czwartek, 29 grudnia 2016

Pianist, Alone (1+2)










Jürg Frey, Pianist, Alone (1+2)
Królikarnia. Muzeum rzeźby im. Xawerego Dunikowskiego

22/01/2017
19.00
Jürg Frey, Pianist, Alone (2)
Philip Thomas, fortepian
'30

23/01/2017
19.00
Jürg Frey, Pianist, Alone (1)
Philip Thomas, fortepian
'90

Muzyka Jürga Frey'a bywa zawstydzająco prosta. Nic w sobie nie ukrywa, nic czego nie moglibyśmy znaleźć na jej powierzchni, od razu; nie zakrywa sobą także niczego innego, żadnych odniesień ani nawiązań, które należałoby rozszyfrować; przeciwnie, jego muzyka raczej obnaża samą siebie, a właściwie jest obnażona od A do Z, w sposób nieustępliwy i równocześnie onieśmielający utrzymuje ten stan tak długo, jak długo sama trwa.

To w tym znaczeniu pojawia tytułowe „Alone”. Nie chodzi tu o żadną kompozytorską ekspresję. W obu utworach nie ma nic do interpretacji, nic do zgłębienia, jest tylko jasna sytuacja, której zakładnikami są w równej mierze wykonawca, publiczność co i sam kompozytor. Intymność owej samotności jest tak obiektywna jak to tylko możliwe. Król jest nagi – to fakt, który Frey z chęcią nam obwieszcza pozbywając się tym samym ostatnich okruchów pychy, zwykle zwanych technikami kompozytorskimi. Podobnie nagi jest wykonawca. Nie ma tutaj niczego za czym mógłby się skryć, żadnych wyrafinowanych harmonii, które mógłby pieczołowicie budować; nie ma żadnych sprytnych melodii, które mogłyby ukazać jego wirtuozerię, nie ma wreszcie żadnych eksperymentów ani rozszerzonych technik instrumentalnych, którymi mógłby zaimponować lub chociaż zadziwić słuchacza. Tym samym ten ostatni znaleźć się może w sytuacji najbardziej prymarnej z możliwych. Jak słucha? Czego chce? Jak długo? I oczywiście jest z tymi pytaniami, sam, zaraz obok pianisty. Nie ma w „Pianist, Alone” nic co ułatwiałoby odpowiedzi na te pytania, podobnie jak nie ma nic co pozwalałoby je schować. Jest tylko coś na kształt minimalnej muzyki fortepianowej, znaczenie bardziej minimalnej od minimalizmu i znacznie klarowniej konceptualnej od najbardziej dosłownych utworów Fluxusu.

Co zostaje po tak ekspansywnej ekstrakcji, czy może tak „bezwzględnej eliminacji”? Wraz z „Pianist, Alone (1)”, Frey wrócił w roku 2004 do fortepianu i jego pierwszych implikacji. Nie próbuje go postawić do góry nogami. Nie próbuje podważyć jego zachodniocentrycznej orientacji. Od tego czasu pisze swoją własną muzykę fortepianową, rozwijającą się powoli i niepozornie, a może rozwijającą się tylko pozornie. I raz na jakiś czas daje nam jej najprostsze kształty robiąc to  ze spojrzeniem godnym człowieka wręczającego nam papierek lakmusowy.

Przy okazji wystawy „Retrospekcja” odbędziemy tylko część tej podróży, w którą zabiera nas Jürga Frey – oczywiście w kierunku odwrotnym do chronologicznego.

środa, 14 grudnia 2016

Smutaz Big Band with Ghost Choir
















Smutaz Big Band with The Gruppo Sud Mele Male Ghost Choir

30/12/2016
Eufemia
21.00

Smutaz classic trio of 
Alessandro Facchini, Piotr Kurek, Michał Libera

featuring 
Izabela Smelczynska and possibly Rinus van Alebeek

joined by 
The Gruppo Sud Mele Male Ghost Choir

including 
Piotr Adamski, Krzysztof Bielecki, Michał Grochowiak, Daniel Malone, Mateusz Marczewski and Łukasz Sosiński

playing 
the saddest music of past year

and starring
Ewa Majewska
performing Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"


sobota, 3 grudnia 2016

O Leonii














fot. Michał Grochowiak

Im więcej Leonia wydala, tym więcej Leonia gromadzi
O śmieciach, ciszy i architekturze bez ścian

