This week on “The Lost Chord,” we go hiking in the Tatras and drifting down the Vistula, as we enjoy an hour of musical discoveries from Poland.
We’ll hear a Fantasy for Cello and Piano by Aleksander Tansman, who spent most of his career in Paris, with an interlude during the war years in the United States. Here, he met Arnold Schoenberg, wrote film scores, and developed an affection for American jazz. Still, his most enduring influences were those of his Polish and Jewish roots.
Mieczyslaw Karlowicz was one of those hyper-romantic figures whose emotional life was lived at such a high pitch that he seemed fated to die young. His music certainly tends in that direction, occupied as most of it is with ecstasy and death. “A Sad Tale,” his last completed work, is a contemplation of suicide. Karlowicz himself was killed in an avalanche while hiking in the Tatras. He was 32 years-old.
We’ll round out the hour with choral music by Andrzej Koszewski – his “Kaszuby Suite” – steeped in folk traditions of northwestern Poland, and a neoclassical woodwind quintet by Wojiech Kilar, who is probably best known in the West for his film scores, including those for “Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’” “The Portrait of a Lady,” and “The Pianist.”
I hope you’ll join me for “Poland Spring” – refreshing musical discoveries from Poland – tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.
