Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra begin their survey of Grażyna Bacewicz’s orchestral music with her last two symphonies, composed in 1952 and 1953 respectively. The Polish-born Bacewicz had trained as a violinist, but also studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and despite a promising career as a soloist, on her return to Warsaw she joined the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra for two years specifically to hone her skills as an orchestrator.
The elegant neoclassicism that Bacewicz imbibed in her lessons with Boulanger is evident in both these symphonies, though not so obviously in the extrovert Overture from 1943 also included on the disc. It’s possible to construe her style as a bridge in Polish music between Karol Szymanowski, or at least his later neoclassical works, and the Bartók-influenced modernism of Witold Lutosławski.
Bacewicz’s orchestral palette may not be as vivid as those of either of those two composers, but those influences, as well as perhaps a debt to Shostakovich, too, are welded into a distinctive style that never seems derivative. Her handling of the large-scale four-movement forms is wonderfully assured, while the moments of high dissonance suggest that even in the early 1950s she was not prepared to conform to the precepts of Soviet populism as meekly as the authorities might have liked.
Certainly the drive and conviction behind these performances suggest that Oramo believes passionately in the music’s worth, and the BBCSO revels in its expert orchestration. It all promises well for subsequent instalments.
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