Summing up the inventory, the ‘Top Ten’ cities of the first twenty-five years in the life of Sinfonia where it performed the most frequently were as follows: Warsaw (three hundred and fifty-five concerts), the venues of the La Folle Journée: Nantes (ninety-two concerts), Tokyo (fifty-four), Bilbao (fifty), and Lisbon (forty-six), followed by Vienna (forty-one), Seesen (thirty-four), Munich (thirty-two), Paris and Gstaad (twenty-eight each). This ‘Top Ten’ precedes Poznaƒ (twenty-seven concerts), Wrocław and Bad Pyrmont (twenty-six each), and Krakow (twenty-five concerts).

Pos t e r for c on c e r t a t the Barbican Hall, London, 19 Febr uar y 1989

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JA RZ¢BSKI, ANONYMOUS (16th centur y), BACEWICZ, GÓRECKI, MOZART Jerzy Maksymiuk, CD Accord 1996, CD, Frederic A ward 1996

Repertoire During the first twenty-five years of its activity, Sinfonia played a most diverse repertoire, from Baroque through contemporary music. Neo-Romantic music was relatively rarely performed, most probably on account of its frequently requiring a large instrumental section.

Not favouring one particular music, Sinfonia displayed some predilection for German composers. The performance mastery of the orchestra and its renown allowed it to accept the most ambitious challenges. On the other hand, for educational and commercial reasons it also participated in more popular projects as well as, fortunately very seldom, played entertainment music.

Sinfonia has arrived at its present extensive repertoire gradually, increasing and supplementing its stock, acquiring the collaboration of new conductors and soloists, and being receptive to new expectations on the part of the audiences and the patrons. The initial period was marked by a predominance of the repertoire inherited after the Polish Chamber Orchestra, i.e. Baroque, Classical and twentieth-century music. Later on, apart from Mozart and Beethoven, focus shifted to the Romantics. The trends are reflected in repertoire preferences of Sinfonia from the first three years of its operation (April 1984–April 1987) and from three mature years that open up the second half of the described period (1997–1999), influenced

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basically by the three conductors that cooperated with it the most, i.e. Menuhin, Penderecki and Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach.

In the first three years of the existence of Sinfonia, the orchestra played the most frequently Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s and Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions (two hundred and fifty-six times and ninety-seven times, respectively). Mozart’s symphonies were performed ninety-four: first of all in G Minor K. 550 – thirty-six times, D Major K. 385 (Haffner) – twenty-one times, and A Major K. 201 – seventeen times, but also C Major K. 551 (Jupiter), B-flat Major K. 319, D Major K. 19, and finally C Major K. 425 (Linz).

Sinfonia performed divertimentos K. 136, 137 and 138 thirty-eight times, most often the first one in D Major; the serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik was performed twenty times.

Mozart’s piano concertos (then as many as twelve) were played forty times, while violin concertos twenty-two times (including seventeen times Concerto in G Major K. 216). Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E-flat major K. 364 was played nine times and Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon in E-flat Major K. 297b four times. Nearly one hundred performances of Bach include primarily his Violin Concerto in E Major BWV 1042 (played twenty-seven times), in A Minor BWV 1041 (played one time less), Concerto for Two Violins in D minor BWV 1043 (performed thirteen times) as well as Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 2, 3 and 4 (a total of nine performances). The other outstanding representatives of Baroque performed

by Sinfonia during their first three years of life included Antonio Vivaldi (works performed fifty-two times, with The Four Seasons played twenty-three times). Vivaldi was followed

by Arcangelo Corelli (nineteen performances, including thirteen ones of Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 8), Georg Friedrich Händel (eleven times, including five performances of Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 8), Georg Philipp Telemann (works performed ten times).

Among the Viennese Classics, Mozart was followed by Joseph Haydn, his works performed sixty-five times; his symphonies – No. 42 in D Major, No. 43 in E-flat Major, No. 47 in G Major, No. 58 in F Major, No. 83 in G (La poule) and especially (eighteen times) No. 104 in D Major – were played thirty-five times, the Cello Concerto in C Major twenty times, while the Cello Concerto in D Major five times. Ludwig van Beethoven’s works were played thirty times, with symphonies represented almost solely by Symphony No. 2 (nine performances), and moreover piano concertos (twelve times) and the Violin Concerto (three times).

At that time Sinfonia played music by Franz Schubert twenty-eight times; it was mainly Symphony No. 5, performed as many as twenty-three times. This was also the number of performances of the Symphony No. 4 (Italian) by Felix Mendelssohn, whose works were played in total thirty-four times. Gioachino Rossini was played sixty-five times, mainly his String Sonata No. 1 (thirty-six performances) and operatic overtures (twenty-seven performances). Fryderyk Chopin’s compositions were performed ten times (eight times the Piano Concerto in F Minor and twice Piano Concerto in E Minor). Johannes Brahms was not represented. Richard Wagner’s works were played nineteen times (nearly exclusively,

MOZART Symphonies, V i rgi n C l a s s i c s 1990, CD

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BEETHOVEN Yehudi Menuhin, IMG Records 1995, CD, the second of fi ve records from the BEETHOVEN 9 Symphonies Box Set

Repertoire

eighteen times, his Siegfried Idyll). Compositions

by Pyotr Tchaikovsky were performed twentyeight times (including twenty-five performances of the Serenade in C Major), Antonín Dvorˇák – nineteen times (again chiefly thanks to one composition, Serenade in E Major played eighteen times), Edvard Grieg – nine times (Holberg Suite). Sixteen concerts included a Serenade for String Orchestra by Mieczysław Karłowicz.

In the first three years of activity, Sinfonia became expert in performing selected compositions from the first half of the 20th century. These were the Introduction and Allegro by Edward Elgar (seventeen performances out of twenty Elgar’s works), Simple Symphony and Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge by Benjamin Britten (the former performed thirteen times, the latter as many as thirty-eight times, while Britten in general was played fifty-eight times), Divertimento for a String Orchestra by Béla Bartók (thirty performances, five times his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta). Dmitry Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony Op. 110 was played twelve times. However, Sinfonia played by far the most often the Concerto for String Orchestra by Gra˝yna Bacewicz, performed during that time as many as sixty times. Sinfonia played works by Witold Lutosławski thirty-two times (eighteen times – Musique fun¯bre and fourteen times – Preludes and Fugue). Other Polish contemporary composers performed a few or up to twenty times at that time were e.g. Marek Stachowski (twelve times – Divertimento), Andrzej Panufnik (nine – Violin Concerto and Arbor Cosmica), Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (seven – Three Pieces in Old Style and Harpsichord Concerto), Marta Ptaszyƒska (six, primarily La novella d’inverno), and Eugeniusz Knapik (five – Islands). With regard to contemporary music by foreign composers, Sinfonia took part in the world premiere and then in five successive concerts of the second version of Prometeo by Luigi Nono in November 1985 at the Stabilimento Ansaldo in Milan.

In turn, the orchestra’s repertoire in the years 1997–1999 (comparisons with the initial three years are adequate since in both these periods Sinfonia gave an almost identical number of concerts, three hundred and thirteen in the first period, three hundred and fourteen in the other) still showed a dominance of Mozart and an almost identical number of performances of Beethoven’s works; the former’s works were played one hundred and fifty-three times, the latter’s one hundred and forty-eight. Mozart was represented mostly by the last, Romantic symphonies: one in G Minor K. 550 (eighteen times) and Jupiter (fifteen times); in total, however, the number of performances of Mozart’s symphonies was nearly twice lower than at the beginning of the orchestra’s activity. The same applied to piano and violin concertos (the latter group represented by four of them, e.g. with Vadim Repin in the Paris Salle Pleyel in March 1999); divertimentos featured nearly three times less. Beethoven owed his rank mainly to symphonies – the orchestra played them in this second three-year period sixty-nine times, the most often Symphony No. 7 (sixteen times) and Symphony No. 3 (twelve times). It was precisely then, in May and June 1997, that the ensemble played all the nine symphonies directed by five Polish conductors – Jerzy Maksymiuk, Jacek Kaspszyk, Wojciech Michniewski, Grzegorz Nowak, and Jerzy Semkow, in the Bogusławski and

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Moniuszko Halls of the National Theatre in Warsaw. Janusz Ekiert wrote about this event as follows: The orchestra ... was lavishly applauded. It was again at its best; the strings are capable of glistening and extend the expressiveness, the dignified sound of the bassoon, horn, oboe, flute, and clarinet played by young masters, very beautiful trumpets and trombones that had fewer oppor17 tunities to show off.n In addition, the year before, a series of all Beethoven’s symphonies were performed by Sinfonia directed by Menuhin successively in Vienna (Schönbrunn), Montpellier and Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées). Piano concertos by Beethoven were played nineteen times in the years 1997–1999 (especially No. 1 – seven times; all five were performed in one series in July 1998 in Cheltenham with Alfred Brendel as a soloist), overtures were played as many as forty-four times (most often Coriolan – eighteen times). The number of performances of works by composers of Romanticism increased significantly. Franz Schubert was represented by one hundred and twelve performances; his symphonies were played more often than Beethoven’s – eighty-nine times, but only six were performed, Symphony No. 5 the most frequently (thirty-four times), Unfinished (nineteen performances) and Great (eighteen performances). Mendelssohn was performed on seventy-six occasions; there were forty-one performances of symphonies (Italian – thirty-four times and Scottish – seven times), overture – The Hebrides – fifteen times, Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor – nine. Sinfonia played Chopin twenty-five times, including twenty times the Piano Concerto in E Minor. Brahms, not represented before, was performed thirty-seven times, including twenty-four performances of symphonies, such as No. 1 – nine times and No. 4 – seven times (in 1998 the orchestra twice played all four in one series – in March under Menuhin in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and in December under Jacek Kaspszyk in Warsaw in the Lutosławski Concert Studio of Polish Radio). Robert Schumann, whose one work was performed at the start of the orchestra’s life, was represented six times, including four performances of the Cello Concerto. The number of works by Dvorˇák (twenty this time, including seven times the Serenade in E Major, and six times Symphony No. 9) and Grieg (seven), were comparable to the first three years. The orchestra performed works by Rossini fifteen times (including five performances of the opera Otello in Vienna and five times Stabat Mater), by Tchaikovsky eleven times (including five performances of the Serenade in C Major). Johann Sebastian Bach was represented twenty-two times, Vivaldi seven times, and Händel twice. Haydn was played twenty-two times, including ten performances of the Symphony No. 44 in E Minor and eight times the Cello Concerto in C Major.

Penderecki, whose twenty-one works were performed seventy-four times, was the most frequently played twentieth-century composer. These were mainly more recent works, with the Sinfonietta per archi, written for this very orchestra, played eighteen times. However, it was Classical Symphony by Prokofiev which proved to be the 20th century work played the most

ROSSINI Yehudi Menuhin, Sony Music Enter tainment 2010 (© 1998), CD

17

Janusz Ekiert, ‘Beethoven ∫ la carte’, WiadomoÊci Kulturalne 1997, No. 25, p. 1.

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GÓRECKI, Polish Radio Choir in Krakow, Po l i s h C h a m b e r C h oi r Schola Cantorum Gedanensis,

frequently in the period 1997–1999; it was performed as many as thirty times. Shostakovich was performed eight times, Britten nine times, Bacewicz seven times, Elgar four times. In March 1999 the orchestra performed twice, also during the last concert under Menuhin, music by Alfred Schnittke, who died a few months previously. Polish contemporary composers apart from Penderecki included Marta Ptaszyƒska, whose Concerto Grosso for Two Violins and Orchestra was performed twelve times.

To get a better picture of Sinfonia’s repertoire during the two three-year periods under consideration, let us provide full lists of the twelve most popular composers performed by it. In the initial three-year period the list looked as follows: 1. Mozart (two hundred and fifty-six), 2. Bach (ninety-seven), 3. and 4. Haydn and Rossini (sixty-five each), 5. Bacewicz (sixty-one), 6. Britten (fifty-eight), 7. Vivaldi (fifty-two), 8. Bartók (thirty-five), 9. Mendelssohn (thirty-four), 10. Lutosławski (thirty-two), 11. Beethoven (thirty), 12. and 13. Schubert and Tchaikovsky (twenty-eight each). In the second, more mature period, the list looked as follows: 1. Mozart (one hundred and fifty-three), 2. Beethoven (one hundred and forty-eight), 3. Schubert (one hundred and twelve), 4. Mendelssohn (seventy-six), 5. Penderecki (seventy-four), 6. Brahms (thirty-seven), 7. Prokofiev (thirty), (8) Chopin (twenty-five), 9. and 10. Bach and Haydn (twenty-two each), 11. and 12. Rossini and Dvorˇák (twenty each).

