The Polish composer who used three names
Album Of The WeekFrom the new Lebrecht Album of the Week:
I should have been on my way to Warsaw for the Chopin Competition but circumstances intervened and I find myself listening to unknown Poles of a different kind. The English violinist Jennifer Pike has Polish ancestry on her mother’s side. While rummaging a music shop in Krakow, she came away with unknown scores and …
Read on here.
And here.
En francais ici.
In Czech here.
In The Critic here.
Very interesting.
Here’s Poldowski’s Violin Sonata:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=_Do-mAqVQmk
Pieces from Caledonian Market (piano solo):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo9du-836Kw
Tango (played by Jasha Heifetz):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCD3wHGRCyA
The sonata sounds as a serious work, the other two are salon pieces.
Not so unknown, at least not to those who collect and listen to violin recordings; Heifetz recorded the highly spiced Poldowski Tango on an LP of encore pieces, and it has been reissued on CD. A version (taken from 45 rom!) is on YouTube but the person doing the transfer wasn’t listening and it ends prematurely!
The Szymanowski Violin Sonata has been recorded by many fine artists, including David Oistrakh. I have Oistrakh on LP (coupled with the Franck) but I am pretty sure it has been reissued on CD. I believe Vincent Skowronski recorded the Szymanowski Sonata and the Paganini caprice arrangements, as well as shorter works by Szymanowski, on various LPs over the years which I also believe are or were available on CD.
Of course Poldowski was primarily a song composer, but given her lineage anything she wrote for violin is bound to be of interest.