Karlowicz: Returning Waves; A Sorrowful Tale; Episode at a Masquerade cover

Karlowicz: Returning Waves; A Sorrowful Tale; Episode at a Masquerade

Released

Mieczysław Karłowicz may well have become Poland’s first world-renowned symphonist had his life not been dramatically cut short at the age of only 32 in a freak 1909 ski accident. Although all but unknown today, Karłowicz’s output was key connective tissue in the development of Polish orchestral music, rooted in the folk-inflected Romanticism of Chopin, Moniuszko, and Paderewski, and looking ahead to the more ambitious 20th century experimentalism of Szymanowski, Lutosławski, and Panufnik. His pictorial flair and gift for orchestration (honed through close study of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov) are enlivened and honored in these eloquent, enthusiastic readings from Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic of two of his most engrossing symphonic poems, Returning Waves and Episode at a Masquerade, artifacts of a mind taken far too soon.

Zev Kane

Recommended by

Suggestions
Giovanni Simone Mayr: Ginevra di Scozia cover

Giovanni Simone Mayr: Ginevra di Scozia

Elizabeth Vidal, Tiziano Severini, Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra of Milan, Daniela Barcellona
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No.1 - Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No.2 cover

Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No.1 - Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No.2

Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Haochen Zhang, Dima Slobodeniouk
Anna Clyne: Mythologies cover

Anna Clyne: Mythologies

André de Ridder, Irene Buckley, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, Jennifer Koh, Andrew Litton, Sakari Oramo, Anna Clyne
Mozart: Arias cover

Mozart: Arias

Magdalena Kožená, Simon Rattle
Untitled cover

Untitled

Fanny Mendelssohn, Quatuor Ebène
Smetana: Má Vlast cover

Smetana: Má Vlast

Lovro von Matačić
Rossini: Semiramide cover

Rossini: Semiramide

Marianna Pizzolato, Alex Penda, Antonino Fogliani