Adam Kr uszewski, Janusz Olejniczak, Jerzy Maksymiuk, BeArTon 2003, CD, Frederic A ward 2003

Sinfonia’s repertoire presented in the two periods under discussion during concerts abroad (as many as four hundred and sixty-six of them) should also be viewed in light of the impact it had on the promotion of Polish music. This music was performed as many as one hundred and ninety-nine times, with a vast majority of the compositions being written after the Second World War. Chopin was played in those years eighteen times abroad (Piano Concerto in F Minor – seven times and Piano Concerto in E Minor – eleven times); Karol Kurpiƒski’s music resounded four times (overture for the opera Two Huts), Zygmunt Noskowski’s music once (The Steppes), Mieczysław Karłowicz’s five times (Serenade for String Orchestra). The leader was Bacewicz (fifty-seven performances of the Concerto for String Orchestra, including thirty during the aforementioned grand world tour in early 1987).

Penderecki was second in line (forty-one performed works, most often the Sinfonietta per archi, played fifteen times, and Sinfonietta No. 2 for Clarinet and String Orchestra – seven performances). Then there were Lutosławski (twenty-eight performances of Musique fun¯bre and Preludes and Fugue), Marta Ptaszyƒska (sixteen performances, mainly of the Concerto Grosso for Two Violins and Orchestra) and Marek Stachowski (his Divertimento was performed twelve times). Polish composers played in those years abroad by Sinfonia included moreover Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Andrzej Panufnik, Tomasz Sikorski, Eugeniusz Knapik, Zbigniew Bujarski, Jerzy Maksymiuk, and Zdzisław Wysocki.

One other thing, the serious attitude of the orchestra to Polish contemporary music is clearly evident also in its performance of world premieres of new Polish compositions. This time,

Repertoire

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however, we will refer to the entire twenty-five year period of Sinfonia’s life, even if this does not exhaust the subject. In large measure the premieres were connected with the ensemble’s frequent participation in the International Festival of Contemporary Music ‘Warsaw Autumn’, where Sinfonia performed thirteen times. During the successive editions of the Festival there were eleven world premieres – in 1985 La notte by Tomasz Sikorski, in 1991 Marek Stachowski’s Concerto per violoncello ed orchestra d’archi, in 1993 Roman Palester’s Adagio, in 1995 Signals II and in 2006 Little Autumn Symphony by Zbigniew Penherski, in 1998 Tadeusz Wielecki’s Concerto ∫ Rebours for Violin and Orchestra, in 2003 A Few Pictures by Zbigniew Bagiƒski, in 2004 Symphony of Hymns by Rafał Augustyn, in 2007 Jerzy Kornowicz’s Heaps, Roman Berger’s Improvisation sur Herbert and Aleksander Lasoƒ’s Symphony No. 4 (Satja). Aside the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the orchestra played world premieres of works by Penderecki – the Sinfonietta per archi, or the second version of the String Trio of 1991 (Warsaw 1992) and Sinfonietta No. 2 for Clarinet and String Orchestra, i.e. an orchestration of the 1988 Quartet for Clarinet and String Trio (with Aleksander Romaƒski as a soloist, Rzeszów 1994), as well as the Hymn to St. Adalbert for a mixed choir and orchestra (with the Krakow Philharmonic Choir, Gdaƒsk 1997); all of the premieres were conducted by the composer himself. At the Warsaw Music Encounters, in turn, in 1999 the ensemble performed the world premiere of Maciej Małecki’s Symphony. In 1995 Sinfonia performed the world premiere of Paweł Mykietyn’s 3 for 13, and in 1997 of the aforementioned premiere of the Concerto Grosso for Two Violins and Orchestra by Marta Ptaszyƒska. In 2004 Sinfonia performed for the first time ever Krzysztof Knittel’s Memoirs from the Warsaw Uprising; that year it also played the world premiere of a work dedicated to itself (!) by Krzesimir D´bski, the Concerto for Cello. In 2006 the ensemble performed during the Concert of Six Premieres. Held under the auspices of the Polish Composers’ Union, the concert brought the world premieres of new works by Jarosław Siwiƒski, Roman Berger, Wojciech Ziemowit Zych, Magdalena Długosz, Zbigniew Bargielski, and Dobromiła Jaskot.

PENDERECKI Ar to Noras, K r z y s z t of Pe n de re c k i , Finlandia Records 2001, CD

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Conductors

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Vo l ke r

Yeh u d i

Sc hmidt -Ger ten bac h

Menuhin

Krzysztof Pen d erec ki Marc

Jerz y

Minkowski

Maksymiuk

N i ge l Ken n e d y

Conductors Over the twenty-five years of its exiscence described here, Sinfonia was conducted by slightly over two hundred artists. More often than Menuhin and Penderecki it was led by the German conductor Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach, who directed three hundred and seventy concerts given by the orchestra, roughly one-seventh of the ensemble’s concerts. The artist, who had earlier been the director of the symphony orchestra in Göttingen and also for a few years a conductor of a radio orchestra in the Norwegian Stavanger, cooperated with Sinfonia since the very beginning, most often in the 1980s and 1990s. Sinfonia’s musicians valued greatly his expertise and experience, systematic work on extending the ensemble’s repertoire, and for his contribution to establishing new artistic ties. In turn, Schmidt-Gertenbach always stressed that he dealt with an exceptional orchestra, whose uniqueness lies not only in its magnificent artistic skills but in the ensemble’s attitude. Declaring his love for Sinfonia, he enumerated five of its characteristics (‘nearly virtues, rare or non-existent elsewhere’); the first three were as follows: 1. The conductor is neither an adversary nor a persistent trainer for Sinfonia, but a desirable collaborator … 2. Rehearsals with Sinfonia are not an obligation or ticking items off a list – they have an objective and direction … 3. Encores, which other orchestras disprove of, are 18 a matter of course and joy for Sinfonia.n Jerzy Maksymiuk conducted Sinfonia one hundred and thirty-two times (two-thirds of these concerts took place in the first half of the twenty five years of the ensemble’s history descibed here); in 2006 the orchestra played an active role in the celebrations of the artist’s 70th birthday. Justus Frantz conducted the orchestra exactly the same number of concerts (also from the piano). Born in 1944 in Inowrocław, a German pianist and conductor, founder of the Schlezwig-Holstein Music Festival and the Philharmonia of the Nations, he was one of Sinfonia’s conductors who owed his status in the world of music primarily to his

Conductors

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solo performances as an instrumentalist. Sinfonia played under him for the last time in 2002, in the same when Peter Csaba started cooperating with the orchestra. He led Sinfonia one hundred and seven times, mainly during the La Folle Journée festivals.

Seventh on the list of conductors collaborating with Sinfonia the most often was Jacek Kaspszyk, with seventy-six performances, forty-two of which took place in 2008. He is followed by Nigel Kennedy and the next place was occupied by Wojciech Michniewski; the latter in the first period of Sinfonia’s life was also a full-time conductor of the orchestra (by that time a recipient of awards in competitions for conductors and an artistic director of Grand Theatre in Łódê). Over the two years of permanent work with the ensemble (from mid-1984 until mid-1986) he conducted thirty-three concerts, with a total of sixty-two times.

Michel Corboz conducted Sinfonia fifty-three times, exclusively in this century and nearly solely during the La Folle Journée festivals.

Jan Krenz, under whom the orchestra gave forty-five concerts, eleventh on the list. This is how he defined his experience of work with Sinfonia’s musicians: There are orchestras that work perfectly and can be creative together with the conductor, improve their performance and overcome difficulties of the most complex compositions; still, their concerts are nothing but professional renditions. But there are other orchestras, not too perfect during rehearsals, without a good work atmosphere, not always focused, but the moment the conductor in a frock coat appears, they are capable of genuine emotion, performing in ecstasy as it were, playing music at a level different from that of rehearsals. And there is also 19 Sinfonia Varsovia – an ensemble which has mastered both these spheres.n Well over twenty-five concerts of Sinfonia were conducted also by Jan Stanienda, mentioned above in this context, and James Galway (thirty-nine times), Emmanuel Krivine (thirtyfive times) and Jean-Jacques Kantorow (thirty times), close to twenty-five concerts were led by Tadeusz Wojciechowski and Jerzy Swoboda, the only conductor apart from Michniewski who was employed full-time by the orchestra (1986–1990), earlier e.g. director of the Krakow Philharmonic Choir and conductor of Capella Cracoviensis. Sinfonia was conducted twenty times by Mariusz Smolij and nearly as many times by Krzesimir D´bski (mainly with a more popular repertoire).

Leading Polish conductors working with Sinfonia included also Jerzy Semkow (eighteen times), Stefan Stuligrosz (seventeen times), Grzegorz Nowak (also seventeen times) and – a few times each – Kazimierz Kord, Antoni Wit, Tadeusz Strugała, Henryk Wojnarowski, and Marek Pijarowski. Witold Lutosławski conducted the ensemble three times, in the years 1991–1992 in Warsaw, Krakow and Kiel; these were performances of the composer’s own works, including two national premieres.

Of the most famous foreign conductors, Sinfonia played under such masters as Claudio Abbado (under whom the orchestra gave three performances of the aforementioned Prometeo

by Luigi Nono), Gerd Albrecht, Andrey Boreyko, Charles Dutoit (seven times – in the years 1985–1989 in France, Poland and Switzerland), Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (three times, in 1989 in Italy), Gianandrea Gavazzeni (twice, in 1991, also in Italy), Hans Graf (seventeen times), Leopold Hager (eleven times), Paul McCreesh (twice), Michel Plasson (twice), Mstislav Rostropovich (three times, in the years 1987–1988), Saulius Sondeckis (six times, in 1988 in Salzburg), Bruno Weil (three times), and Alberto Zedda (once, in 1987 in Paris).

18

Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach, statement in the archives of Sinfonia Varsovia.

19

Ibidem.

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Partners

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C on c e r t pos t e r from the Wrocła w State Philhar monic, 4 Marc h 1987

Partners

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CHOPIN Fou Ts’ong, Muhai Tang, Decca 1989, CD

CHOPIN, ROSSINI, MENDELSSOHN Mar tha Argeric h, Grze gorz Nowak, Polskie Radio Studio S1–Kos Records 1992, CD

MOZART Piotr Ander szewski, V i rgi n

Partners ‘The list of artists who played with Sinfonia Varsovia is impressive. I do not know another 20 orchestra which could boast such an unusual range of partners during its activity’,n observed Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach. Indeed, there were many world famous soloists among the nearly one thousand ones who performed with the orchestra in those years.

The array of famous pianists includes such names as Martha Argerich (six times in the years 1992–2006), Abdel Rahman El Bacha, Michel Beroff, Boris Berezovsky (eighteen times in the years 2004–2009), Alfred Brendel (five times in the years 1994–1998, he performed all of Beethoven’s concertos in 1998), Rudolf Buchbinder (twice), Dang Thai Son (three times), Nikolai Demidenko, Barry Douglas (twice), Fou Ts’ong (twenty-three times), Nelson Freire (seven times), Philippe Giusano (twice), Nelson Goerner, Friedrich Gulda (eight times), Ian Hobson (twice), Peter Jablonski, Cyprian Katsaris (four times), Kevin Kenner (three times), Alicia de Larrocha (three times, in the years 1989–1991 in Italy), Elisabeth Leonskaja (four times in the years 1987–1993), Jean-Marc Luisada (twice), Radu Lupu (once, in 1987 in Ravenna), Nikolai Lugansky (eight times), Olli Mustonen, Garrick Ohlsson, Gerhard Oppitz (twice, in 1991 in Italy), Nikolai Petrov, Maria João Pires (ten times), Ivo Pogorelich, Jean-Bernard Pommier (once, in 1991 in Warsaw), Katia Skanavi (twice), Maria Tipo (three times), Alexis Weissenberg (twice, in 1988 in Italy), Vladimir Viardo (eight times), Dina Yoffe, Christian Zacharias (five times), Lilia Zilberstein (twice). In the years 1993–2004 Yehudi Menuhin’s son – Jeremy Menuhin – gave concerts with the orchestra twenty-six times. The list of Polish musicians who played with Sinfonia includes among others Piotr Anderszewski (twelve times, in the years 1999–2003), Rafał Blechacz (twice in 2006), Stanisław Drzewiecki (five times), Krzysztof Jabłoƒski (twenty-eight times), El˝bieta KaraÊ-Krasztel (eighteen times), Janusz Olejniczak (ten times), Ewa Osiƒska (seven times), Piotr Paleczny (seven times), Ewa Pobłocka (eight times), Karol Radziwonowicz (eight times), Adam Makowicz (eight times), and Leszek Mo˝d˝er. However, a record number of performances were played by Justus Frantz, who played with Sinfonia as a pianist (usually simultaneously conducting it, as indicated above) as many as one hundred and twenty-seven times.