16/12/2016 
19.00
Śródmiejski Ośrodek Kultury
Kraków

niedziela, 20 listopada 2016

Enthusiasm / Performance
















Enthusiasm / Performance
@
Blue Box
Kiyv

10/12/2016

Grupa Budapeszt
presents
Enthusiasm / Performance 

"Enthusiasm" is a 3D print of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm".
"Enthusiasm" is a fulfilment of Dziga Vertov's goal of creating sociological cinema.
"Enthusiasm" is an analysis of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm" in the manner of sociological cinema.
"Enthusiasm" is a literal interpretation of Dziga Vertov script.
"Enthusiasm" is a denoising of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm".
"Enthusiasm" is an abstraction of capitalistic seed in the heart of socialist art.
"Enthusiasm" is a Power Point extract of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm".
"Enthusiasm" is a remake of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm"

and now

"Enthusiasm" is a performance of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm"

more details soon

poniedziałek, 7 listopada 2016

Minor Matter















Ligia Lewis
MINOR MATTER
@
HAU 3
Tempelhofer Ufer 10
Berlin

24-27/11/2016

with
Ligia Lewis - choreography
Ligia Lewis, Hector Thami Manekehla, Johnathan Gonzales - performance
Ariel Efraim Ashbel - dramaturgy
Michal Libera - mixtape
Guy James Cohen - sound design
Andreas Harder - lights
Alona Rodeh - costumes

Mixtape prepared for Minor Matter consists of:

- large fragments of music by Carlo Gesualdo, Giorgio Mainerio, Maurice Ravel (remixed by Carl Craig and Moritz von Oswald), Giuseppe Tartini (reinterpreted by Karolina Ossowska, Mikolaj Palosz and Ralf Meinz), Terre Thaemlitz and zeitkratzer.

- snippets from Juan de Anchieta, A$AP Rocky, The Doors, Dinosaur L., Luc Ferrari, Future, Heinz Holliger, John Lee Hooker, Martin Kuchen, Claudio Monteverdi, Moorhouse College Glee Club, Charlemagne Palestine, Christopher Redgate, Donna Summer, James Tenney and many more.

środa, 26 października 2016

KALKWERK / STUDIUM

















KALKWERK / STUDIUM
@
Madalinskiego 10/16 
Warsaw

04-05/11/2016, 19.00

Michał Libera - concept, libretto, composition outline
Pete Simonelli - voice
Hilary Jeffery - trombone
Andrea Belfi - drums
Ralf Meinz - sound design
Karolina Gebska - light design


Theatre-for-the-Ear based on "Kalkwerk" by Thomas Bernhard or, more literally, Audio-Book of an unwritten text.

The plot of „Kalkwerk”, one of Thomas Bernhard's masterpieces, oscillates around the main protagonist's unsuccessful attempt at writing „Studium” – treatise on listening, „the most philosophical of all senses” and the one which „had never become subject to a magnificent study, prominent dissertation, not even a solid article” (Bernhard). According to widespread interpretation, treatise on listening is nothing but an allegory; a symbol of failure, work not only unfinished but not even started, endlessly postponed, continually distracted and finally paving the road to the degenerate crime. Seen from this existential perspective, as in famous theatre adaptation by Krystian Lupa, defeat in writing about listening is a mere narrative background, anecdotal course of events which only serves to display grand metaphysical drama which is at the core of Bernhard's real interest.

KALKWERK / STUDIUM is rooted in an entirely different reading of „Kalkwerk”. Listening here is not an incidental alibi to examine more profound realms of human's existence. Quite the contrary. There is no drama in Bernhard outside of listening or perhaps the drama is the listening itself. Construction of the book seems to support this thesis. It is not built of characters but rather overheard and misheard voices – uncertain gossips, never fully reliable rumours and contradictory tales written down and given to the reader in a fragmented and sometimes disembodied versions. „Kalkwerk” is thus firstly a book on listening and more importantly a book to listen to and it is in the latter one where the piece displays its structural majesty. Seen in this way, it is questionable if treatise on listening had never been written. It is true that it was not conceived by Konrad, the main character of „Kalkwerk”. Yet one can argue that Bernhard wrote „Studium” himself, aware of the fact that the theme of listening calls for liteterature for the ear rather than the eye. 

