Ludomir Różycki (1883-1953)
Piano Works Volume 3
Valentina Seferinova (piano)
rec. 2024, Polskie Radio Studio S1, 10 and 11
Acte Préalable AP0580 [80]

I was introduced to the Polish composerLudomir Różycki quite early in my collecting days courtesy of an LP containing his ultra romantic Ballade for piano and orchestra and a 10” disc of Grigory Ginzburg on which he played his transcription of Caton’s aria from Casanova which is for me one of the most elegant piano discs ever recorded. Whilst his operas are occasionally performed in Poland he has not really made a mark elsewhere. Hyperion have begun to introduce his music to a wider audience but Acte Préalable now have six discs devoted to his music and hopefully more to follow.

Ludomir Różycki was born in Warsaw, the son of a piano professor at the Conservatory there and he studied under famed pianist Aleksander Michałowski and symphonist Zygmunt Noskowski. The Ballade that I mentioned was his final student work and on the strength of it he was awarded a diploma with Honours. He went on to study in Berlin with Englebert Humperdinck and it was at this time that he started on Bolesław Śmiarły, the first of his eight operas. After teaching in Lviv he went on to membership of the neo-romantic Polish Composers’ Publishing Company and became president of the Polish Composers’ Association. He did achieve some international success with his 1921 ballet Pan Twardowski which was performed across Europe as well as receiving over 800 performances in his homeland and he even wrote the music for the first Polish sound movie. His final years were spent in Katowice where he taught until his death in 1953.

This is the third disc of his piano music from pianist Valentina Seferinova. The works here reinforce my early sense of his deep romanticism and add the occasional element of impressionism. His stage works works influenced several of the pieces here. The ballet-pantomime Pan Twardowski is based on the legend of the eponymous mystic and sorcerer who made a deal with the devil in a Faustian manner and ultimaely coming to a bad end. I knew the violin transcriptions by Ewelina Nowicka (CPO 5554212 review) and her choice of four excerpts emphasises the fantastical and magical slant to the music. The three transcriptions here, Różycki’s own, have a less surreal character and feature two dance movements, the Krakowiak and Waltz as well as the love scene from the sung seventh tableau. The Krakowiak, a suitably local dance for the Krakowian anti-hero, is more cosmopolitan than the usual rustic dance and shows its late romanticism in its frequent changes of key. The waltz, one of several on the disc, demonstrates  Różycki’s wonderful feel for the genre and develops into a rather grand affair before seguing into a valse lente. The love scene is a soprano/tenor duet that speaks of Spring as God’s gift bringing us dreams of passion, paradise and ardent kisses; this lilting barcarolle is certainly ardent and passionate. Another concert waltz is taken from his 1917 opera Eros und Psyche, a revised version that Różycki penned two years later. Różycki’s music achieved quite some popularity during his lifetime and listening to this magnificently swaying waltz, its melody and harmony lying somewhere between Johann and Richard Strauss, one can hear why. His comic opera Casanova from 1923 was first performed under Artur Rodziński and helped to spread Różycki’s fame; Caton’s waltz aria is still popular, at least in Poland, and two versions are played here; Różycki’s own and the luxurious transcription by Ginsburg. The Fantaisie sur les motifs de Casanova doesn’t include the waltz but does have suitably ardent music interspersed with a melancholic theme and faster music, a jaunty swagger that perhaps suggests a drunken adventure and a finale that wouldn’t sound out of place in a circus ring. The melancholic theme is heard in an extended version that Różycki published separately as the Menuet in G.

The other works here are not based on his stage works and start with his two pieces op.1, a serenade and nocturne. The serenade is a rather forlorn affair, quite poignantly suggesting that the singer is serenading lost or hopeless love while the nocturne has hints of Paderewski’s wistful miniatures with quite a passionate heart. These were written in around 1904 and seem to share an opus number with his symphonic scherzo Stańczyk. The rather attractive Air, the first of the pieces op.28, was written just a year later despite the disparity in the opus numbers and is a fervent slow waltz. Two decades later Różycki wrote the four pieces of his op.52. After a restrained Krakowiak comes a moody prélude with hints of impression that lend it a vague sense of the exotic. Another waltz follows, a valse lente whose salon opening gives way to a little eastern mysticism. The chanson triste is a dumka with folk song tendencies especially in the more rugged central section. Acte Préalable apparently published the score of the Romance op55. no.1 for the first time in 2024 though I cannot see it on the website. Nor does the booklet explain how the romance fits into his op.55 which is listed on Petrucci as Słowik – nightingale. This takes nothing from the piece itself which sets a melody over a gently pulsing triplet; as it grows in intensity I am reminded of Rachmaninov and the huge climaxes within one of his lyrical préludes. Its harmony is not quite Rachmaninov’s but its romantic leanings absolutely are – I definitely want the score when its released. A sleepy prélude with a beautifully lyrical heart was written in 1945 but remains in manuscript; a highlight of the disc for me. That leaves the six pieces op.58, character pieces as they are described. They date from 1924, the same year as his op.53 pieces but are more programmatic with descriptive titles for three of the pieces. The first, le négre amoureux, opens with a promenade-like theme that has mild a piquancy though it is in the more passionate middle sections that whole tones and impressionism make their presence felt and it is in this mood that it ends. This and the final number, the poultry yard were successful enough to have been recorded by Stanislas Niedzielski in 1932. The latter is a spiky little waltz that has hints of more modernist expression in its very contrasting central outbursts, chickeny squabbles over corn. Between these two little portraits are a serenade which is nearly identical to the serenada op.1 no.1 that opens this disc. Skipping between the two it appears that Różycki has ever so slightly rewritten the middle section; the booklet does not mention the fact that the second is a revision of the first not the circumstances. Reverie is a nocturnal piece that explores interesting textural sounds in the upper reaches of the piano while Ninon-Valse is another in the series of engaging waltzes that Różycki is so adept at. Another descriptive work completes the set and like the final number it has humour in its bouncing rhythm and sounds quite jazzy even in its compound time signature; it has a feel of French light music of the time.

Valentina Seferinova is an ideal pianist for this music and she really makes this music come alive. I was especially impressed with her tenderness of touch and if I still prefer Ginsburg in the Casanova waltz that is not to take anything away from what is lovely playing throughout this recital. I have somehow bypassed the other volumes but based on this disc I will rectify that omission.

Rob Challinor

Contents
2 Pieces Op.1 (pub.1904)
Air Op.28a (1909)
Waltz from Eros und Psyche Op.40 (pub.1919)
Menuet from Casanova Op.47
Fantaisie sur les motifs de Casanova Op.47
4 Pieces Op.52 (pub.1924)
Romanze Op.55 No.1 (pub.2024)
6 Pieces Op.58 (pub.1928-30)
Prelude
Suite from Pan Twardowski Op.45 (pub.1923)
Caton’s Song from Casanova (arr. Grigory Ginzburg)