The range of exquisite violinists who performed with Sinfonia includes for example such artists as Salvatore Accardo (four times, in the years 1987–1988), Alona Baeva, Sarah Chang (three times), Augustin Dumay (twenty-seven times), Julia Fischer, Tatiana Grindenko (six times, in 1988 in Salzburg), Arthur Grumiaux (once, in 1985), Gidon

Classics 2002, CD

20

Jan Krenz, statement published in a programme for a concert given in the National Philharmonic on 19th April 2004.

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SIBELIUS, KHACHATURIAN Sergey Khac hatr yan, Emmanuel Kri vine, Naïve Classique 2004, CD

MOZART A u g u s t i n D u m ay, Gérard Caussé, Emmanuel Kri vine, EMI Music France 2006 (© 1998), CD

MOZART, OVERTON Jeanne Gal way, Catrin Finc h, James Gal way, Deutsche Grammophon 2006, CD

Partners

Kremer (six times), Shlomo Mintz, Viktoria Mullova (twice, in 1986), Anne-Sophie Mutter (eight times, in the years 1987–2009), Igor Oistrakh, Alyssa Park, Julian Rachlin (four times), Vadim Repin (ten times, in the years 1995–2001), Gil Shaham, Dmitry Sitkovecky (six times), Vladimir Spivakov (twice, in 1988), Akiko Suwanai (seven times), Maxim Vengerov (twice), Frank-Peter Zimmermann (twenty-two times). Polish violinists (or those working in Poland) who gave concerts with Sinfonia were as follows Vadim Brodski, Kaja Danczowska (three times), Barbara Górzyƒska (twice),Jakub Jakowicz (four times), Krzysztof Jakowicz (eighteen times), Konstanty Andrzej Kulka (twelve times, in the years 1995–2007), Bartłomiej Nizioł (five times), Piotr Pławner (three times), Daniel Stabrawa (three times), Agata Szymczewska (three times, in the years 2007–2008), and Edward Zbigniew Zienkowski (twice). As far as the number of performances with Sinfonia is concerned, Daniel Hope (thirty-one times) occupies a very high position just behind Stanienda, Kennedy, KwaÊny, and Menuhin.

Also some of the most outstanding violists worked as the orchestra’s partners, including Yuri Bashmet (once, in 1987 in Vienna), Kim Kashkashian, Tabea Zimmermann (three times), Grigori Zhyslin (thirteen times, and additionally once as a violinist). Mstislav Rostropovich played with Sinfonia as many as seven times (in the years 1987–1994); the other renowned cello virtuosos who played with the orchestra were as follows: David Geringas (four times), Alexander Kniazev (eight times), Mischa Maisky (three times), Ivan Monighetti, Boris Pergamenschikow (seventeen times), Gustav Rivinius, Heinrich Schiff (three times), and the Poles Andrzej Bauer (twenty-five times) and Rafał Kwiatkowski (eleven times).

Sinfonia performed also with the most outstanding flutists, including Philippe Bernold (seven times), James Galway (as many as forty-three times, beginning with 1986), Auréle Nicolet (once, in 1986 in Gstaad), Michala Petri (eight times), Jean-Pierre Rampal (eleven times in the years 1987–1998), and the Polish artist Jadwiga Kotnowska.

Moreover, excellent oboists played with Sinfonia, one of them was Albrecht Mayer, who performed seven times. The list of partners includes also clarinettists, such as Dimitri Ashkenazy (nine times), Sharon Kam (twice), Sabine Meyer (four times). The orchestra worked with some exquisite trumpeters, e.g. Maurice André (seven times) and Gábor Boldoczki (as many as sixty-seven times). The outstanding group of artists who were Sinfonia’s partners would not be complete without such names as the harpist Andreas Vollenweider and two harpsichordists – El˝bieta Chojnacka (three performances with the ensemble) and Władysław Kłosiewicz (eleven performances).

The list of singers working with the orchestra in those years is as impressive as the list of instrumentalists. It also includes many names of leading internationally famous mu-

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BAC H Albrec ht Mayer, N i ge l Ke n n e d y, Uni ver sal 2003, CD

RIETZ, BRUCH, WEBER Sharon Kam, Ori Kam, Gre gor Buhl, Edel Classics 2007, CD

HÄNDEL, TELEMANN Gábor Boldoczki,

sicians. Thus, the orchestra accompanied – only once – such singers as Barbara Bonney (2001), Olga Borodina (Warsaw 1999), José Carreras (Gstaad 2001), Placido Domingo (Wrocław 2000 ), Robert Holl, Makvala Kasrashvili (Warsaw 1991), Christa Ludwig (Vienna 1988), Lucia Popp (Salzburg 1988), Samuel Ramey (Naples 1989), John Shirley-Quirk (Saanen 1990), José Van Dam (2007). Katia Ricciarelli performed with the ensemble twice (1988); Teresa Berganza – three times (in 1987, in Paris – in the Salle Pleyel and in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées – as well as in Martigny), also three times Gwendolyn Bradley (Warsaw 1994 and Łódê 2000 and 2004) and Peter Schreier (in 2000, in Warsaw, among others); Ruggero Raimondi – four times (1987 and 1988); José Cura – five times (2000 and 2002). Benno Schollum sang with Sinfonia as many as twenty-two times. Furthermore, there was a numerous group of the most outstanding Polish singers (or those working in Poland) who performed with the orchestra, such as Jadwiga Rappé (eleven performances), Ewa PodleÊ and Krystyna Szostek-Radkowa (six performances each), Ewa Małas-Godlewska (five performances), Jadwiga Gadulanka and Małgorzata Walewska (four performances each), Olga Pasichnyk and Urszula Kryger (three performances each), Ewa Werka (two performances), Stefania Toczyska and Aleksandra Kurzak (one performance each), as well as Romuald Tesarowicz (eighteen performances), Wojciech Drabowicz (three performances), Andrzej Hiolski, Jerzy Artysz, Ryszard Karczykowski and Wiesław Ochman (two performances each); most often Sinfonia accompanied Izabela Kłosiƒska (twenty nine times) and Adam Zdunikowski (twenty-seven times).

The list of excellent soloist singers should be supplemented with an array of renown choir ensembles which performed with Sinfonia. They include: the National Philharmonic Choir, the Boys’ and Men’s choir of the Philharmonic in Poznaƒ, the Szczecin Technical University Choir, Cantores Minores Wratislavienses, Camerata Silesia, Polish Radio Choir in Krakow, Krakow Philharmonic Choir, Grand Theatre in Warsaw Choir, Warsaw Chamber Choir, Schola Cantorum Gedanensis, Gabrieli Consort, Wiener Singakademie, Wiener Konzertchor, Frankfurter Singakademie, Arnold Schönberg Chor, Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne, the Kaunas State Choir, and others.

The most outstanding concert with the participation of Sinfonia, featuring the biggest number of star performers being renowned soloists, was perhaps the one commemorating the 60th birthday of Krzysztof Penderecki, in November 1993 in the National Philharmonic in Warsaw (recorded by Sony). Jadwiga Gadulanka, Sharon Kam, Kim Kashkashian, Boris Pergamenschikow, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Mstislav Rostropovich, Vladimir Viardo and Grigori Zhyslin, to name a few, were among the artists who appeared on the stage that night (also performing chamber music of the composer).

Sony BMG Music En t e r t a i n m e n t 2007, CD, a ward: ECHO Klassik 2008

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Po ste r for c on c e r t

Po ster fo r co n cer t

from the Festspielhaus,

from the S1 Studio

Bre genz,

of Polish Radio,

6 Marc h 1990

War sa w, 28 November 1994

Po ste r for c on c e r t

In memoriam Yehudi Menuhin at the Ber lin Philhar monie, 15 Febr uar y 2000

Partners

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Kammersänger Prof.

CalberlastraĂ&#x;e 13

PETER SCHREIER

01326 Dresden Faks 36610 Dresden, 23.02.2000

Dear Friends!

Unfortunately after our concert in Munich I had no opportunity to thank you in person.

Our musical collaboration, which began in Warsaw, has filled me with joy.

You emanated such a spontaneous spirit of music-making, that my job was really made very easy.

I would like to thank everyone very cordially, but especially the soloists of the orchestra.

Hoping that this collaboration was not the last, I remain very sincerely yours, Peter Schreier

T h an k yo u n o te from Peter Sc hreier to th e mu si ci an s o f S i n fo n i a Var sovi a fo r j o i n t co n cer ts w h i c h to o k p l ace i n Po l an d an d Ger many in Febr uar y 2000, Dresden, 23 Febr uar y 2000

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Recordings

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MOZART, CHOPIN, LISZT Mar tha Argeric h, Alexandre Ra binovitc h, CD Accord 2000, CD

Recordings Next to giving concerts, Sinfonia also made recordings. For the past twenty-five years, nearly two hundred records and a big number of radio and television recordings have been released. Sinfonia’s discography confirmed the versatility of the ensemble’s repertoire; it included music which is less well reflected in the concert repertoire, i.e. neo-romantic compositions. Simultaneously, the list of the orchestra’s recordings confirmed its affinity to and interpretational competence of the compositions of the Viennese Classics and early Romantics, as well as its vivid and fruitful interest in contemporary music.

Sinfonia’s performances were recorded by renowned companies, both foreign, such as Decca, Denon Nippon Columbia, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Naxos, Sony, Virgin Classics; and Polish ones, including BeArTon, CD Accord, DUX, Polskie Nagrania, and Polskie Radio.

Frequently these productions brought Sinfonia honourable mentions which are prestigious in the phonographic market, for instance Diapason d’Or, Grand Prix du Disque, and many times the Polish Frederic Award. The orchestra released most records when it was conducted

by Yehudi Menuhin (nearly twenty), and under other conductors such as Jerzy Maksymiuk,

Recordings

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Ian Hobson, Jacek Kaspszyk, Emmanuel Krivine, Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach, and Krzysztof Penderecki.

A significant part of all this production – distinctly bigger than the concert repertoire – was represented by Polish music; indeed Sinfonia made an invaluable contribution to Polish culture in this respect. Thanks to the orchestra a dozen or so new albums appeared on the market in those days, in part or as a whole, devoted to the music of Fryderyk Chopin, comprising the following compositions: eight recordings of Piano Concerto in E Minor (including live performance at Grand Theatre in Warsaw, with Martha Argerich as a soloist and Alexandre Rabinovitch as the conductor – CD Accord), six recordings of Piano Concerto in F Minor (both concerts were recorded for Decca and Collins Classics by Fou Ts’ong, with Muhai Tang as the conductor, for Accord by Janusz Olejniczak with Grzegorz Nowak and by Dang Thai Son with Jerzy Maksymiuk, for BeArTon by Piotr Paleczny with Maksymiuk), and finally, Variations on the Theme L∫ ci darem la mano, Fantasy on Polish Airs, Rondo a la Krakowiak, Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante, all of them recorded by Ewa Pobłocka and Krzysztof Jabłoƒski and conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk in the BeArTon recording studio.

The Poznaƒ Nightingales led by Stefan Stuligrosz recorded an interesting LP with compositions of artists such as Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki, Damian Stachowicz and Stanisław Sylwester Szarzyƒski (Aperto). The record entitled Polish Symphonic Music of the 19th Century (Accord, conducted by Nowak) contains works of the following composers Karol Kurpiƒski, Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyƒski, Stanisław Moniuszko (The Fairy Tale), Władysław ˚eleƒski (In the Tatra Mountains), and Zygmunt Noskowski (The Steppes).

The violin concertos composed by Henryk Wieniawski were recorded together with Sinfonia for Accord by Piotr Pławner and Bartłomiej Nizioł and conducted by Nowak. Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s music was recorded in as many as three CDs under the direction of Maksymiuk: two of them – by the Polskie Radio – with the Symphony in B Minor (Polonia), Polish Fantasy and the Piano Concerto in A Minor, played by Ian Hobson, and one – by BeArTon – with two last compositions by Paleczny.

