Their Voices Art Chamber Ensemble

• Joseph Achron (1886 - 1943): Hebrew Melody for violin and piano, Op. 33:
• 1 Achron: Hebrew Melody for violin and piano, Op. 33 06:43
• Sonata for violin and piano:
• 2 Achron: Sonata for violin and piano : Moderato 07:23
• 3 Achron: Sonata for violin and piano : Andante ma non troppo 04:31
• 4 Achron: Sonata for violin and piano : Allegro 02:33
• Sonata for cello and piano:
• 5 Achron: Sonata for cello and piano : Allegro moderato 08:25
• 6 Achron: Sonata for cello and piano : Andante poco un grave 05:17
• 7 Achron: Sonata for cello and piano : Presto 04:50
• Capriccio for violin and piano, Op. 18:
• 8 Achron: Capriccio for violin and piano, Op. 18 04:25
• Piano Trio No. 2 “Silent Voices”:
• 9 Achron: Piano Trio No. 2 “Silent Voices” 16:43
• Total Runtime 01:00:50

Info for Their Voices

Diese neue Veröffentlichung von DUX präsentiert eine Sammlung von Aufnahmen, die an jüdische Komponisten erinnern, die hauptsächlich vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg tätig waren. Ihre Musik repräsentiert verschiedene stilistische Strömungen ihrer Zeit und wurde von zahlreichen Ideen inspiriert.

Die Hebräische Melodie für Violine und Klavier op. 33 von Joseph Achron (1886?1943) entstand aus seiner Faszination für die religiöse Musik der aschkenasischen Juden, während die Sonate für Violine und Klavier von Joachim Mendelson (1887? Die Sonate für Violine und Klavier von Joachim Mendelson (1887?1943), deren Einspielung gleichzeitig die polnische Erstaufführung ist, zeigt die neoklassischen Interessen ihres Autors, ebenso wie die Sonate für Cello und Klavier von Szymon Laks (1901?1983). Das Capriccio von J?zef Koffler (1896?1944) ist eine durch und durch avantgardistische Komposition, die die dodekaphonische Technik mit einer neoklassischen Form kombiniert.

Die Aufnahme gipfelt in einem zeitgenössischen Stück, das speziell für ein Konzert zum Gedenken an die im Krieg ermordeten jüdischen Musiker geschrieben wurde, das im Washingtoner Holocaust-Museum stattfand. Es handelt sich um das Klaviertrio "Silent Voices" von Benjamin Lees (1924?2010).

"Diese vielschichtige Auswahl an Werken haben die drei Musiker des Art Chamber Ensembles für die Veröffentlichung vorgenommen. Die Pianistin ist in allen Stücken dabei, während bis auf das Trio von Lees entweder Geige oder Cello spielen. Ihre zupackend kraftvollen Interpretationen, die manche Feinheit weniger herausstellen, zeigen vor allem die klanglichen Neuheiten in den Werken. Technisch auf sicherem Boden bringen sie Werke zu Gehör, die sonst weniger Beachtung finden. Die Sammlung ist aus diesem Grund interessant." (Uwe Krusch, pizzicato.lu)

Art Chamber Ensemble:
Julita Przybylska-Nowak, Klavier
Agnieszka Kolodziej, Cello
Jaroslaw Pietrzak, Violine

Art Chamber Duo
We formed the Art Chamber Duo ensemble in 2010. Our experience as soloists allowed us to put into practice an idea we shared – to show in a new way the art of the duo of a violin and a piano as two equal, solo instruments. In contemporary performance practice, very often the piano is treated as a supporting instrument, whose role is limited to providing accompaniment, a harmonic background for the leading soloist part. We, as performers, follow in the tradition of joint concerts of grand virtuosi of the violin and the piano, which is reflected in the spectacular grand duo works they created, enormously popular during the Romantic era.

Duo brillant pieces are to be found among the output of numerous outstanding composers, including such distinguished figures as Giovanni Bottesini, Niccolo Paganini, Fryderyk Chopin (Frédéric Chopin) or Franz Liszt. Our repertoire includes virtuoso pieces by Franz Schubert, Henryk and Józef Wieniawski, Edward Wolff, Michał Bergson and Henri Vieuxtemps. We are constantly discovering many unknown works and our presentations are their world premieres. Here you can find the latest recordings from albums released in 2020 - Grand Duo Brillant (RecArt 2020) and Irena Regina Wieniawska vel Poldowski - works for violin and piano (Grantor 2020).

We invite many superb young musicians to join us, and we play together as the Art Chamber Ensemble. That cooperation provides us with an opportunity to expand our repertoire with works intended for bigger chamber line-ups. We have given concerts at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, at Singer’s Warsaw Festival, and in the Warsaw Philharmonic hall, presenting works by Szymon Laks, Erwin Schulhoff, Ernest Bloch and Felix Mendelssohn.

We also act through the Polonia Music Art Foundation, which we established. The Foundation’s aim is to popularise the output of Polish expatriate composers as well as works written by artists from national minorities, many of which populated Poland until the first half of the 20th century. In 2018, on the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, we organised a concert to present pieces by Polish and Czech composers of Jewish descent, who were Holocaust victims.

We are also very active educators, as tutors of the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław. We conduct numerous workshops and master courses, and act as judges at music competitions. We regularly cooperate with the Eufonium Publishing House, which releases the compositions we discover. So far we have published our performance editions of collections of works by Edward Wolff, Charles Auguste de Bériot and Henri Vieuxtemps.

One of our first joint concerts took place in 2010, at the Righteous Among the Nations medal award ceremony, held by the Yad Vashem Institute. That concert, given during an event organised in remembrance of heroes who helped Jews during WWII, became a turning point in our joint activity. It was then that we decided to save from oblivion works by Polish composers of Jewish descent who died tragically, as well as those that had not been presented on concert stages before.

On our first CD (DUX 2014), we recorded pieces for the violin and the piano by Józef Szulc, a composer born in Warsaw and living in France at the turn of the 20th century. We also recorded works by Joseph Achron and Aleksander Tansman, which were used in a music film ‘Zapomniane melodie’ (Forgotten tunes), produced by Telewizja Polska (Polish television) and Studio Grantor in 2014. We were the first performers in Poland of pieces by Michał Bergson – Grand Polonaise heroique, Op. 72, Joachim Mendelson – Sonata for Violin and Piano, Adolf Sonnenfeld – Fantasia on themes from the Opera ‘Halka’ by Stanisław Moniuszko, Józef Koffler – Capriccio, and Joseph Achron – Lullaby, Op. 1 – previously regarded as lost.

Booklet for Their Voices