Dobrzynski: Symphony No. 2 'Characteristic'; Monbar Overture; Piano Concerto - Borowicz, Madey, Polish Radio Symphony (2013)

The name of Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński is still not well known outside his native Poland, but there was a time when he vied for attention in Warsaw’s musical circles with his near-contemporary Fryderyk Chopin who went on to become the country’s most famous composer. The career of Chopin flourished after he left Poland. Dobrzyński on the other hand remained in Warsaw and saw his own compositional ambitions thwarted by the difficulty of working in Russian-occupied Poland.

The works on these discs date from a time when Dobrzyński was a young man. He was only seventeen when, in 1824, he wrote his Piano Concerto. With this work Dobrzyński followed in the footsteps of composers such as Hummel and Field, associated with the style brillant, but made more than a passing nod to Weber and to late eighteenth-century idioms.

The Second Symphony followed in 1834. Revising the symphony much later, Dobrzyński wrote a new slow movement for the piece in 1862, and it is in this version that the symphony has since been performed. Uniquely, both slow movements are included on this disc. The tone that Dobrzyński adopted for the music is urgent and impassioned, probably a reflection of the occupied and divided Poland of the 1830s.

Dobrzyński considered the opera Monbar, or The Filibusters his masterpiece. Setting a pirate tale, the work displays plenty of orchestral swashbuckling, offering throughout clearly depicted themes, such as tropical storms, fighting, love, and, of course, treason. The opera had to wait twenty-five years for its complete premiere, under the composer’s baton, in Warsaw, in January 1863. Even then the opera only had three performances before the break-out two weeks later of the January Uprising, a Polish protest against the occupying forces. Monbar was subsequently shelved and not heard again until a concert performance in Warsaw in 2010.

Łukasz Borowicz was appointed Artistic Director of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw in 2007; he has appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras including the Konzerthausorchester in Berlin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Philharmonic Orchestra, and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The Polish-born pianist Emilian Madey is also active as a composer, conductor, and lecturer at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.

Composer: Ignacy Feliks Dobrzynski
Performer: Emilian Madey
Conductor: Lukasz Borowicz
Orchestra/Ensemble: Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Reviews: At one time Ignacy Dobrzynski is said to have been as well known in Poland as Chopin, with whom he once shared the teacher Józef Elsner. One left Poland and found fame, the other remained in Russian-occupied Warsaw and was ultimately all but forgotten. Bits and pieces of Dobrzy?ski's music have appeared on disc in recent years, but very few monographs. The opera overture, piano concerto and symphony offered here by the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra under ?ukasz Borowicz for Chandos make for a varied and enjoyable, though not essential, table d'hôte.

The pirate-painting Monbar Overture is of a generally Rossinian nature - cheerful, catchy, with an exuberant finale. Though not quite as huge as the Piano Concerto, the Symphony is nevertheless a substantial work. Dobrzynski gave it a new second movement more than a quarter of a century on, and that is the version heard here - although the attractive original movement has thoughtfully been included by way of bonus. The ostensibly nationalistic Symphony is no stand-out masterpiece - Dobrzynski's own title is perhaps more revealing than he intended - but it is tuneful and very well-crafted in the way many lesser symphonies of the time were. The final movement, oddly, sounds not unlike a Rossini overture itself, brimming with high spirits and operatic-style reprises.

The best work of the three is, ironically, the Piano Concerto. Ironically, because Dobrzynski was only seventeen when he wrote it. In that respect it is an astonishingly assured work, elegantly proportioned, sophisticatedly orchestrated and with an abundance of pianistic and symphonic ideas. In some respects this is an an unfortunate pairing for the Symphony by Chandos - Howard Shelley's recording of the Piano Concerto was released only last year by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute (NIFCCD101, paired with Franciszek Lessel's) to widespread praise. Chandos made their recording in early 2010, more than six months after Shelley's, which was done live at the 'Chopin and his Music' festival in Warsaw - thus it seems unlikely no one at Chandos was aware of it. It might have been more revealing at any rate if Borowicz and team had recorded Dobrzy?ski's First Symphony, which indeed the PRSO already have in their repertoire.

On the other hand, the Chandos version is sufficiently different - many minutes longer than Shelley's, and taking advantage (controversially, it must be said) of a reconstruction by composer Krzysztof Baculewski from Dobrzynski's original deletions. The concerto itself does not resemble those of Chopin, but rather Johann Hummel's or Friedrich Kalkbrenner's crowd-pleasing, bravura-stoked works. Bizarrely, the first known performance was not given until 1986. Polish soloist Emilian Madey, himself a composer, gives a suitably heroic performance of this epic work.

Sound quality is pretty good, but never reaching the heights one or two prominent reviews of this disc indicate - a suggestion of lossiness in the strings sections is hard to escape. The two CDs only add up to a single plus a quarter of an hour, but as Chandos are only charging single-disc price, the timing is actually extremely generous. The trilingual booklet notes by Adrian Thomas are interesting and well written. Moreover, the text goes almost to the edges of the page - what a tree-saver, if this marks the beginning of the end for the label's notoriously wasteful margins! Madey and especially Borowicz stare out from the booklet in a strikingly dour, humourless way - quite what the origin of their severity is, is unclear. Not Dobrzy?ski's music, for sure.