Sinfonia managed to make a particularly great contribution to the promotion of the oeuvre of Mieczysław Karłowicz, both when it comes to the number of projects and their artistic quality. The album Polish Spirit, recorded for EMI Classics, with Nigel Kennedy as a soloist and Jacek Kaspszyk as a conductor, contained, among other compositions, Karłowicz’s Violin Concerto. The same composition performed by Agata Szymczewska was also recorded, next to Eternal Songs, on an CD for the BeArTon studio, conducted by Maksymiuk. Both records shortly received the Frederic Award in the Album of the Year category – symphony and concert music; and the former was also given a prestigious German award – ECHO Klassik 2008. BeArTon studio released the Rebirth Symphony recorded by the orchestra conducted by Maksymiuk. El˝bieta Szczepaƒska-Lange made the following observation about the renditions of Karłowicz’s compositions made by the orchestra and Maksymiuk:

CHOPIN Ewa Pobłoc ka, Krzysztof Ja błoƒski, J a c e k Ka s ps z y k , BeArTon 1999, CD, Frederic A ward 2002

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SZYMANO WSKI Jakub Jakowicz, Piotr Paleczny, Jerzy Maksymiuk, BeArTon 2005, CD, n om i n a t e d for t h e Fre de r i c A w a rd 2005

KARŁO WICZ Agata Szymczewska, Jerzy Maksymiuk, BeArTon 2008, CD, Frederic A ward 2009

Recordings

Only this kind of performance is really good, which obliterates the relations between Karłowicz and other composers and allows to forget them or level them completely. The performances of Sinfonia Varsovia directed by Jerzy Maksymiuk are exactly like that. Furthermore, she praised the ensemble for … the beautiful harmony of all groups of instruments sepa21 rately, as well as in the tutti part …n As far as the music of Karol Szymanowski is concerned, although the orchestra did not play it often during concerts, it recorded an album for the BeArTon studio. The album contains such compositions as the Concert Overture, Violin Concerto No. 1 (together with Jakub Jakowicz) and the Symphony No. 4 (together with Piotr Paleczny), also conducted by Maksymiuk, and additionally, the Violin Concerto No. 2, performed by the same soloist but conducted by Michniewski, in the album for the Polskie Radio. It is important to emphasize that the aforementioned album entitled Polish Spirit, so generously awarded, included also the Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Major by Emil Młynarski, the work which was thus resurrected by Kennedy, Kaspszyk and the orchestra after years of oblivion.

As far as the Polish music composed after the Second World War is concerned, the LPs recorded by Sinfonia present two compositions by Gra˝yna Bacewicz – so willingly performed by the ensemble during tours abroad, namely, Concerto for String Orchestra (two versions, both released by Aperto – one conducted by Stanienda and the other by Penderecki) and Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion conducted by Penderecki in the album issued by the Polskie Radio. The orchestra recorded also the following compositions: a Colas Breugnon suite by Tadeusz Baird, the album Homage to Polish Music, including Old Polish Suite, Jagiellonian Triptych, Divertimento, and Hommage ∫ Chopin by Andrzej Panufnik, and Concertino for Alto Sax and Strings by Roman Palester. Other artists commemorated by the performances of the orchestra were Witold Lutosławski and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, represented by two exclusive albums each. Lutosławski’s compositions on a CD for the Accord Studio, conducted by Wojciech Michniewski with the participation of Krzysztof Jakowicz, included the following works: Overture for Strings, Musique fun¯bre, Venetian Games, Partita for Violin and Orchestra and Interlude, whereas the CD for the BeArTon studio, awarded a Frederic Award in 2004 and conducted by Maksymiuk with the participation of Olga Pasichnyk and Janusz Olejniczak, contained such compositions as the Concerto for Orchestra, Chantefleurs et chantefables and Variations on a Theme by Paganini.

CDs with the music of Górecki recorded by Sinfonia include an album with such composi-

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PENDERECKI

LUTOSŁA WSKI

Jadwiga Gadulanka,

Olga Pasiecznik,

Jean Pierre Rampal,

Janusz Olejniczak,

Sharon Kam,

Jerzy Maksymiuk

Christoph Poppen,

BeArTon 2004,

Grigorij Zhyslin,

CD,

Kim Kashkashian,

Fre de r i c

Boris

A ward 2004

Pergamenschikow, Vladimir Viardo, the National Philharmonic Choir, Henryk Wojnarowski, Krzysztof Penderecki Sony Classical 1993, CD

tions as Beatus Vir, Three Pieces in Old Style, the piano version of the Harpsichord Concerto and Little Requiem for a Polka (the producer was again BeArTon studio, the conductor was Maksymiuk, with Olejniczak at the keyboard and Adam Kruszewski as a singer), which was given the Frederic Award in 2004, and an CD with the Symphony No. 3 and Canticum Graduum (recorded by 4 ART, conducted by Alain Altinoglu, with the performance of Ingrid Perruche). The discography of Sinfonia includes also one record of Wojciech Kilar (Krzesany, Orawa and Piano Concerto, once again released by the BeArTon studio and the Maksymiuk–Olejniczak duo), one record of Zygmunt Krauze (Aus aller Welt stammende and Tableau vivant conducted by Jan Krenz, Polskie Nagrania) and one record of Marta Ptaszyƒska (Holocaust Memorial Cantata, the version with Menuhin’s text, in a live recording of the concert in the National Philharmonic in October 1993 prepared by CD Accord, the concert was conducted by Menuhin and the group of performers included the following artists: Zofia Kilanowicz, Ryszard Minkiewicz and Robert Gierlach; another CD with the composition La novella d’inverno was also recorded). However, the contemporary Polish composer whose works were most often recorded on Sinfonia’s CDs was obviously Krzysztof Penderecki – five albums dedicated exclusively to his music (and several other records) contained mostly compositions from the 1980s and 1990s, such as Three Pieces in Old Style, both cello concertos, Intermezzo, Adagietto from Paradise Lost, Lacrimosa, Agnus Dei and Chaconne from The Polish Requiem, Viola Concerto (also in the cello and clarinet version), Sinfonietta per archi, Flute Concerto, Serenade, De Profundis from Seven Gates of Jerusalem; the solo parts were performed by such artists as David Aguilar, Dimitri Ashkenazy, Jadwiga Gadulanka, Arto Noras, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Grigori Zhyslin; the composer always conducted himself (Aperto, DUX, Finlandia Records, Koch, Sony).

Sinfonia recorded also relatively many pieces of Polish film music e.g. by Zbigniew Preisner who had seven albums of this kind (and two others). Such CDs were recorded also for Krzesimir D´bski, Maciej Zieliƒski and Michał Lorenc; there were also several records with a more entertaining repertoire.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was definitely an unquestionable leader among foreign composers whose works were recorded by Sinfonia in those years: around twenty-five albums were devoted exclusively to his music and there were also many records containing single Mozart’s compositions. Altogether they account for between ten and twenty per cent of all

21

El˝bieta Szczepaƒska-Lange, ‘Awantura, smycz i figa’, Ruch Muzyczny 2009, No. 2, p. 40.

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SCHUBERT Yehudi Menuhin, G .I.B. Music 1997, CD, the fir st of fi ve records from t h e SCHUBERT D i e S i n fon i e n Box Set

MOZART Emmanuel Kri vine, Denon 1994, CD

MOZART Emmanuel Kri vine, Denon 1993, CD

Recordings

the recordings of the ensemble. The records with music by Mozart include as many as fourteen symphonies (some of them in various renditions): D major K. 181, B-flat Major K. 182, E-flat Major K. 184, C Major K. 200, A Major K. 201, D Major K. 202, D Major K. 297 (Paris), C Major K. 338, D Major K. 385 (Haffner), C Major K. 425 (Linz), D Major K. 504 (Prague), E-flat Major K. 543, G Minor K. 550, C Major K. 551 (Jupiter); the symphonies were mostly conducted by Emmanuel Krivine and Yehudi Menuhin. Fourteen piano concertos

by Mozart (some of them appeared in more than one rendition as well) – B-flat Major K. 238, F Major for Three Pianos K. 242, C Major K. 246, E-flat Major K. 271, E-flat Major for Two Pianos K. 365, A Major K. 414, E-flat Major K. 449, D Major K. 451, D Minor K. 466, C Major K. 467, E-flat Major K. 482, A Major K. 488, C Minor K. 491, H-flat Major K. 595 – were recorded by the orchestra together with such artists as Piotr Anderszewski, Dang Thai Son, Fou Ts’ong, Justus Frantz, El˝bieta KaraÊ-Krasztel, Ewa Osiƒska, Ewa Pobłocka, JeanBernard Pommier, Christian Zacharias, and the Drzewiecki Family, i.e. Tatiana Shebanova with Jarosław and Stanisław Drzewiecki. Moreover, Sinfonia’s discography comprised other compositions by Mozart, i.e. four violin concertos (performed by Gilles Apap, Augustin Dumay and Barbara Górzyƒska), Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E-flat major K. 364, four concertos for horn (performed by Henryk Kaliƒski), Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra, divertimentos (conducted by Krivine), operatic overtures (recordings conducted by Krivine and Menuhin), the Coronation Mass K. 317 (conducted by Stuligrosz) and operatic arias (performed by Artur Stefanowicz and Krzysztof Szmyt).

Ludwig van Beethoven’s music was also recorded on several CDs. Particular attention should be paid to the aforementioned set of symphonies (1994, IMG Records), recorded during concerts in Strasbourg and conducted by Menuhin; individual symphonies were also recorded together with the orchestra by Justus Frantz, Jan Krenz, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach, and Jerzy Semkow, and for example Piano Concertos No. 1 and No. 3 by Jeremy Menuhin.

There was also Piano Concerto No. 4 recorded by Fou Ts’ong and Nikolai Lugansky, both with Jacek Kaspszyk, Violin Concerto by Nigel Kennedy, Triple Concerto by Boris Berezovsky, Dmitri Makhtin, Alexander Kniazev, and Kaspszyk. Shortly after recording Beethoven’s symphonies, Yehudi Menuhin released another set of records. Together with Sinfonia he recorded all symphonies of Franz Schubert for the G.I.B. Music; four of them were also recorded by the orchestra conducted by Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach. The same conductor led the ensemble in two symphonies by Robert Schumann. Sharon Kam recorded with Sinfonia an album entitled The Romantic Clarinet, which contained such compositions as the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in G Minor by Julius Rietz, Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet in B-flat Major by Carl Maria von Weber, Concerto for Clarinet, Viola and Orchestra in E Minor by Max Bruch (Ori Kam played the viola). A special record with the compositions of Gabriel Fauré, including

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MŁYNARSKI, KARŁO WICZ, CHOPIN N i ge l Ke n n e d y, J a c e k Ka s ps z y k , EMI Classics 2007, CD, a w a rds : ECHO Klassik 2008, Fre de r i c A ward 2008

CHOPIN, MONIUSZKO Ewa Pobłoc ka, Jacek Kaspszyk, Marc Minkowski, Or kiestra Sinfonia Var s ovia 2009 (© BeArTon 1999, © Polskie Radio 2008), CD, the twelfth record from S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a 25th Anni ver sar y 12 CD Set

CZAJKO WSKI Jerzy Semkow, Or kiestra Sinfonia Var sovia 2010, CD

S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a 25th Anni ver sar y 12 CD Set, Or kiestra Sinfonia Var sovia 2009

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VIVALDI N i ge l Ke n n e d y, Jakub Haufa, Monika Raczyƒska, Taro Takeuc hi, EMI Music Poland 2006, DVD

his Requiem, was dedicated to commemorate Franciszek Wybraƒczyk; the performance was conducted

by Michel Corboz. Jerzy Semkow recorded with the ensemble Symphony No. 7 by Anton Bruckner and (with Elena Zaremba, the National Philharmonic Choir and the Warsaw Boys Choir) Symphony No. 3

by Gustav Mahler. Ireneusz Janik made the following observation about the latter: This rendition is charming and powerful. The regular composition of the exquisite Sinfonia Varsovia had to be extended because of the cast requirements, however, the harmony of the ensemble achieved by Semkow is 22 incredible!n H ÄN D E L Albrec ht Mayer, Uni ver sal–Deutsc he Grammophon 2007, DVD, a ward: ECHO Klassik 2008

Recordings

The rich repertoire of Baroque music recorded by Sinfonia in those years included for example three albums with compositions by Georg Friedrich Händel. Next to the recordings with the Alessandro opera (conducted by Mieczysław Nowakowski) and Aci, Galatea e Polifemo serenata, there was also an album Händel for Oboe and Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon), in which the oboe solo parts were performed by Albrecht Mayer, who had earlier released (together with Nigel Kennedy) the album of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works with transcription for oboe and orchestra. Another album with Baroque music recorded by Simfonia, this time including works (and transcriptions of works) by Händel and Georg Philipp Telemann for trumpet (Sony), became a laureate of the ECHO Klassik award in 2008; the trumpet part was performed by Gábor Boldoczki. Yehudi Menuhin recorded with Sinfonia several violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, including op. 3 and op. 8, whereas those known as The Four Seasons were recorded with Jakub Jakowicz (the CD of the year 2004 award given by the monthly Hi-Fi and Music and the nomination to the Frederic Award in the same year).

