POKOLENIE STALOWOWOLSKIE [pdf] - Radio Katowice SA

this collection) with the heightened energy of ornaments and the elements of the highlands folk scale, as
if inviting to take a walk across the Beskid Śląski…
There is then in this short piece the opposition of sadness and joy, of a song sung in the euphonic accord
twilight, emanating with sensitive lyricism, and in the contrasting segments of the piece, the brave element
of playing music, put down with the descent of the lowered intervals, of coming down and up again.
But the final word belongs to the tone of nostalgia, after all the piece announced with the instrumental
sotto voce…
*
In 1998 the piece called 20 for 4 was written, as a present for the 20th Anniversary of Silesian String
Quartet, in the headline announcing the year of the ensemble’s birth – a978. This quartet miniature –
next to the numerous birthday dedications of some other Polish composers – was performed by the
celebrated ensemble on the 13th of December in the Palace at Rybna, Tarnowskie Góry, at the 4th Chamber
Music Festival “Silesian String Quartet and its Guests”. The way the tempo and the expression character
were defined, tells us nearly everything: presto possibile con vigore. What came out was a charming, a bit
fanfare-like sound greeting card in 20 (1978–1979–1980, etc. to 1997) numbered in the score motive-wise
blinks, which was to describe the 20 years that the Quartet worked and performed. The basis is the foursound
(well, yes… this is a quartet) motifs – modules, where the sounds are marked as numbered steps
of the 12-bar scale, presented by the musicians of the Quartet in various configurations melodic as well as
accord, and played either solo or together. It all starts with the first violin solo, as at the very beginning
there was Marek Woś, then comes to play the second violin – as the ensemble was joined by Arkadiusz
(Aki) Kubica, and then we have the viola and the cello – after Witold Serafin and Józef Gomolka had left
the band (and the country) in 1985, the personnel of the ensemble was supplemented by Łukasz Syrnicki
and Piotr Jarosik. Texturally kaleidoscope-like repetitive construction has its points – the years – distinguished
by very particular, not giving too much choice for the performers, unlike elsewhere, score, and
other shapes, if to mention glissandos. These are the years of 1980, 1987, 1993 i 1995, when Aleksander
Lasoń his first three Quartets and Relief for Andrzej.
*
4th Quartet „Of Tarnowskie Góry” is written in two parts (Misterioso – Decisio e energio) was made in
2000 by the commission of the Society of the Preservation of the Tarnowskie Góry Region, and is dedicated
to the Society. The first performance took place in the Palace at Rybna in Tarnowskie Góry on the
3 rd of December 2000 during the VIII Festival of Chamber Music “Silesian String Quartet and its Guests”.
The personnel of Silesian String Quartet, after the departure of Marek Moś, held Anna Rechlewicz who
played the part of the first violin – but very soon she was replaced by Szymon Krzeszowiec, and this is
how it goes till the present day... After the performance was over, the audience gave the band a standing
ovation...
The whole of the work consists of two parts, proportionally ballanced as for the time it is concerned. Ludwik
Erhardt described the piece in such a way: “The first part, kept in slow tempo, is signed by the hint misterioso,
and is developing from the theme introduced at the beginning by the whole ensemble. Another of its characteristic
elements are glissandos and tiny, irregular ornaments, disturbing the explicitness of the melodic
line. Gradually increased expression carries the playing into higher and higher registers, leading to the
ecstatic final segment, after which the first theme comes back. The second part is constructed the other way
round: the frame of it is made of the segments based on the motoric movement of accords, played by the
ensemble deciso e energico, the middle part is filled by the vast plane of peaceful music, euphonic, glittering
with melizmats and passionate ornaments, which in different sound circumstances, could remind us of the
performing manner of the Gypsy violinists. Especially engaging here is the rich melodic invention, and the
ability to build the noble dialogue between the particular instruments of the quartet”.
What is it so very significant about this work, and surprising, too? The very strong emotionalism? Well,
yes. But this one appeared for the first time in the former quartets. The highlands folk note? This one, too,
we encountered in 3
64–65
rd Quartet (maybe because Aleksander with his family had bought a house at Glinka at
the Beskid Śląski…). But we have here the new tones (even though we may not forget 3rd “Hebrew” Sonata
for the violin solo finished in 1984) – the motifs appealing to the Gypsy culture, as though yearning for
something which is so very distant and infinite, crossed with most generally understood “highlands
culture” – its temperament and sharp spontaneity, but also motifs somewhat rewritten from the music
and performing manners – Jewish and Arabian. Glissandos and ornaments, winding away melodies and
their embellishments. At the end of the 30th , if this kind of music could have there been produced, it would
have been named in the German 3rd Reich – “non-Aryan”. Its “Jewish note” would have certainly induced
some sort of consternation on the side of Karol Szymanowski, but its “Arabian note” would have definitely
got the author of The Song of Hafiz interested, or even intrigued…
*