If Austrian author wrote the treatise himself, the only possible way to depict it is to follow the auditory features of the given discourse, reconstructing Bernhard's theory of hearing. 

poniedziałek, 17 października 2016

Enthusiasm
















Enthusiasm
@
Blue Box
Izolyatsia 
8 Naberezhno-Lugova
Kiyv

05/11/2016 - 11/12/2016

Grupa Budapeszt
presents
Enthusiasm

"Enthusiasm" is a 3D print of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm".
"Enthusiasm" is a fulfilment of Dziga Vertov's goal of creating sociological cinema.
"Enthusiasm" is an analysis of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm" in the manner of sociological cinema.
"Enthusiasm" is a literal interpretation of Dziga Vertov script.
"Enthusiasm" is a denoising of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm".
"Enthusiasm" is an abstraction of capitalistic seed in the heart of socialist art.
"Enthusiasm" is a Power Point extract of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm".
"Enthusiasm" is a remake of Dziga Vertov's 1930 "Enthusiasm"



Musica Privata


















Możliwe i niemożliwe ścieżki rozwoju subwokalizacji albo minimalne warunki teatru wewnętrznego
@
Musica Privata
Art Inkubator
Tymienieckiego 3
Łódź


06/10/2016

czwartek, 29 września 2016

POPULISTA presents KURPIAN SONGS


















BR POP17

Official release party: 25/10/2016, PROM, Warsaw

Populista 
presents 
Żywizna
plays 
Zaświeć Niesiącku
and other Kurpian songs

1. Mój Boze
2. A Cemu Ześ
3. Noc
4. Matulu Moja
5. A Na Polu Sośnia
6. Na Polu
7. Nów
8. Zielona Dąbrowa
9. Cyranecka
10. Zakukała Kukawecka
11. Narew
12. Zaświeć Niesiącku

Voice by Genowefa Lenarcik 
Guitar by Raphael Rogiński 
Arrangement of traditional songs by Żywizna (1-2, 4-6, 8-10, 12) and Raphael Rogiński (3, 7, 11)

Recorded by Marcin Lenarczyk in forests of northeastern Poland, July 2016
Mixed and mastered by Sebastian Witkowski (Studio Soundmaking)
Produced by Raphael Rogiński
Cover art work by Aleksandra Waliszewska
Layout by Piotr Bukowski
Published by Bôłt Records
Distributed by Monotype Records

poniedziałek, 15 sierpnia 2016

BLACKOUT #31 by TRES













BLACKOUT #31
by 
TRES

Elbląg
Galeria El
Resonances Festival
16/09/2016

Performed by Michał Libera


An exploration of sound and architecture by the way of gradual switching-off of the technological systems essential to maintanance of a given venue. A process through which successive acoustical layers of machine-produced hum and buzz are gradually emptied from an architectural space conceived as a sound sculpture. The aim is to revert the existing environmental noise to a silence as free as possible from any residual sound or light.

Blackout dissects the ambient sounds pervasive throughout our lives - the random mass of blows and hums that fill the rooms at work and at home. This dynamic undressing allows the audience perception and understanding of the richness and invasiveness of sound of the separate components, often unnoticed, that coexist in a place: technologies of indoor comfort such as heating, ventilating cooling, lighting, elevators, sound systems, multimedia, beamers, servers etc, every single machine ceases to function.

piątek, 22 lipca 2016

The Fall of Recording - Vol. I









THE FALL OF RECORDING
Vol. I

at 

Sanatorium Dźwięku
Sokołowsko
13/08/2016


Gaudenz Badrutt
Alicja Bielawska
Bożenna Biskupska
Alessandro Bosetti 
Johnny Chang
Bryan Eubanks 
Emilio Gordoa
Jonas Kocher
Daniel Koniusz
Gerard Lebik
Michał Libera 
Xavier Lopez
Mike Majkowski
Daniel Muzyczuk 
Keith Rowe
Valerio Tricoli