In terms of 20th century foreign music, let us first mention the – in some cases multiple – recordings of several of Sinfonia’s concert hallmarks, namely Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Britten’s Simple Symphony and Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Bartók’s Di-

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vertimento for Strings and Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony (the orchestra was conducted by Menuhin, Schmidt-Gertenbach, Stanienda, Maksymiuk and Penderecki). Sergey Rachmaninov, although rarely played by the ensemble, figures on Sinfonia’s two albums (Symphony No. 2 led by José Cura and the four piano concertos and The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, performed and conducted by Ian Hobson). Kacper Miklaszewski commented as follows on Sinfonia’s record produced by Naïve Classique with two violin concertos by Jean Sibelius and Aram Khachaturian (with Sergey Khachatrian as the soloist):

THE SECRET GARDEN dir. by Agnieszka Holland, music by Zbigniew Preisner, War ner Bros 1993, DVD

THREE COLOURS: BLUE dir. by Krzysztof KieÊlowski, music by Zbigniew Preisner, Best Film–MK2–Studio

Sinfonia Varsovia, conducted by Emmanuel Krivine, beautifully accompanies the long phrases of the violin in the slow part of Sibelius’ Concerto (the initial dialogue of the pair of clarinets and oboes is simply ecstatic), never disturbing the fluent narration of Allegro moderato ( first movement) of Khachaturian’s work. The virtuosity of ensemble and violinist in the final move23 ment of the composition (Allegro a battuta) is amazing.n

Filmowe TOR 1993, DVD

WITH FIRE AND SWORD dir. by Jerzy Hof fman, m u s i c by K r ze s i m i r D ´ bs k i , Z odi a k J e r z y H of fm a n F i l m Production 1999, DVD

Besides those mentioned above, Sinfonia also recorded the following works: de Falla’s El amor brujo, conducted by Penderecki, with Ewa PodleÊ; Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht (1943 version), conducted by Krivine; Orff’s Carmina Burana, conducted by Jan Szyrocki; Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, with Sonia Wieder-Atherton and conducted by Wojciech Michniewski and a CD of works by Constantin Regamey.

In terms of 20th century music, surprisingly, the greatest number of works recorded by the orchestra – apart from Polish compositions – were by American composers. These entailed mostly a series of CDs devoted to music by Quincy Porter, Don Gillis (five records!), Michael S. Horwood and George Walker. Other albums featured individual compositions

by George Gershwin, Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Carlos Surinach, and Roy Harris.

Please note that Sinfonia released several DVDs. Two of them duplicate, although in modified and extended form, the contents of Polish Spirit and Händel for Oboe and Orchestra. Another contains five violin concertos by Vivaldi (including The Four Seasons), performed by Nigel Kennedy and Jakub Haufa. To conclude on a meaningful note, let us mention the many recordings made by Sinfonia for Polish Radio. During its first quarter century, the ensemble recorded about eight hundred works for the Polish state broadcaster!

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Ireneusz Janik, ‘Czar i moc’, Ruch Muzyczny 2009, No. 15, p. 39.

23

Kacper Miklaszewski, CD review: Khachaturian, Sibelius: Violin Concertos, Naïve Classique V4959, 2004 (Jean Sibelius, Aram Khachaturian, Violin Concertos, violin Sergey Khachatrian, orchestra Sinfonia Varsovia, conductor Emanuel Krivine), Ruch Muzyczny 2004, No. 17, p. 44.

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In the Hometown

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Pos t e r on t h e oc c a s i on of K r z y s z t of Pe n de re c k i ' s 75th bir thday anni ver sar y (featuring a fragment of t h e c om pos e r ' s s c ore ), 2008, de s i gn by Maciej Buszewicz

In the Hometown

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In the Hometown An eager traveller, Sinfonia Varsovia has always remained faithful to its nest and its name and has always been primarily associated with Warsaw. While it did not have its own concert hall in Poland’s capital, it was here where it worked predominantly and honed its performance skills. It was here that it held rehearsals, first in the Knowledge Cinema at the Palace of Culture and Science and in the carpenter’s store of the Ujazdowski Castle, and subsequently for long years in a hall loaned by the Secondary School of Railway Industry in the district of Ochota, at the intersection of Szcz´Êliwicka Str. and Bitwy Warszawskiej Str. Although it did not organise its own artistic season in Warsaw, it was here that it performed the most often, giving more than one-eighth of all its concerts and more and half of those in Poland. Although it performed during so many prestigious music festivals worldwide, it was in Warsaw that it had its own, most significant for itself festival – Sinfonia Varsovia to Its City. Moreover, most of the orchestra members come from Warsaw, either as residents or graduates of the State Higher School of Music. Finally, it was the city of Warsaw that for the gratest part of Sinfonia’s life was the orchestra’s administrative unit and superior, either indirectly as at the beginning or directly as later on; it was the authorities of the capital city that took care of the ensemble and have created conditions conducive to its operation.

The number of Sinfonia’s concerts in Warsaw over the first twenty-five years of existence described here, a total of three hundred and fifty-five of them, grew with the years. And thus, in the 1980s there were an average of five concerts annually, in the 1990s an average of thirteen, and in the first decade of the 21st century an average of twenty-one per year. Sinfonia played in Warsaw in a vast number of locations, from most important concert halls, as the Concert Hall and the Chamber Hall of the National Philharmonic, Lutosławski Concert Studio of Polish Radio, the Concert Hall of the Chopin Academy of Music, the Moniuszko Hall in Grand Theatre, the Congress Hall of the Palace of Culture and Science, through the chamber halls of the Royal Castle, Ostrogski Palace, the Theatre on the Water and Old Orange House in the Royal Baths Park, National Theatre, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw University of Technology, and Puławska Financial Center, to numerous local churches, such as the Archicathedral of St. John, the Cathedral of St. Florian and the Basilica of the Holy Cross. The concerts included those that primarily stressed the aspect of performance, those that focused on education and promotion, and finally those that celebrated various major events unrelated to music or arts in general and were connected with social, political or economic life. Artistically-wise, however, the orchestra never made any concessions.

We have already discussed many of the first group of concerts in Warsaw was discussed in detail; these were some of the events created by Menuhin, a series of all of

Pos t e r for t h e 9t h Fra n c i s ze k W y bra ƒ c z y k S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a to Its City Festi val, Wa r s a w, 30 August−13 September 2009, de s i gn by Maciej Buszewicz

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Letter from the President of War sa w, Lec h KaczyĆ’ski, announcing the President's h on ora r y pa t ron a ge of t h e 5t h S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a to Its City Festi val, 20 A ugust 2005

In the Hometown

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Beethoven’s and Brahms’ symphonies, world premieres during the Warsaw Autumn and Warsaw Music Encounters. With regard to the Warsaw Autumn, let us recall here e.g. the September 1994 concert commemorating Witold Lutosławski, who died a few months previously. The concert, performed with AnneSophie Mutter and conducted by Jan Krenz, was dedicated to Preludes and Fugue, Partita for Violin and Orchestra, Interlude, Chain 2, and Musique fun¯bre.

Earlier (1991) the orchestra conducted by the composer had played the Polish premieres of the same Interlude and Chantefleurs et chantefables during the Warsaw Autumn. Of prime significance were Sinfonia’s appearances at other major festivals held in Warsaw.

Since the late 20th century, the ensemble frequently performed in the Polish Radio Music Festival (e.g. in 2007 playing works by Władysław ˚eleƒski, Vitˇezslav Novák, Zygmunt Noskowski, Michał Kondracki, and Karol Szymanowski). Since 2004 it performed each year at the Beethoven Easter Festival (in 2007 e.g. playing Mozart’s and Beethoven’s violin concertos with Nigel Kennedy, and in 2008 participating in the performance of the Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten by Arvo Pärt and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem).

In recent years Sinfonia has often played at the International Music Festival Chopin and his Europe (e.g. in 2006 performing within its framework as many as five concerts, with works by Andrzej Panufnik and Alexandre Rabinovitch, among others, with the participation of e.g. Martha Argerich, Fou Ts’ong and Garrick Ohlsson). The orchestra performed with an interesting repertoire also at, for instance, the Festival of Sacred Music in May 1997 (Schubert’s Unfinished and Mass in A-flat Major in the archicathedral), Gra˝yna Bacewicz Days in January 1999 (works by the composer plus compositions by Shostakovich and Penderecki, conducted by Penderecki himself in the Lutosławski Concert Studio), Days of Ukrainian Music in December 1999 (Valentin Silvestrov’s Metamusic and Boris Latoshynsky’s Symphony No. 2 conducted by Volodymyr Sirenko in the Lutosławski Concert Studio), and the Festival of Jewish Culture – Singer’s Warsaw in September 2007 (Arnold Schönberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw and Mozart’s Requiem conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk in the All Saints’ Church). In October 1999, Sinfonia performed at a gala of the Chopin Year in the National Philharmonic (with Nelson Freire, led by Jan Krenz). In October 2000 in the Lutosławski Concert Studio it performed on the occasion of an edition of piano concertos as part of the National Edition of Chopin’s Works (with Piotr Paleczny, led by Jerzy Maksymiuk), in August 2001 in the same hall (also led by Maksymiuk), Sinfonia gave a concert as part of the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Year.

Sinfonia’s successive commemorative concerts in Warsaw also proved major artistic events. There were concerts celebrating Yehudi Menuhin, like the one in April 1999 in the National Philharmonic, conducted by Kazimierz Kord (‘a congenial rendition on the part of both the conductor and the orchestra’, wrote Ewa Soliƒska about Beethoven’s 24 ), the one from March 2001 dedicated to Penderecki’s Symphony No. 3 played thenn

Pos t e r for t h e 9t h Fra n c i s ze k W y bra ƒ c z y k S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a to Its City Festi val, War sa w, 13 Se ptember 2009, c h a m be r m u s i c c on c e r t s in the Orc hestra's n e w h e a dqu a r t e r s at 272 Groc howska Str., de s i gn by Maciej Buszewicz

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Ewa Soliƒska, ‘W hołdzie mistrzowi’, ˚ycie Warszawy, 22 April 1999.

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Po s t e r fo r the 10th Franciszek W yb ra ƒ c z y k S i n fo n i a Va r s ov i a to Its City Festi val, War sa w, 4−19 Se ptember 2010, d e s i g n by Maciej Buszewicz

In the Hometown

Seven Gates of Jerusalem, with soloists, choir and Sinfonia along with the Grand Theatre Orchestra conducted by the composer, or the one from May 2004 in the National Philharmonic with Jeremy Menuhin, conducted by Maksymiuk. Very interesting concerts were held in Warsaw in honour of Penderecki. We have already written about the 1993 concert celebrating the composer’s 60th birthday; to celebrate his 70th birthday and five decades of his artistic work, at the beginning and end of 2003 Sinfonia performed in the National Philharmonic the composer’s Sinfonietta per archi, Concerto Grosso for Three Cellos and Orchestra, Piano Concerto Resurrection with Barry Douglas as a soloist and Te Deum, all conducted by the composer himself. In 2008, on the occasion of his 75th birthday, Penderecki conducted the ensemble in September in the Lutosławski Concert Studio in his Flute Concerto, while in November in Grand Theatre in his Seven Gates of Jerusalem. In 2006, Maksymiuk’s 70th birthday was celebrated by Sinfonia by participating in anniversary concerts conducted by Maksymiuk in the Lutosławski Concert Studio in January (works by Mozart, with Aleksandra Kurzak as a soloist) and in April as well as in Królikarnia Palace in September. In September 2002 the orchestra played in the Lutosławski Concert Studio to celebrate the 70th birthday of Wojciech Kilar (Krzesany, Orawa, Piano Concerto). In turn, in March 1991 Zygmunt Krauze had a concert of his compositions with Sinfonia in the National Philharmonic (e.g. Aus aller Welt stammende, Tableau vivant, Symphonie parisienne), while in November 2008 the composer celebrated his 70th birthday with the orchestra (the concert included Krauze’s Serenade and works by Francis Poulenc and Przemysław Zych, with El˝bieta Chojnacka as one of the soloists). In January 1996, in S1 Studio, Sinfonia celebrated Jan Krenz’s fifty years of artistic activity, playing under him his Symphony No. 1 as well as works by Hector Berlioz and Richard Strauss.

Special-programme concerts were held to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (in April 2003 at Grand Theatre, under Wojciech Michniewski Sinfonia played Ernest Bloch’s Israel Symphony and Krzysztof Knittel’s El maale rahamim...) and to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising (in July and August 2004 in Powstaƒców Warszawy Square, e.g. Missa Pro Pace by Kilar and the aforementioned world premiere of Knittel’s Memoirs from the Warsaw Uprising). Special concerts (including the one at the Church of the Holy Cross under Penderecki and the one in the Congress Hall with a concert performance of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess under Mariusz Smolij) were dedicated by Sinfonia to all the casualties of the 11 September 2001 tragedy. In November 1997, in the National Philharmonic Menuhin and Penderecki led Sinfonia during a concert Reliability and Solidarity; the proceeds went to the culture institutions of the city of Wrocław which suffered as a result of a flood.

In October 1999, the ensemble played a charity concert in the National Philharmonic

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for the benefit of a foundation against breast cancer (with Krenz as conductor), and in December that year played in the National Theatre with the motto Let Us Mind the Homeless (with Penderecki as conductor).

