SHINING A LIGHT

Polish virtuoso Janusz Wawrowski’s new arrangement of Ludomir Różycki’s Violin Concerto reveals a far more optimistic work than its wartime origins suggest, writes Harry White

F

ollowing 63 days of brutal street fighting, Polish rebels finally surrendered to Nazi forces on 2 October 1944. Two months earlier, wary of an advancing Red Army, the rebels had begun an insurrection against Hitler’s occupiers in what was later to become known as the Warsaw Uprising. Desperate to avoid a pro-communist regime, the Poles had hoped to gain control of the city before the Soviet arrival – but they were outnumbered and outgunned. Their defeat prompted brutal Nazi recriminations, with much of Warsaw’s population deported and great swathes of the city destroyed. Among the many who fled for their lives was composer Ludomir Różycki, who, interrogated by the Gestapo, had refused to sign the Volksliste – an attempt to classify inhabitants of Nazi-occupied territories. Fearing arrest, he left for Osieczany, a little village in southern Poland, and it was in nearby Katowice that he was to die suddenly less than a decade later. Left behind and buried in the garden of his Warsaw villa was Różycki’s suitcase. Inside lay the manuscript of his Violin Concerto.

After the end of World War II, construction workers discovered the suitcase and its unusual contents during routine excavations. The manuscript, in fact an expanded piano reduction of the Violin Concerto with orchestral annotations, was placed in the Polish National Library along with the other musical contents of the suitcase. ‘It’s an extraordinary story,’ says Polish virtuoso Janusz Wawrowski, whose recording of Różycki’s reconstructed Violin Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Grzegorz Nowak is released on Warner.

‘THIS IS SUCH ATTRACTIVE MUSIC: IT HAS BRAHMS; IT HAS FILM MUSIC; IT HAS YOUNG POLISH IDEALISM’ 

But as far as this concerto is concerned the story doesn’t end there. Born in 1883, and a founding member of Young Poland (a group of composers including Szymanowski who opposed contemporary positivism), Różycki was to become one of the most celebrated musicians of his generation. His ballet Pan Twardowski was performed across Europe (a rare success for a Polish composer), and hundreds of times in Warsaw alone. But the whims of history eroded Różycki from the Polish cultural canon, and as a result many of his works remained consigned to dusty annals.

The Violin Concerto itself lay dormant until the 1950s, when reconstructions based on the piano reduction were attempted first by Polish composer Jan Fotek and later by the conductor Zygmunt Rychert, whose version was recorded by Polish violinist Ewelina Nowicka (released 2011). But these arrangements were harmonically sanitised, sacrificing much of Różycki’s idiosyncratic vernacular for popular contemporary aesthetics. In 2014, Wawrowski made a startling discovery: the first 87 bars of the Violin Concerto, fully orchestrated by the composer and archived at the Polish National Library under a completely different title. Over a two-year period, Wawrowski set about applying the orchestration to the annotated piano reduction, and with the help of pianist–composer Ryszard Bryła and a team of specialists he crafted the most comprehensive and faithful rendering of Różycki’s Violin Concerto to date.

‘The solo part needed careful consideration, so that it could be made more violinistic,’ explains Wawrowski. ‘I have a feeling that neither of the manuscripts had gone through a process of consultation with a violinist yet. There are fragments that are clearly written for the violin, but then you also have some strange things, like arpeggios that are really uncomfortable and don’t lie well. These sections I had to arrange in a more fitting way for the instrument. There were other moments, too; for example, where I took passages of 3rds that were written really high and turned them into 10ths, which made the passage more difficult but also created a truer violin sound.’

The collaboration between violinist and composer is common in the pursuit of musical and idiomatic equilibrium: Mendelssohn and Ferdinand David, Brahms and Joseph Joachim, Szymanowski and Paweł Kochański. But in this case, the composer was dead. How did Wawrowski feel about making such alterations?

‘It was a great responsibility,’ he says. ‘That’s why I didn’t make these changes in a few weeks. I studied the piece, I listened to it, I played it with the piano. Then I changed some things. Then I played it with an orchestra, and made more decisions. Each decision was made in consultation with other musicians, so it was very considered and responsible.

I didn’t want to be egocentric in making the violin part. It’s still very hard to play, but above all I wanted to make it truer to the violin, better-sounding. I played violin parts in other works by Różycki, too – small pieces with piano, the piano trio, parts of the piano quintet; so I was able to see his thoughts about violin writing and use these in my own process.’

Heard in context, Wawrowski’s reconstruction carries with it the fingerprint of authenticity that vindicates this considered and fastidious approach. Różycki’s music is both distinctive and definitively part of the broader 20th-century stylistic narrative. It is characterised by an energetic, naively enthusiastic and, on occasion, hedonistic joie de vivre. Yes, the music inhabits a sound world that evokes both Tchaikovsky and Korngold – the Romantic dominance of melody and a traditional means of melodic development underpinned by a rich but conservative harmonic foundation.

Wawrowski, conductor Grzegorz Nowak and producer Anna Barry

CONCERT PHOTO CEZARY ASZKIEŁOWICZ. SESSION PHO TO AGENCJA ARTYSTYCZNA PRESTO

Janusz Wawrowski performs Różycki’s Violin Concerto conducted by Norbert Twórczyński in Szczecin, Poland, in December 2019

But this is modified by flashes of individualised colour: harmonic subversions in the form of parallel dissonant exchanges that evoke the progressive mindset of Szymanowski.

Similarly, impressionistic filigree and folk references mark the concerto as very much a child of its time. An extensive percussion section is a little eccentric, and tuned percussion interventions can appear incongruous. But they undoubtedly bring a sense of festivity that is authentically ‘Różycki’ when one examines his other works.

It’s a surprisingly optimistic piece, given the traumatic context in which it was abandoned. ‘This is such attractive music,’ enthuses Wawrowski. ‘It has Brahms, it has film music, it has young Polish idealism. It’s a piece that can attract both the public and violinists.’ What are the great challenges of the work? ‘For sure, there are so many double-stops,’ chuckles Wawrowski.

‘There are 3rds, 6ths, octaves, 10ths, 5ths! There’s a lot of fast passagework, and beautiful, perfect cantilena in high positions. Also, there are not many breaks. You just play and play. It has great challenges. But it also brings great joy.’

WORKS Różycki Violin Concerto op.70; Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto op.35

ARTISTS Janusz Wawrowski (vn) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Grzegorz Nowak

RECORDING VENUE Henry Wood Hall, London

RECORDING DATES 18–19 November 2019

CATALOGUE NUMBER Warner 9029519170

RELEASE DATE 12 March 2021