Penderecki: Chamber Music

The Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki used to write chamber music even as a student in Cracow. He was writing the chamber music works for himself, then already an accomplished violinist, and his fellow students (The title “Sonata for Violin and Piano” from 1953 has only recently been published.). A specialty of these early works are Penderecki’s inventions with which he altered the sound of the stringed instruments, indeed almost to the point of being completely unrecognizable. With the new sounds he introduced, he achieved effects both frightening and rough as well as a bewitching, irredescent lyricism: a broad scale of sounds and colors which no one would have thought possible with stringed instruments. After the composition of the “String Quartet No. 1” chamber music receded into the background. The next quartet appeared eight years later, and the following pieces for single instruments were mostly “gifts of friendship” for the outstanding interpreters of his instrumental concertos with orchestra. Only recently, in 1990, has Penderecki turned again intensively to chamber music, composing the strongly virtuoso “String Trio” which is also included on this CD. The interpreters of this production are renowned musicians and, being either Polish or having lived and worked in Poland, very familiar with the composer’s works.