In December 1989, Sinfonia gave a concert in the Academy of Music for Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s Economic Initiatives Fund. In November 2000, in the hall of the Secondary School of Railway Industry the orchestra knows so well, the ensemble celebrated a Railway Worker’s Day with a special performance. Sinfonia’s concerts accompanied anniversaries of renowned Polish institutions and organisations. The orchestra played, for instance, to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Polish Security Printing Works (January 2004, Royal Castle, conductor – Maksymiuk) and the 80th anniversary of the National Bank of Poland (April 2004, Grand Theatre, conductor – Tadeusz Wojciechowski). In March 2009, in the National Philharmonic, the 10th jubilee of the Polish Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan was celebrated in a concert of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, conducted by Jerzy Semkow.

When putting forth his idea of establishing an annual Sinfonia Varsovia to Its City Festival, dedicated to the general public, Franciszek Wybraƒczyk thought first of all of an educational objective. The idea was launched in 2001; since that time the event, held eight time in the first twenty-five years of the orchestra’s life by Sinfonia and its Foundation, has become a permanent cultural event of Warsaw and has been greatly acclaimed by numerous listeners. The Festival’s underlying idea is the presentation of classical music in various locations in Warsaw, including those far from its centre, where music events of the highest value are rare, i.e. in culture centres, churches and parks.

The Festival takes place at the end of summertime (usually in the first half of September). Admission to concerts is free and the ensemble is conducted by the greatest Polish and foreign artists, including representatives of the young generation (for instance, conductors Łukasz Borowicz and Michał Dworzyƒski and the violinist Patrycja Piekutowska). The first eight editions of the Festival consisted of forty nine concerts of Sinfonia, accounting for almost one third of all the concerts in Warsaw played at that time.

Apart from the halls of the National Philharmonic and the Music Academy, Festival venues included the Culture Centre in Włochy, Białoł´ka City Hall, churches in the districts of Mokotów (St. Dominic, St. Michael the Archangel, Our Lady of the Angels), Ursynów (Bl. Władysław of Gielniów), Bemowo (The Elevation of the Holy Cross), Bielany (St. Sigismund), in Białoł´ka (Our Lady of Beautiful Love), in Praga (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Sanctuary of Our Lady of Ostra Brama in Witolin), in Rembertów (Our Lady of Victory), in Włochy (St. Francis of Assisi, Our Lady of Loreto), Ursus (St. Joseph), Legionowo (St. John Kanty), parks at the Królikarnia Palace and in Wilanów Palace, the courtyard of the Royal Castle, and finally the Palace of Culture and Science, which housed the orchestra’s administrative offices. Since 2007, the Sinfonia Varsovia to Its City Festival has been known as Franciszek Wybraƒczyk Sinfonia Varsovia to Its City Festival. The range of Sinfonia’s educational activities in the nation’s capital are every now and then supplemented by meticulously prepared concerts for children.

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At the End of a Quarter-Century

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Letter from President Bronisła w Komorowski t h a n k i n g S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a for t h e c on c e r t w h i c h t ook pl a c e on 29 June 2011 i n t h e c ou r t ya rd of the Presidential Palace t o c om m e m ora t e the 70th anni ver sar y of t h e de a t h of I gn a c y J a n Pa de re w s k i , Wa r s a w, 6 Jul y 2011

At the End of a Quarter-Century

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At the End of a Quarter-Century ‘Musicians’ techniques were superb. Their cooperation with Fou Ts’ong was particularly harmonious’ (Hong Kong Economic Times, 19 February 1991), ‘Sinfonia Varsovia proved an ideal interpreter’ (Die Welt, 3 July 1992), ‘Sinfonia Varsovia has the power of influence characteristic of the most magnificent ensembles’ (Gazeta Wyborcza, 17 September 1992), ‘Sinfonia Varsovia – without any exaggeration one of the leading chamber orchestras of the world’ (Gazeta Poznaƒska, 28 January 1993), ‘The Warsaw players have a natural sense of style’ (The New York Times, 3 October 1995), ‘… simply breath-taking, vibrant, romantic warmth from the Warsaw Sinfonia’ (Birmingham Post, 1 May 1999), ‘Sinfonia Varsovia demonstrates its top form’ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15 July 1999) – this is but a handful of a huge number of similar compliments lavished on the orchestra in the press during only one decade. Asked to comment on his many years of experience with the art of Sinfonia, the Nestor of Polish music criticism, Józef Kaƒski wrote specifically for this publication: After one concert of the orchestra at one of our major festivals, I congratulated Franciszek Wybraƒczyk on his ensemble being able to play very well irrespective of who conducts them, while even excellent orchestras happen to turn in a mediocre performance under a mediocre conductor. One of Sinfonia’s musicians confided in me that there are cases when they try not to look at the conductor. On the other hand, the orchestra is able to reach the heights of the art of performance when led by someone like, say, Jerzy Semkow. I can still vividly remember 25 Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique the two performed years ago.n

25

Józef Kaƒski, statement made on 1 March 2009.

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S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a in the Grand T h e a t re – N a t i on a l Opera, War sa w, 26 November 2006

Autonomy At the End of a Quarter-Century

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Krzysztof Kosmala

Janusz Mar ynowski

At the End of a Quarter-Century

Autonomy The close of the first twenty-five years of Sinfonia brought about a few important changes.

A breakthrough moment was the ensemble’s gaining full autonomy when it comes to its organisation. Pursuant to a resolution of the Warsaw City Council of December 2007, as of early 2008 the Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Studio Arts Centre was divided into two independent institutions of culture run by the city government, namely Witkiewicz Studio Theatre and Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra. Of prime significance for the preparation and implementation of this measure was the commitment and determination of Mayor of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz and Director of the Culture Department of the Warsaw City Office Marek Kraszewski. The resolution of the City Council determined as the objective of the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra the promotion of the national and world music heritage in Poland and abroad, the promotion of the cultural heritage of Warsaw and the organisation of a permanent artistic season in the capital.

Soon afterwards, in June 2008 the managerial duo of the institution, i.e. the Artistic Director Krzysztof Penderecki and the General Director Janusz Marynowski (with Krzysztof Kosmala as deputy) was transformed into a triumvirate. At the invitation of Marynowski, the French artist Marc Minkowski became Sinfonia’s Music Director. Minkowski had already made a name for himself as an eminent conductor of orchestras and operas, founder and head of Les Musiciens du Louvre, a famous orchestra specialising in Baroque music and compositions of Viennese classics.

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Marc Minkowski

Minkowski At the End of a Quarter-Century

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At the End of a Quarter-Century

Minkowski Born in 1962 in Paris, initially active as a bassoonist (a member of e.g. La Chapelle Royale and Les Arts Florissants), as a conductor Minkowski is a disciple of Charles Bruck. He established his Les Musiciens du Louvre when barely twenty years of age, and quickly made them an orchestra playing in the major centres in France and Europe.

Since 1996 the ensemble has been located in the MC2 cultural centre in Grenoble. With Les Musiciens Minkowski performed, among others in 1993 Lully’s Phaëton during a re-opening of a revamped building of the Lyon Opera, in 1995 made a recording of Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie, later a recipient of numerous awards, in 2005 presented Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto at a festival in Salzburg, in 2006 made Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride in the Paris Opera, in 2007 performed Bizet’s Carmen at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris; in 2006 and also in 2008 he went on a long European tour with his musicians, playing Haydn’s twelve London symphonies. At the same time Minkowski cooperated extensively with other operatic ensembles. He rehearsed and conducted especially Mozart’s compositions (Idomeneo, re di Creta in the Paris Opera, Don Giovanni in Toronto, Die Zauberflöte in Madrid and Paris) and French operas: Rameau’s Les Boréades in Zurich, Boieldieu’s La dame blanche in the Opéra-Comique in Paris, Auber’s Le domino noir in Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable in the Staatsoper Berlin, Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann in Lousanne, Massenet’s Manon in Monte Carlo, Debussy’s Pelléas and Mélisande in Leipzig, in the Opéra-Comique in Paris and finally in the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre, where in 2008 he received the Golden Mask, the highest Russian theatre distinction for this performance. In the years 1997–2000 Minkowski was the music director of the Flemish Opera. The artist also performed with many eminent orchestras, from Berliner Philharmoniker and Staatskapelle Dresden to Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra. The list of Minkowski’s artistic achievements is incomplete without his greatly appreciated recordings, exemplified here by only one example.

Minkowski had his first concert with Sinfonia still in September 2007 in Krakow, during the Sacrum Profanum Festival. The event was dedicated exclusively to John Adams’ compositions, two of which had their Polish premieres that evening. Of the five concerts

Marc Minkowski a n d S on i a W i e de r- At h e r t on .

S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a ' s c on c e r t at the Grand T heatre – National Opera, Wa r s a w, 1 Se ptember 2008

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D e c l a ra t i on of Marc Minkowski t a k i n g ove r t h e pos t of m u s i c di re c t or of S i n fon i a Var sovia, Wa r s a w, 17 Marc h 2008

Minkowski At the End of a Quarter-Century

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Pos t e r for c on c e r t s

of the ensemble conducted by Minkowski in 2008, there were two of an identical Polish-French programme (Moniuszko, Tansman, Górecki, Greif, Chopin/Glazunov, Penderecki, Chabrier), played in December in Warsaw in the National Philharmonic and in Paris in the Théâtre du Châtelet to celebrate the conclusion of France’s presidency in the European Union (‘with Minkowski as their conductor Sinfonia Varsovia takes to 26 ). In spring 2009 flight’, wrote Dorota Szwarcman about the evening in Warsawn Minkowski conducted the orchestra in the Warsaw Church of St. Sigismund during a concert of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 5 and then, to celebrate the bicentennial of the Battle of Raszyn, directed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in the local church. Minkowski’s appointment as Sinfonia’s Music Director was enthusiastically received in Warsaw and reverberated with wide echoes. This appointment was nominated for Gazeta Wyborcza’s Culture Event of the Year award – Wdechy 2008 – along with the reborn Warsaw Theatre Encounters, Krzysztof Wodiczko’s installation on the Mickiewicz Monument, and the final winner, the Planete Doc Review festival of documentaries.

a t t h e Wa r s a w C h u rc h of St. Sigismund a n d a t t h e Ra s z y n C h u rc h of St. Ste phan and St. Anne, 18–19 A pril 2009, de s i gn by Maciej Buszewicz

Concer t poster from the Grand T heatre – – National Opera, Wa r s a w, 20 June 2008, de s i gn by Maciej Buszewicz 26

See Ruch Muzyczny 2009, No. 2, p. 30.

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Po s t e r

T he 25th Anni ver sar y of the Sinfonia Var sovia Orc hestra , 2009, d e s i g n by Maciej Buszewicz

At the End of a Quarter-Century

Home Sinfonia’s autonomy was quickly accompanied by a lavish endowment; on 24 April 2009, almost literally on the eve of the orchestra’s 25th birthday, the city bought for it premises well known to city residents, of the former Institute of Veterinary Sciences of the University of Life Sciences in the district of Praga in 272 Grochowska Str. The palace and some other buildings from the year 1900 in an adjacent park cover a total area of two and a half hectares. This act was followed by a promise of creating a modern cultural centre with a new municipal concert hall on this area. Sinfonia Varsovia finished its first quarter-century under good auspices...

Home At the End of a Quarter-Century

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'Plant a tree, bu i l d a c on c e r t hall...'

Krzysztof Pe n de re c k i on t h e grou n ds of the Orc hestra's n e w h e a dqu a r t e r s, 11 June 2009 Mayor o f Wa r s a w, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz and Janusz Mar ynowski, General Director of t h e S i n fon i a S i n fo n i a Var sovi a

Va r s ov i a

o n th e g ro u n d s o f

Orc hestra.

i ts n ew h ead q u ar ter s

Inauguration of

at 272 Grochowska Str.

the 9th Franciszek

in War sa w,

W y bra Ć’ c z y k

9 Se ptember 2011

S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a to Its City Festi val at the Orc hestra's n e w h e a dqu a r t e r s, 13 Se ptember 2009

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Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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ROSSINI Julia Lezhneva, Marc Minkowski, War sa w Chamber Opera Choir, Naïve Classique 2011, CD

Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

Po ster

13th Lud wig

Going beyond basic time frames of this monograph, two first seasons of the second quarter of a century of Sinfonia’s activity (2009–2011) brought about so many new important events and contributed so much to its oeuvre that they need at least a concise description. The activities of the ensemble focused on the idea of worthy celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Fryderyk Chopin which was a great Polish and world jubilee. Not only artistic activity of the orchestra but also numerous music-related projects and organizational actions revolved around this anniversary.

van Beethoven Easter Festi val , Krakow, 26 Marc h 2009, sp eci al co n cer t

Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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PENDERECKI W i ol e t t a C h odow i c z , Agn i e s z k a Re h l i s, Mariusz Godlewski, National Philhar monic Choir, Valeri Gergiev, Narodowy Instytut Fr yde r y k a C h opi n a 2011, CD

CHOPIN Jan Lisiec ki, Howard Shelley, Narodowy Instytut Fr yde r y k a C h opi n a 2009, CD, a ward: Dia pason Découver te 2010

Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

Chopin 2010 Contribution of Sinfonia to the celebration of Fryderyk Chopin anniversary was impressive indeed and it places the orchestra among the leading Polish cultural institutions in this respect. It was Sinfonia that performed Piano Concerto in F Minor with Marc Lafor˘t and Wojciech Rodek as a conductor on the eve of the Chopin Year on 21 February 2010 in Warsaw’s Church of the Holy Cross and it was Sinfonia that closed this tremendous yearlong national Chopin musical marathon with a performance of Piano Concerto in E Minor played with Daniil Trifonov on 1 March 2011 in the National Philharmonic as well as a performance with Wioletta Chodowicz, Agnieszka Rehlis, Mariusz Godlewski and the National Philharmonic Choir of a composition A Sea of Dreams did Breathe on Me... Songs of Reverie and Nostalgia composed by Krzysztof Penderecki especially on the occasion of the Chopin’s jubilee (a few weeks earlier the ensemble played the first performance of this composition, however under Valery Gergiev and not under the composer himself as it was on 1 March).

