Grażyna Bacewicz - Chamber Music

The Guardian 80

Silesian Quartet/Polish Cello Quartet
(Chandos)
The postwar composer and musician wrote fine works influenced by Bartók, played here with energy and engagement

The last few years have been good to the music of Grażyna Bacewicz. Championed by musicians from her native Poland and elsewhere, including Krystian Zimerman, this pioneering composer seems to be beginning to win the international profile she deserves, at least on disc. Recently there have been distinctive but equally rewarding surveys of her seven string quartets on both Chandos and Naxos. Now, on Chandos, the Silesian Quartet is joined by pianist Wojciech Świtała and others for her two piano quintets, plus two less conventional quartets – for four violins and four cellos.

Born in Lodz in 1909, Bacewicz was both a composer and a renowned violin virtuoso, and a more than decent pianist as well. She wrote for strings and piano as a singer might write for their own voice: as someone who knows the instruments’ capabilities inside out, knows how to harness their particular resonances and make each instrument speak naturally and eloquently.