Sinfonia Iuventus reviews
Plowright adds shine to Polish centenary
With the centenary of Polish independence this year, we are likely to hear more of Jan Paderewski (1860-1941), the virtuoso pianist-composer who was a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles and served as Poland’s first prime minister. His magnificent Piano Concerto (1888) has never quite disappeared and virtuosos have recorded it; outstanding versions include those by Earl Wild, Barbara Hesse-Bukowska, Kevin Kenner and Nelson Goerner, and perhaps significantly the work appeared (played by Piers Lane) on Vol. 1 of Hyperion’s now epic Romantic Piano Concerto series.
'The most gifted young Polish musicians... master all the technical difficulties of these two scores' by Prokofiev and Weinberg
The harmonic and textural adventurousness of Weinberg’s powerful Fifth Symphony is indicative of the changing cultural climate in the Soviet Union during the early 1960s. A large-scale four-movement work that moves from a restless opening Allegro moderato and a gloomy Adagio sostenuto to a grotesque Scherzo and an elegiac and emotionally ambiguous Andantino Finale, this is hardly a conventional Socialist Realist symphonic narrative.