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THE SYMPHONIC TADEUSZ BAIRD. The album SYMPHONIES (ANA 038) premieres on 26 July, on the anniversary of the composer’s birth
2025-07-25
This timeless encounter with the music of ‘Poland’s last Romantic’ Tadeusz Baird and with the interpretative feats of NOSPR Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra features three symphonies and four outstanding conductors in both rediscovered historical and new recordings, released together on a 2CD album from ANAKLASIS.
The album is an encounter with the history of NOSPR orchestra and the music of Tadeusz Baird (1928–1981), one of Poland’s key twentieth-century composers, co-founder of Group’49 and the Warsaw Autumn festival, as well as author of music for many films.
Baird’s three symphonies, written over the period of two decades (1950–1969), illustrate the evolution of his musical language: his fascination with orchestral sound, with drama and instrumental lyricism, as well as his eminently individual quest for (profoundly romantic) beauty in sound. Created on the initiative of conductor Łukasz Borowicz, the album presents various approaches to Baird’s orchestral output.
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The Polish Radio’s fascinating collection comprises both archival and most recent NOSPR audio recordings, which document the history of contemporary Polish music and of our composers’ outputs, but also the history of music interpretation and orchestral performance, Łukasz Borowicz explains. The symphonic works of Tadeusz Baird, one of Poland’s most significant 20th-century composers, deserve to be continually presented to audiences. Thanks to the CD album now released in the HERITAGE series under the ANAKLASIS label, Baird’s Symphonies make a return in recorded form in both Poland and worldwide, which once again confirms the role of the music record industry in promoting Polish music. I feel honoured by the fact that that the new recording of Baird’s Symphony No. 3, a brilliant summa of his sonoristic and expressive experience that continues to inspire audiences with its inventive power, has also been included on this album.
The recordings were made in three venues in Katowice: (Silesian) Plebiscite Street, 2 Silesian Parliament Square, and 1 Wojciech Kilar Square, all – by the same radio orchestra from that city, though under its three successive names: WOSPR, WOSPRiTV, and NOSPR. Zbigniew Graca conducting Symphony No. 1 in 1991; Henryk Czyż’s recording of Symphony No. 2 ‘Quasi una fantasia’ made in the then Stalinogród (Stalin City), as the label on the original tape informs (now it is again the city of Katowice); finally, Łukasz Borowicz’s interpretation of the Third from 2024. As a bonus, the album also notably includes WOSPR’s premiere recording of Symphony No. 1 under Jan Krenz, made in late 1951 / early 1952 at the Roma Theatre in Warsaw (priceless as a document of its time). This is precisely the kind of project to learn Polish music history from!
Tadeusz Baird will again be brought to the focus of attention in the autumn with the publication by PWM Edition of Rafał Augustyn’s book Baird, scheduled to come out in the Little Monographs (Małe Monografie) series on 10 September. More than a simple biography and a reflection on transformations in the composer’s style, the book combines the historical with the analytic approach and with genre surveys, also examining the reception of the ‘last Polish Romantic’s’ oeuvre – all this from the personal perspective of an author himself actively contributing to Poland’s musical life.
There will be two meetings with the book author this autumn. During the 68th International Festival of Contemporary Music ‘Warsaw Autumn’ he will discuss Tadeusz Baird in conversation with Barbara Literska. This meeting is held on 21 September at 3 pm at the seat of the Polish Composers’ Union in Warsaw (27 Old Town Square).
A week later, on 28 September at Zielona Góra Philharmonic, Rafał Augustyn and a group of experts will familiarise the audience with the figure of the composer as patron of the 2nd Tadeusz Baird International Music Festival held in that city. The debate will be preceded by a piano recital, which closes the festival.
The SYMPHONIES (ANA 038) album is already available from PWM bookshop, the best music shops, the virtual shop of the Empik chain, and in streaming media.
Media patrons of the album: TVP Kultura, Polish Radio Channel Two, Culture.pl
Partner: Ruch Muzyczny music magazine
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This timeless encounter with the music of ‘Poland’s last Romantic’ Tadeusz Baird and with the interpretative feats of NOSPR Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra features three symphonies and four outstanding conductors in both rediscovered historical and new recordings, released together on a 2CD album from ANAKLASIS.
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