WOJCIECH ZIEMOWIT ZYCH (b.1976): Symphony No. 1, Concerto for Bass Clarinet and Orchestera, Stirrings of the Will.

Description: The 30-minute symphony is scored for a slightly unorthodox orchestra, light on high strings, which creates an unusual texture. Although the composer makes ample use of contemporary techniques, with unpitched and atonal effects, the piece has a constant tendency to 'resolve' into clearly tonal, ostinato-driven passages which provide a sense of coherent propulsiveness and render the piece strikingly accessible. The similarly proportioned bass clarinet concerto from the following year is more richly orchestrated, for a larger ensemble, and flirts even more blatantly with tonality, though again within the context of a wide-ranging vocabulary with a distinctive and individual sonic palette. The solo part, while by no means conservative, avoids the avant garde tendency to exploit the bass clarinet as a special effects engine, and allows it to sound like an actual musical instrument, given melodic material and thorough use of the instrument's rich timbre. Stirrings inspired by Schopen-hauer, is a tautly argued, rhetorical discourse, highly compressed, with constant reminders of late-romantic textures and gestures surfacing within its modern idiom. Michal Górczynski (bass clarinet), Orchestra of the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic in Bialystok; Przemyslaw Fiugajski.