Zygmunt Noskowski (1846-1909)
Petits rayons: 4 morceaux for piano Op.39 (publ.1893)
Fleurs du Printemps: Pièces caractéristiques for piano Op.48 (publ.1897)
Piotr Rytel (1884-1970)
Prelude in F sharp major Op.29 No.1 (1951-52)
Toccata in F sharp major Op.29 No.5 (1951-52)
Étude for piano Op.21 (1950)
Monika Quinn (piano)
rec. 2024 Concert Hall of the Chopin University of Music, Warsaw
Chopin University Press UMFCCD240 [56]
Monika Quinn plays two seldom heard Polish composers who are connected as teacher and pupil. Zygmunt Noszkowski’s initial studies were in his home town with one of the great figures in Polish music Stanisław Moniuszko and later in Berlin with Friedrich Kiel. Apart from the eight years he spent in Berlin and Konstanz he lived all his life in Warsaw where he went on to train a new generation of Polish composers including Ludomir Różycki, Grzegorz Fitelberg, Karol Szymanowski and his companion on this disc Piotr Rytel. He may have set the scene for these Young Poland composers and guided others such as the Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis but as a composer he was rooted in romanticism and the piano pieces here are all lovely examples of this.
Both sets recorded here date from the final years of the 19th century. Petits rayons, little sunbeams, are four short character pieces, opening with a rêverie which balances the lush central writing with a simple sad outer melody. Champêtre is a country dance that combines lyricism with an easy going krakowiak. Another Polish dance is next, a polonaise mélancolique that doesn’t try to emulate Chopin but still has some of his nobility of spirit. A quietly passionate song without words cantilène, completes the quartet. Fleurs du Printemps, spring flowers is another collection of four pieces that are in much the same vein; lyric pieces in all but name that kick off with primevère.It has a lilting little melody, played in the baritone register in the middle of a crossing left hand accompaniment and like rêverie the writing grows rich and expansive in the central section. N’Oubliez pas!, forget-me-not, has a dance like quality, krakowiak or polka but as with Champêtre it is tempered with lyrical and occasionally quite passionate writing. Rose is an exquisite adagio, its chordal harmonies full of stately grandeur while Marguerite is a lilting scherzo-valse. Unlike many of the neglected mid 19th century composers that I have come across Noszkowski does actually have his own voice though it is not startlingly original enough to put him in the first rank of composers. Yes, he builds upon the tradition of short pieces that flows from Beethoven and Schubert, Chopin and Mendelssohn and others but you do not hear constant echoes of other music. These pieces were intended for the amateur market though they are of higher quality than much of the music that was being written for domestic use and though they are by no means virtuoso stuff they require a decent level of skill.
Piotr Rytel was Noszkowski’s composition student and while he studied piano under one of the greats of Polish piano Aleksander Michałowski he was not a prolific composer for the piano. He went on to teach both at the Warsaw Institute of Music and at the underground conservatory set up by composer and pedagogue Stanisław Kazura during the second world war. His conservatism was echoed in his music criticism bringing him into disagreement with Karol Szymanowski and this conservatism can be heard in the piano works on this disc. Hints of neoclassicism and impressionist elements are also clear in the prélude and toccata op.29, apparently nos. 1 and 5 though I can find no information about any other pieces from op.29. Both are late romantic and genial especially the extended, sectional toccata with its jaunty repeated note theme and central quasi polka. The six études date from a year earlier, 1950 and are a rather attractive collection. These are proper concert études despite having clear didactic aims; trills and turns in the first and fifth, thirds in the second and third, repeated notes in the fourth and octaves bringing the set to a close. The decorative elements in the fifth echo Chopin without imitating him and the octave étude at the end, whilst not savage enough to quite be called barbaric is reminiscent of Alkan’s Allegro barbaro étude from his op.35 set. I rather like Rytel’s humour in the martial-even-though-it’s-in-triple time fourth étude that concentrates on a single spirited motif heard right at the start and the comically over the top central section of number five. Rytel may not have written a huge amount for the piano but he was evidently a gifted composer for the instrument and these pieces are a nice discovery.
Canadian Monika Quinn plays these pieces wonderfully with a lovely line to the more lyrical items and a keen ear for the wide range of moods evoked by these two neglected composers. Sound is very natural and the presentation is first class.
Rob Challinor
Availability: Chopin University Press
