“I believe this is the most brilliant woman composer who ever was,” conductor Mariusz Smolij once said to me, concerning Grazyna Bacewicz.
And he should know. Smolij, music director of the Riverside Symphonia, based in Lambertville, has an intimate familiarity with the music of his compatriot, having recorded her works for the Naxos label.
But don’t take his word for it. Join me this afternoon on The Classical Network, as we’ll have a chance to sample some of it on the occasion of her birthday anniversary.
Bacewicz, who lived from 1909 to 1969, studied at the Warsaw Conservatory and then in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. She is a most interesting, almost paradoxical figure, in that her music embraces a kind of cosmopolitan neo-classicism, but not at the expense of the folk inflections of her native Poland.
She was an adept violinist and pianist, who survived a serious automobile accident. It ended her career as a performer, but allowed her to concentrate wholly on composition for the last 15 years of her life. She remained an energetic and prolific presence, also writing novels, short stories and memoirs.
Though she is sometimes classified as a musical conservative, she retained her curiosity, in regard to all the most recent developments, and was always on the lookout for ways to expand her horizons as an artist. She composed four symphonies, 12 concertos, chamber and instrumental works, opera and ballet, incidental music and film scores.
Smolij’s recording of Bacewicz’s Concerto for String Orchestra, of 1948, will be among my featured works, between 4 and 6 p.m. EST.
Stick around – we’ll also salute the late pianist Peter Serkin, with performances of music by Max Reger and Mozart, on “Music from Marlboro,” beginning at 5:55. Note the special start time!
Best just to tune in by 4:00 and let it go at that, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
