Stefania Woytowicz

[snyprrr]

I really like this lady. I've got her in Gorecki's 3rd, Szymanowski's 3rd, and maybe on some other Olympia disc somewhere. She seems to have been around for quite some time. Anyone out there a fan who could fill in?

[DieNacht]

Yes, an unusually lovely voice, exemplified in the Gorecki 3rd on Koch-Schwann.

I´ve also got her in a few more works - old Polish muza LP´s with a rather poor sound, but they might very well have been re-issued on CD;  some mildly contemporary works:

-Tadeusz Baird "Love Songs" for Soprano & Orchestra

-Krzystof Meyer:"Polish Songs" for Soprano & Orchestra

Another incredible Polish soprano voice is Barbara Zagorzanka, featured on the  Naxos Szymanowski orchestral songs album (including a hypnotic "Roxana´s Song" from "King Roger").

[Maciek]

I actually met her once, very briefly - she was very nice in person, very friendly and warm. And... wait a minute... is this a deja vu I'm having?......

Ha ha ha :

I'll have to listen to SQ 1 ASAP!

also, I do believe it's Stephanie W. in the Symphony. The cd also includes 2 choral/vocal pieces (Stabat Mater?, and ?), I think (it's in storage), so maybe that's the other sopr. I think S.W. has one of the smoothest voices I've ever heard; as I recall, it haaas to be her.

WHAT ARE SOME OTHER CDS WITH Steph.W. SINGING?

Yes, I really love that voice too, very special, much darker than your regular soprano.

Now that I've made a total ass of myself, I think I'd better abstain from recommending anything. But if you go here, you'll get a short list of her Polish CD recordings. I think the only significant one missing is her Halka (available on amazon from time to time, always for a pretty steep price - it's on Chant du Monde, so not strictly Polish but that's actually a re-release of a Polskie Nagrania LP set). I do have all of those except for the one with the hideous cover and the Halka (which I do have but on cassette).

Other than that, I don't know her discography very well. But can see on amazon that she has several Gorecki 3rds , as well as some Mahler under Abbado (hmm, could be nice, might make me change my mind about Mahler...), Dvorak's Stabat Mater under Smetacek, Britten's War Requiem under Giulini (hmm, another nice one!), and the Szymanowski disc you already have (I can see now she's in the Symphony and Stabat Mater). Oh, and also... TA-DAH!... Nono's complete works for solo tape (well, apparently not all that solo ) - now that's something, isn't it?

I believe she may be the only professional musician I have ever met in person. Well, not really met but my mom once gave her a lift back home after a concert at our school (you see, artists in communist Poland did not make much money, not even when they went abroad, because all the money went through a state "agency" and they only ever saw very little of it). Very nice person. She died in 2005.

Well, two small updates: I did manage to snap the Chant du Monde set one day (very cheaply, as part of a lot). I do not own the disc with the Rakhmaninov songs.

I do love her voice. I'm not very fond of her Szymanowski (which many people rate very, very highly), or her Chopin. But everything else I've heard I adore. I really think she is a wonderful Halka, one of the best - happy to see someone has finally added an appreciative review on amazon (once I read somewhere that her voice was not suited for opera, and that this recording is an overall failure, so glad to see at least one listener whose impressions are similar to mine). I think she is really quite perfect in the Gorecki third. I love her in Penderecki, she fills those little quarter-tone turns with such wonderful melancholy (and makes it all sound so melodious)! And really, there definitely isn't enough of her singing available on CD! She deserves a decent box-set of some sort.

[listener]

also Moniuszko's HALKA         (1858)
CD      CDM LDC 278 889/90   2   140:52      1973   Warsaw
ADD      Jerzy Semkow            Polish National Radio Orchestra
      Krakow Radio-TV Chorus
      Stefania Woytowicz, Wieslaw Ochman, Bernard Ladysz, Anna Malewicz-Madey, Andrzej Hioski, Andrzej Saciuk
and   SZYMANOWSKI - Litany to the Virgin Mary
v   Schwann   AMS 3538F   1   Szymanowski, Karol     choral   op. 59      Woytowicz, Stefania      Kord, Kazimierz   Warsaw Philharmonic O   Warsaw Nat. Phil Choir

[snyprrr]

I actually met her once, very briefly - she was very nice in person, very friendly and warm. And... wait a minute... is this a deja vu I'm having?......

Ha ha ha :

Well, two small updates: I did manage to snap the Chant du Monde set one day (very cheaply, as part of a lot). I do not own the disc with the Rakhmaninov songs.

I do love her voice. I'm not very fond of her Szymanowski (which many people rate very, very highly), or her Chopin. But everything else I've heard I adore. I really think she is a wonderful Halka, one of the best - happy to see someone has finally added an appreciative review on amazon (once I read somewhere that her voice was not suited for opera, and that this recording is an overall failure, so glad to see at least one listener whose impressions are similar to mine). I think she is really quite perfect in the Gorecki third. I love her in Penderecki, she fills those little quarter-tone turns with such wonderful melancholy (and makes it all sound so melodious)! And really, there definitely isn't enough of her singing available on CD! She deserves a decent box-set of some sort.

She's on the St. Luke Passion that was just released (on two cds??... why??)? Penderecki (haha, for clarification)

[Maciek]

She's on the St. Luke Passion that was just released (on two cds??... why??)? Penderecki (haha, for clarification)

If you mean the Polish Czyz recording (the one with the Cracow Phil) - it's about 86 mins long (Wit, whose recording I've never heard, is 10 mins shorter). In the old release there used to be quite a lot of stuff thrown in (Threnody, Polymorphia, SQ1, Psalms of David, Dimensions of time and silence). Not sure how the new one is done.

I think the Czyz with Kolner Rundfunk SO was on two discs as well, BTW, with Magnificat.

Woytowicz sings in both of them.

[Wendell_E]

I first heard her, and of her, on the RCA recording of Penderecki's Utrenja, The Entombment of Christ, conducted by Ormandy.  I wore out the grooves on that LP, probably driving my parents nuts in the process.

[bhodges]

I first heard her, and of her, on the RCA recording of Penderecki's Utrenja, The Entombment of Christ, conducted by Ormandy.  I wore out the grooves on that LP, probably driving my parents nuts in the process.

I think this is true for me as well! (Although I didn't play it as much - was driving my parents nuts with Steve Reich.  )

--Bruce

[Maciek]

Amazon.com doesn't list this Nono disc:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nono-Works-Soprano-Orchestra-Luigi/dp/B000025RHQ

Nono: Works for Soprano and Orchestra
Performer: Carla Henius, Marino Zuccheri, Barbara Miller, Stefania Woytowicz
Orchestra: Mailand RAI Chorus, Stuttgart Schola Cantorum
Conductor: Giulio Bertola, Clytus Gottwald
Composer: Luigi Nono
Audio CD (1 Nov 1992)
SPARS Code: DDD
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Wergo
ASIN: B000025RHQ

[listener]

3 more listed at Presto: (I used the search function):
Mahler 2, Dvorak Stabat Mater (twice), and Britten War Requiem