At the end of February 2010, as part of the ‘birthday week’, Sinfonia played Piano Concerto in F Minor with Ivo Pogorelich under George Tchitchinadze in the National Philharmonic.

In the outstanding anniversary edition of Warsaw festival ‘Chopin and his Europe’ Sinfonia performed as many as five times. Concerts were conducted among others by Marc Minkowski and Jacek Kaspszyk. Among soloists who performed together there were Henriette Bonde-Hansen, Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Nelson Freire, Maria João Pires or Jan Lisiecki. Two Chopin concertos with Jan Lisiecki and conducted by Howard Shelley received a valuable Diapason Découverte 2010 award. In its new more and more often used seat in the Praga district, Sinfonia organized a series of Chopin recitals performed by the participants of the 17th International Chopin Piano Competition.

Sinfonia played quite a lot of Chopin compositions in this anniversary year also abroad: in Belarus – in the National Philharmonic as part of the Minsk Spring (it was actually the first performance of the ensemble in this country), in Germany – during the Schleswig Holstein

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Pos t e r

Recitals by Par ticipants of the Chopin Competition , War s a w, 8−16 October 2010, de s i gn by S z y m on Z a re m ba

Chopin 2010 Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Musik Festival in Kiel and Elmshorn, in France – in Luxembourg Garden in Paris (here both piano concerts were performed with Piotr Paleczny under Jacek Kaspszyk), in Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Piano Concerto in E Minor with Rafał Blechacz under Jerzy Semkow), as well as in Sisteron and at the festivals in Epaux, La Roque d’Antheron and Menton and last but not least in Hungary – in the Palace of Arts in Budapest. However, the main place of the orchestra’s activities connected with Chopin internationally were successive editions of La Folle Journée Festival devoted to our best artist in this jubilee year – in Pays de la Loire region and in Nantes in France, in Bilbao in Spain and in Niigata, Kanazava and Tokyo in Japan. In those places, Sinfonia performed in over fifty concerts and participated in numerous performances of Piano Concerto in E Minor and in F Minor, Variations on the Theme L∫ ci darem la mano, Fantasy on Polish Airs, Rondo a la Krakowiak as well as Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante. The ensemble also performed works of other composers of this epoch: Elsner, Kurpiƒski, Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Bellini, Mendelssohn, Schumann or Liszt.

Pos t e r

Chopin at Groc howska Str. , War sa w, 21 A ugust− −4 Se ptember 2010, de s i gn by Rober t Mendel

Pos t e r

La Folle Jour née Festi val , Ja pan 2011

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Pos t e r for t h e La Fol l e J ou r n é e de Va r s ov i e / Chopin Open Festi val, Wa r s a w, 11–13 June 2010, de s i gn by F11 – Pracownia

‘Crazy Days’ Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

‘Crazy Days’ The logical consequence of over a decade of Sinfonia Varsovia participation in La Folle Journée on the one hand and the choice of Chopin as a main patron of the festival in 2010 on the other, was an invitation to the ‘crazy days of music’ in Warsaw in that year, moreover by no means for this only edition but with an annual continuation in mind.

In this way the Polish capital joined a group of cities on three continents that included this special beneficial event in the calendars of their permanent cultural undertakings.

Sinfonia performed in Warsaw not only as a participant of this event but also played a role of its organizer. The ensemble shared this considerable effort with Centre for Artistic Research and Creation (CREA) of René Martin from Nantes and Warsaw Foundation ‘Music Gardens’ with an assistance of the French Institute in Warsaw. René Martin planned this Polish Chopin Open as a really versatile and very abounding presentation. For instance during the festival all works of Fryderyk Chopin for piano solo in chronological order of their composing were played (the whole series of recitals was recorded by cultural channel Mezzo of French television), as well as all compositions for piano and orchestra and all chamber works of this Polish composer. Moreover a great deal of works by other artists were included in the programme of this event, both those who inspired Chopin, those who stayed in touch with him or people who created in the same period or those who were influenced by him – from Bach to Rachmaninov. Polish folk music was also not forgotten. From 11th to 13th of June, in five halls of the Grand Theatre – National Opera and the National Theatre one hundred nineteen concerts were given with the participation of almost four hundred fifty artists. Among festival performers there were Barbara Hendricks and Olga Pasichnyk, Boris Berezovsky, Anne Queffélec and Abdel Rahman El Bacha, Alona Baeva and Alexander Rudin, Jacek Kaspszyk, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Marc Minkowski, Krzysztof Penderecki and Antoni Wit. During the festival Sinfonia played in fifteen concerts both as a full orchestra and as a chamber ensemble. The success of Warsaw Chopin Open is best evidenced by a number of audience – over twenty six thousand!

As part of the festival, an impressive educational project in a form of musical workshops was organized under the management of Violetta Łabanow in co-operation with ‘Music Is for Everyone’ Foundation. Two and a half thousand children from primary schools participated in the workshops. It is worth adding here that educational aspirations of Sinfonia are also expressed by an undertaking of launching a special programme addressed to the students of musical academies. This project is realized by Jerzy Klocek, a legendary concertmaster of the cello section of the orchestra,

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Pos t e r

Sinfonia Var sovia, Chopin 2010, de s i gn by Maciej Buszewicz

Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Po ste r for c on c er t a t t h e N a ti onal Philhar monic, Wa r sa w, 21, 23 November 2011, d e si gn by Maciej Buszewicz

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F l ye r

Orkiestra Sinfonia Varsovia

Summer Recitals

zaprasza na

at Groc howska Str. ,

LETNIE RECIT CIT TALE A na Grochowskiej ej

WSTĘP WOLNY

SINFONIA VA ARSOVIA CENTRUM WARSZAWA GROCHOWSKA 272

www.sinfoniavarsovia.org Patronat medialny

Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Wa r s a w, Jul y-A ugust 2011, de s i gn by F11 − Pracownia

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Poster for concer t at the Lutosła wski C on cer t Studio of Polish Radio, War sa w, 6 Januar y 2009, design by Maciej Buszewicz

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Pos t e r for c on c e r t a t t h e N a t i on a l Philhar monic, Wa r s a w, 22 December 2010, de s i gn by Maciej Buszewicz

Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Poste r for concer t at the Lutosła wski Studio of Polish Radio on th e occasion of the 10th anni ver sar y of the Adam Mic kiewicz Institute, War sa w, 19 June 2010, d esign by Maciej Buszewicz

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Pos t e r for c on c e r t at the Lutosła wski S t u di o of Polish Radio, Wa r s a w, 9 Januar y 2010, de s i gn by Maciej Buszewicz

Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Poster for concer t at the Lutosła wski Studio of Polish Radio, War sa w, 8 Januar y 2012, design by Maciej Buszewicz

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Dyrektor Artystyczny

Krzysztof Penderecki

ZAPRAS

ZAMY

DZIECI

WST¢P W O LN Y

17grudnia 2011 Sinfonia Varsovia Centrum godz. 1200-1500 Warszawa, ul. Grochowska 272

sobota

Urzàd Dzielnicy Praga Południe m.st. Warszawy 3 Klub Kultury Saska K´pa

B a n n e r Famil y Christmas Meeting

at Groc howska Str. , War sa w, 17 December 2011, d e si gn by Maciej Buszewicz

B a n n e r Christmas Concer t

at Groc howska Str. , Wa r sa w, 18 December. 2011, d e si gn by Maciej Buszewicz

Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Dyrektor Muzyczny

Dyrektor Naczelny

Marc Minkowski

Janusz Marynowski

warsztaty plastyczne, malowanie bombek oraz kartek Êwiàtecznych, projektowanie ekologicznych ozdób choinkowych, opowieÊci o polskich zwyczajach bo˝onarodzeniowych, wspólna nauka i Êpiewanie kol´d, słodki Êwiàteczny pocz´stunek oraz moc innych atrakcji

Zespół Dzieci´cy Zespołu Paƒstwowych Szkó∏ Muzycznych nr 4 im. Karola Szymanowskiego w Warszawie prowadzenie

Anna Perzanowska-Tarasiuk fortepian

Tomek Rosłon

design:

zny

derecki

animatorzy Centrum Promocji Kultury Praga Płd. goÊcie z Paƒstwowego Muzeum Etnograficznego w Warszawie

i niespodzianek www.sinfoniavarsovia.org

Christmas card, 2011, d e si gn by Maciej Buszewicz

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Letter from the Mayor of War sa w, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, pr i n t e d i n t h e c a t a l ogu e of t h e pos t - c om pe t i t i on e xh i bi t i on of de s i gn s

Szanowni Paƒstwo

for t h e bu i l di n g a n d deve l opm e n t of

Pi´ç miesi´cy temu, w czerwcu, obiecaliÊmy, ˝e jeszcze w tym roku poznajà Paƒstwo projekt miejskiej sali koncertowej, która powstanie w siedzibie Orkiestry Sinfonii Varsovii przy ul. Grochowskiej. Słowa dotrzymaliÊmy.

Oddajemy w Paƒstwa r´ce katalog z pracami, jakie w rekordowej liczbie zostały nadesłane do organizatora konkursu, na projekt głównej miejskiej sali koncertowej dla 1800 widzów wraz z adaptacjà zabytkowych budynków. Spotkał si´ on z wielkim zainteresowaniem pracowni architektonicznych z całego Êwiata. Nadesłano 138 prac z kilkudziesi´ciu krajów. Na Pradze powstanie nowe centrum kulturalne War sza wy. Wo kół sie dzi by Sin fo nii Var so vii, z po sza no wa niem za byt ko we go gmachu dawnego Instytutu Weterynarii, zogniskowane zostanà w nowej przestrzeni tak˝e inne formy sztuki – teatr, film, malarstwo, fotografia czy rzeêba. Powstanie tu multiteka, kawiarnia, restauracja. Nowe centrum kulturalne dostarczy zaj´ cia i roz ryw ki war sza wia kom o ró˝ nych za in te re so wa niach i w ró˝ nym wie ku.

B´dzie przede wszystkim stałà siedzibà naszej miejskiej orkiestry – Sinfonii Varsovii, od çwierç wieku bezdomnej. B´dzie mo˝na tu sp´dziç wiele godzin w kontakcie ze sztukà. Mo˝na b´dzie tej sztuki si´ uczyç. Planowane jest bowiem prowa dze nie pro gra mów edu ka cyj nych dla dzie ci i mło dzie ˝y, a tak ˝e kur sy mistrzowskie doskonalàce umiej´tnoÊci zawodowe muzyków. W katalogu zaprezentowane zostały wszystkie projekty nadesłane na konkurs, który został sfinansowany ze Êrodków m.st. Warszawy. Koncepcja zwyci´ska, która b´dzie realizowa na przy ul. Gro chow skiej, do łà czy do zmian, ja kie za cho dzà w kul tu rze na Pradze – do zmodernizowanego Teatru Powszechnego, do powstajàcego Muzeum Warszawskiej Pragi czy salonu prawobrze˝nej Warszawy – ul. Francuskiej. Sinfonia Varsovia Centrum to wa˝ny projekt dla naszego miasta – kandydata do tytułu Europejskiej Stolicy Kultury 2016. Dlatego chcielibyÊmy, ˝eby w 2016 roku placówka mogła ju˝ słu˝yç mieszkaƒcom.

Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz

Premises Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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t h e prope r t y a t 272 Groc howska Str. i n Wa r s a w, S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a Orc hestra, War s a w 2010

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Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

Premises V isualisation of fragment of the Praga-Południe district in War sa w, showing the planned e x pa n si on of S i n fon i a Var sovia's headquar ter s at Groc howska Str.,

Finally, it is an absolute must to mention that a prospect of an ultimate shape of a new seat in 272 Grochowska Str. crystallized in this period. Let us repeat that the ensemble has begun to play concerts and organize their educational undertakings in this new seat more and more often. In June 2010 an open two-stage competition for the design of a new concert hall for 1,800 spectators and for architectural development of the real property being the former seat of the Institute of Veterinary Sciences was announced. One hundred thirty seven works from several dozen countries were received, of which ten were accepted for the second stage.

International jury (composed of among others the representatives of Sinfonia: General Director Janusz Marynowski and musicians Andrzej Krzy˝anowski and Grzegorz Stachurski) awarded the first prize to the project presented by the atelier of an Austrian architect Thomas Pucher.

Among three winners of second prizes there were an atelier of renowned Zaha Hadid and two

d e s i g n by Atelier T homas Puc her ZT GMBH, 2010

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V i s u a l i s a t i on of t h e S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a c on c e r t h a l l , de s i gn by At e l i e r T h om a s Pu c h e r ZT GMBH, 2010

V i s u a l i s a t i o n of t h e mai n bu l i di n g, d e s i g n by At e l i e r T h om a s P u c h e r ZT GMBH, 2010

Premises Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Polish studios. The winning project is fascinating in many respects. It assumes to surround the whole complex with a three-metres high wall and for the concert hall it intends an innovatory combination of a traditional ‘shoe box’ shape with a ‘vineyard’ running down in terraces towards the centrally located stage, whereas the rows of seats for the audience are winding freely around the stage like ribbons. As announced by the Warsaw authorities we will be able to listen to Sinfonia Varsovia in their own concert hall already in 2016...

August 2011

S pa t i a l deve l opm e n t m ode l for t h e h e a dqu a r t e r s of the Sinfonia Var sovia Orc hestra, de s i gn by At e l i e r T h om a s Pu c h e r ZT GMBH, 2010

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V i s u a l i s a t i o n of t h e i n t e r i or of t h e fu t u re S i n fon i a Va r s ov i a c o n c e r t h a l l , d e s i g n by Atelier T homas Puc her ZT GMBH, 2010

Premises Postscript – Today and Tomorrow

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Members of the Polish Chamber Orchestra at a Concer t at the National Philharmonic, 27 April 1984 Ar tistic Director

Jerzy Maksymiuk Deputy Ar tistic Director

Franciszek WybraĆ’czyk Yehudi Menuhin Violin and Conductor

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Violins

Cellos

Clarinets

Jan Stanienda

Jerzy Klocek

Zenon Kitowski

Concer tmaster

Ewa Wasiółka

Dariusz Wybraƒczyk

Wiesław KwaÊny Andrzej Staniewicz

Maciej Jezierski Paweł Freydlich

Zbigniew Wytrykowski Robert Dàbrowski Michał Grabarczyk Karol Miczka

Grzegorz Kozłowski Paweł Gadzina

Andrzej Budejko Krzysztof Mróz Bogusław PstraÊ

Mariusz Wójtowicz

Włodzimierz ˚urawski Piotr Reichert Robert Pajewski Tadeusz Wykurz

Jerzy Choma Paweł Szczepaƒski

Andrzej Wojakowski Małgorzata Lange

Tr u m p e t s Janusz Bogłowski Antoni Adamus

Oboes Jerzy Kotyczka Tomasz Miczka

Violas

Hor ns

Flutes

Adam Haftkowski Ewa Bobrowska

Bogumił Gadawski

Double-Basses

Grzegorz Rezler Józef Kolinek

Bassoons

Timpani Stanisław Skoczyƒski

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Employees of Sinfonia Varsovia August 2011

Jakub Haufa Concertmaster

Maria MachowskaSzałach Concertmaster

Artur Gadzała Associate Principal

Edyta Czy˝ewska

Katarzyna Krzysztof Oczko Gilewska-Zagrodziƒska

Andrzej Staniewicz

Łukasz Turcza

Anna Gotartowska-Sienkiewicz

Agnieszka Zdebska

Magdalena Krzy˝anowska

Dominika Kubica

Grzegorz Kozłowski Librarian

Krystyna Walkiewicz- Bogusław -Rzeczycka Powichrowski

Artur Konowalik Robert Dàbrowski Orchestra Speaker and Artistic Coordinator

Małgorzata Szczepaƒska

II VIOLINS

I VIOLINS

Krzysztof Penderecki Artistic Director

Paweł Gadzina

Artur Paciorkiewicz Principal

Grzegorz Stachurski Associate Principal

Włodzimierz ˚urawski Janusz Bie˝yƒski

Dariusz Kisieliƒski

Jacek Nycz

Jerzy Klocek Concertmaster

Piotr Mazurek Acting Associate Principal

Katarzyna Drzewiecka- Ewa Wasiółka Szlachcikowska Associate Principal

Piotr Krzemionka

Kamil Mysiƒski

Krzysztof Mróz Principal

Michał SobuÊ Associate Principal

Marek Bogacz

DOUBLE-BASSES

CELLOS

VIOLAS

Zbigniew Wytrykowski Agnieszka Guz Principal Associate Principal

Karol Kinal

Michał Zaborski

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Marc Minkowski Music Director

FLUTES

OBOES

Janusz Marynowski Executive Director

Anna Jasiƒska

Aleksander Romaƒski Dariusz Wybraƒczyk

Radosław Soroka

Paweł Szczepaƒski

Henryk Kowalewicz

Roman Sykta

Jakub Waszczeniuk

Andrzej Tomczok

Jan Harasimowicz

Bolesław Słowik

Adam Szl´zak

Krzysztof Kosmala Deputy Director

Bo˝ena Dadej Chief Accountant

Zbigniew Płu˝ek

Wiesław Wołoszynek

Blanka Gołaszewska Head of Production Department

Natalia Staszczak Impresariat

Inga Szczerbiƒska Chief Specialist for Publications

Bo˝ena Kasiak Human Resources Specialist

Janusz Czy˝ewski Office Manager

Ewa Wodzyƒska Office

Magdalena Todynek Office

Beata Andrzejewska Deputy Chief Accountant

Gra˝yna Zar´ba Accounting and Finance Specialist

Małgorzata Zawadzka Finance Specialist

Robert Rolczyk Office

Ryszard Dembicki Logistics

TROMBONES

Tomasz Âwiatczyƒski

Mariusz Opaliƒski

T I M PA N I

Marek ˚wirdowski Artistic Coordinator

Piotr Kostrzewa

OFFICE

TRUMPETS

HORNS

BASSOONS

CLARINETS

Andrzej Krzy˝anowski Hanna Turonek Orchestra Speaker

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GPro ra pjekt h i c gra d e sficz i g n Ma ciej Bu sze wicz C o o p e ra t i o n Ka t a r z y na B r zo s t o w s k a ERed da i t okr El ˝ bi e t a St a Ê k ie w ic z P ro fe s s i o n a l c o o p e ra t i o n Inga Szczerbiƒska APrs zs ygot i s t a now c ea ni ni ep m reapt ae ra i o wn oa frcahircwhailva r iat łó nycl hm a t e r i a l s Anna Mieczyƒska Grze gorz Kozłowski Krzysztof Mróz Tra n s l a t i o n : M a rc i n Tu r s k i A n n a O l s ze w s k a - M a rc i n k i e w i c z Pa w e ł S k a l i ƒ s k i

ph otogra ph s Marco Borggreve p. 76, 110, 143 M a r c M i n k o w s k i Aleksander Długajczyk p. 26 Krzysztof Dubiel p. 52, 142 M a r i a M a c h o w s k a F11-Pracownia p. 143 I n g a S z c z e r b i ƒ s k a An drzej Fedorowi c z p. 6 Krzysztof Jarosz p. 52, 143 H e n r y k K o w a l e w i c z Ar turo Mari p. 31 Paul Mitc hell p. 45 Jean-Paul Mande gou p. 48–52, 142–143 A n d r z e j S t a n i e w i c z , Rober t Dàbrowski, Piotr Krzemionka, Małgorzata Szczepaƒska, Michał SobuÊ

Janusz Mar ynowski p. 27, 29, 30, 34, 39 Andrzej Mówczan p. 18, 20–21, 26 Janina Nasierowska p. 142 A n n a G u z Zbigniew Gusta w Olszyna p. 142 A n n a J a s i ƒ s k a Mirosła w Pietr uszyƒski p. 35, 43, 51–53 i 143 A n d r z e j

To m c z o k ,

Konrad Bukowian, Krzysztof Kosmala, Bo˝ena Dadej, Natalia Staszczak, E w a W o d z y ƒ s k a , M a g d a l e n a To d y n e k

, 76, 109, 111 T homas Ra bsc h p. 76 Roy Round copyright EMI limited p. 23 Andrzej p. Rybczyƒski p. 37 Tomasz Âwiatczyƒski p. 48–52 i 142–143 G r z e g o r z

Kozłowski, Paweł

G a d z i n a , E w a W a s i ó ł k a , Ł u k a s z Tu r c z a , A n n a G o t a r t o w s k a , D a r i u s z W y b r a ƒ c z y k , Wiesław Wołoszynek, Kr ystyna Walkiewicz, Janusz Bie˝yƒski, Roman Sykta, Edyta Czy˝ewska, Zbigniew Płu˝ek, Mariusz Opaliƒski, Krzysztof Oczko, Marek Bogacz, Radosław Soroka, Karol Kinal, Mic hał Zaborski, Maria Kominek

Andrzej Âwietlik p. 6–7, 12–13, 32–33, 46–47, 54–55, 66– –67, 74–75, 78–79, 86–87, 96–97, 104–105, 114– –115, 117–118, 138–139 S i n f o n i a Va r s o v i a , T h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l P i a n o Festi val in La Roque d’Anthéron – Château Bas Mimet, August 2011

www.sinfoniavar sovia.org

and 35, 36, 48, 49–53 i 142–143

Jerzy Klocek, Zbigniew Wytr ykowski,

Krzysztof Mróz, Ar tur Paciorkiewicz, Bolesław Słowik, Paweł Szcze paƒski, Aleksander Romaƒski, Grzegorz Stac hurski, Ar tur Konowalik, Ar tur Gadzała,

© Co py ri ght by Grze gorz W i Êniew ski, War sza wa 2012

M a r e k ˚ w i r d o w s k i , To m a s z  w i a t c z y ƒ s k i , P i o t r K o s t r z e w a , J a n u s z O l e c h o w s k i ,

© Co py ri ght for the Eng lish Translation by Beata Hellmann, War sza wa 2012

Kamil Mysiƒski, Jakub Haufa, Katarzyna Drzewiecka, Jacek Nycz, Andrzej

© Co py ri ght fo r t he E ng lis h Tra ns la t io n by A nna Ols ze w s k a - M a rc i n k i e w i c z ,

Krzy˝anowski, Jakub Waszczeniuk, Janusz Mar ynowski, Janusz Czy˝ewski

War sza wa 2012 © Co py ri ght by Paƒ stwo wy In sty tut W y da w ni czy, War sza wa 2012

Printed in Poland Paƒstwowy Instytut W yda wniczy w likwidacji, War sza wa 2012 ul. Foksal 17, 00-372 War sza wa e-mail: piw@piw.pl www.piw.pl F i r s t e di t i on Printed by: Dr ukar nia W yda wnicza im. W. L. Anczyca S.A. ul. Wrocła wska 53, 30-011 Kraków tel (012) 623 75 43 www.dr ukar nia-anczyca.com.pl ISBN 978-83-06-03317-5

, 108

Krzysztof Wojciec howski p. 11 Andrzej ˚óra wski p. 76 the Sinfonia Var sovia arc hi ves p. 8, 9, 17, 24, 25, 34, 38, 76, 140, 143 K r z y s z t o f P e n d e r e c k i pri vate arc hi ves p. 49–53, 142–143

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l i n e k , J a n S t a n i e n d a , W i e s ł a w K w a Ê n y, B o g u s ł a w P o w i c h r o w s k i , H a n n a T u r o n e k , Krzysztof Bzówka, Dariusz Kisieliƒski, Urszula Janik, Katarzyna Gilewska, A n n a W y b r a ƒ c z y k , A d a m S z l ´ z a k , P i o t r Ta r c h o l i k , A g n i e s z k a Z d e b s k a , Magdalena Krzy˝anowska, Paweł MaÊlanka, Dominika Kubica, Piotr Mazurek, Jan Harasimowicz, Blanka Gołaszewska, Bo˝ena Kasiak, Beata Andrzejewska, Gra˝yna Zar´ba, Małgorzata Zawadzka, Rober t Rolczyk, Ryszard Dembicki

oth er sou rc es p. 31 – Rober t Jarocki, Z albumu Romana Jasiƒskiego, Warsaw: Paƒstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2011