Finally, a chance for me to aquaint you with
Knapik the romantic songwriter. Below is a zip file containing the song cycle
Up into the Silence. 4 lavishly romantic songs that last more than an hour. Fans of late
Penderecki will appreciate this, even though
Knapik, IMO, has got much better hold of form. And his pieces don't all sound as variations on each other. And he's a much better orchestrator - his textures are never as heavy as
Penderecki's. And he has melodic invention (something
Pendercki could never claim). Surprisingly for such a long work, the following recording seems to have only one glitch (in song no. 2).
Here's some more info on the songs:
The second one (
Unter den berstenden Eisspiegeln) is to a text by
Jean Fabre. The song is in fact an excerpt (an entire scene) from
Knapik's opera
La libertá chiama la libertá (1994). The others are fully original works: The first song (
love is more thicker) was written in 1996. It is to the texts of two poems by
e.e.cummings:
love is more thicker than forget and
up into the silence.
The third and fourth songs were written in the years 1999-2000 and are also to poems by
e.e.cummings. The third:
now air is air and thing is thing. The fourth:
in time's a noble mercy of proportion.
Here's part of the composer's commentary:
When I was starting to work on this piece (this was immediately after completing the operatic trilogy The Minds of Helena Troubleyn) I decided to make love the main and only subject of the entire cycle. I wanted to devote this cycle to love because in my opinion art of recent decades (or actually of the whole of the past century) had marginalized this most important sphere of human senstaion and very important area of human experience. (...) art had concentrated its interest on death and its inseparable sisters: sickness of body and sickness of soul. Abandoned by the artists, left to various kinds of showmen from the "dream factory", put up as an item for sale, love became an unwanted subject in art. Because of this, 20th century art left a very one-sided, incomplete and ultimately not a very true account of human existence.And here are
Knapik's comments on the 4th song which closes the cycle:
In the fourth song in time's a noble mercy of proportion e.e.cummings explores the meaning of time. He is interested in time perceived from a human perspective, a time of human proportions. In the conclusion he points to love (as all your more than eyes tell me
) as the only force able to overcome the flowing of time and evanescence. (...) When the poet reaches a point of almost biblical narration (there's time for laughing and a time for crying
) - the music stops. The simplest motive imaginable appears, the harmony is cleared. We are engulfed in astonishment understanding that more than all (...) there is a time for timelessness
.The dedicatees of the songs are as follows:
1.
Antoni Wit2.
Jean Fabre3.
Andrzej Chlopecki4.
Barbara, the composer's wife
The first two songs were first performed in 1996 in
Copenhagen. The last two - in 2000 in
Cracow. The whole cycle in its entirety was first performed in
Warsaw, during the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 2001 (I was present
).
Below is a link to a zip file containg mp3s of the whole cycle. There's a typo in the title of the last song (missing "i") - sorry about that, you'll have to correct it yourselves.
Eugeniusz KnapikUp into the Silence (1996-2000). Four songs for soprano, baritone and symphony orchestra
Izabella Klosinska, soprano
Wojciech Drabowicz, baritone
Polish Radio National Symphony OrchestraGabriel Chmura, conductor
1.
love is more thicker (
e.e.cummings)
2.
Unter den berstenden Eisspiegeln (
Jean Fabre)
3.
now air is air and thing is thing (
e.e.cummings)
4.
in time's a noble mercy of proportion (
e.e.cummings)
File-Size: 98,73 MB
DownloadLink:
http://rapidshare.com/files/44468653/KnapikUpIntoTheSilence4Songs.zipDownload, and I'm sure you'll enjoy!
Maciek
