10/10
Cracow Harp Quintet: Adrian Nowak, harp; Amelia Lewandowska-Wojtuch, flute; Maria Garstecka, violin; Jan Czyżewski, viola; and Paweł Czarakcziew, cello. Presto Music, 2022.
With a similar mission to highlight forgotten or yet-to-be-published works, the Cracow Harp Quintet—harpist Adrian Nowak, flutist Amelia Lewandowska-Wojtuch, violinist Maria Garstecka, violist Jan Czyżewski, and cellist Paweł Czarakcziew—presents a widely encompassing repertoire in their sensational debut album. The title Hommage refers to the 100th anniversary celebration of the founding of Quintette Instrumental de Paris, the subject of Nowak’s dissertation.
While the repertoire hews closely to composers associated with this renowned French group and reflects a narrow range of years in the early years of the 20th century, the styles are far reaching. The album begins with a glorious find, a neoclassic work by Belgian composer Jean Absil, Concert à cinq. In it, we are introduced to an ensemble bristling with energy and color, much like the eraitself, pushing the future optimistically, yet uncertain of what’s to come. Beautifully balanced and full of vitality, the flute and harp blossom from the incisive driving rhythms in the string trio, then metamorphose to a poised meditation. It’s worth owning the CD just to hear this spectacular work expertly played with such panache and brilliance.
That fulsome and robust intensity gives way to something entirely different—Cinq Haï-kaï, épigrammes lyriques du Japon by Jacques Pillois. Simple and short, these poetic episodes are packed with meaning from a touching prayer and a new year’s celebration to heartache and loss. The quintet plays as one with vivid coloring and fantasy, giving this wispy micro-cycle a pastel buoyancy and nuanced substance.
The Sonatina da camera by Polish composer Aleksander Tansmanbegins with an altogether new soundscape that’s ethereal and distant but eventually erupts into a jazzy dance. Clearly influenced by his adopted home of France, things move at a jaunty clip interrupted throughout by exotic harmonies. In the slow “Nottornu,” the quintet draws on their skill in creating a mesmerizing, gauzy and static quality leaving the listener breathless with its delicacy. Again, superbly played music that may be brand new to your ears as it is to mine. Closing with a frenzied scherzo much in the vein of Stravinsky, it’s all charm and character from the talented quintet, the spirit amped up through the addition of piccolo.
The album ends with Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur’s chant-inspired Suite medievale. As if appearing out of the mists of time, the quintet conjures a music at once exotic and enigmatic, particularly in the luminous “L’ange au sourire,” a musical depiction of a piece of art—a sculpture of an angel on the façade of the Reims Cathedral that’s seen tilting his head towards St. Nicasius with a benevolent, yet somehow mischievous smile. The string trio plays as if a consort of viols, the harp perhaps a theorbo and the flute, one of the celestial choir.
On all fronts—choice of repertoire, performance, and recording—Cracow Harp Quintet’s Hommageis an outstanding disc and a superlative addition to the recorded library. Bravi! •
