Polnische Orchesterwerke

Music director Thomas Sondergard conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in a programme that presents three leading Polish composers of the 20th century: Karol Szymanowski, Grazyna Bacewicz and Witold Lutoslawski. Polish music experienced a flourishing period in the first half of the 20th century, but the country underwent unimaginable political turbulence and had to endure occupation by the Nazis and communists. Nevertheless, these three composers redefined the musical identity of Poland, each with their own language. Bacewicz moved from her early neoclassical style to something more complex, bolder and more colourful, and wrote in 1943 in occupied Poland her later famous Ouverture for orchestra. In "King Roger" (1926), here in a new arrangement by Ian Farrington, Szymanowski fused late Romanticism with Mediterranean and Polish influences. Lutoslawski took Polish music further than Romanticism by integrating folk traditions and modern techniques. His Symphony No. 3 (1983) became a powerful symbol of freedom in Poland and marked a key moment in his late symphonic style.