I don't want to die. I want to live”. Several notes placed neatly on musical staff, quite catchy lyrics, you may say, and short introduction from a composer, forms altogether almost a song. But the song written down on 26th of Febraury 1903 by a Czech composer Leoš Janáček in his notebook bears a different authorship than his own; he himself was nothing more but a recording device for an unintentional song of his dying daughter, Olga. These were her last words, and a last melody, uttered in bed just before she passed away; almost a swan song addressed to her father sitting by the bed but also to a man obsessed by the everyday passing of melodies of the world we live in. Words, noises, screams, animals and doors, hundreds of different birds and dogs and finally also his dying daughter found their ways to form short songs in his notebooks via the language of music notation. So do we know the final expression of his daughter? It's all there, on the staff. Perhaps a song, and if so, definitely of swan kind, a document or a memoir but also an emblem of the entire myth of recording media – a song made of dying and about dying or in other words: a recorded song about recording...

... to be continued in Sokołowsko

wtorek, 14 czerwca 2016

Scuro d'Estate
























SCURO D'ESTATE

14/07/2016
21.00
Entrato Libera

Excinemameleaperto
Pizzo 
Calabria

First performance in the cinema since 1986

with
Pior Adamski
Krzysztof Bielecki
Michał Grochowiak
Michał Libera
Piotr Kurek
Daniel Malone
Mateusz Marczewski
Łukasz Sosiński
featuring 
Stella Costa
and 
The Infamous Six of Pizzo

*

Libretto excerpt:

First, I need a place.
A place that can gaze at me,
with a gaze that owns the entire space,
surrounds me fully,
arrests me, if you like, this gaze,
touching me everywhere, the tiniest bits of my skin,
undressing me.

I need a place able to make my body smell,
that can make it softer,
make me feel like there's a bit of pulp,
in between my skin and my muscles.
It's never only pleasent nintense, believe me.

Of what my experience tells me,
there's always a snake, or a viper.
No room is ever empty.
Be it a sneaky reptile,
alien,
some incidental dweller of distorted mind,
some displaced foreigner with unpredictable dispositions,
it might just as well be a newt,
but in any case – always with a cutting glare,
exactly there where you can't see him,
watching you,
still,
mute,
but fully present,
watching, gazing, peeping at you
up to the point where the air gets thicker
and you start imagining your privacy,
you almost start thinking you're alone,
this is when it jumps on you,
it stings you,
and its sting is sharp,
sharp enough to make you loose your balance,
to make you shake imperceptibly,
like when you're on a cliff,
and it takes less than the slightest movement
to make you fall.

I need this kind of place
A place brave enough to settle on my body
press down on it a bit,
to lean on my arms
to push them,

it always goes further,
or down, rather
pushing these firm hands of mine
down to my hips
and further
into the wet.

From here, I can begin.


poniedziałek, 6 czerwca 2016

The Great Learning (II, IV, VII) | Atlas Festival



















Cornelius Cardew, The Great Learning
Paragraphs II, IV, VII

Atlas Festival
at Ogród Powszechny
30/06/2016
21.00

with Michał Mendyk, Fundacja Strefa Wolnosłowa and around 100 participants from Warsaw, Bologna, Antwerp, Paris and God Knows Where


poniedziałek, 16 maja 2016

KALKWERK / STUDIUM




















KALKWERK / STUDIUM
POSTPONED
Nowy Teatr
Madalinskiego 10/16, Warsaw

Michał Libera - concept, libretto, composition outline
Pete Simonelli - voice
Hilary Jeffery - trombone
Jerzy Rogiewicz - drums
Ralf Meinz - sound design
Karolina Gebska - light design
KALKWERK / STUDIUM

Theatre-for-the-Ear based on "Kalkwerk" by Thomas Bernhard
or, more literally, 
Audio-Book of an unwritten text

The plot of „Kalkwerk”, one of Thomas Bernhard's masterpieces, oscillates around the main protagonist's unsuccessful attempt at writing „Studium” – treatise on listening, „the most philosophical of all senses” and the one which „had never become subject to a magnificent study, prominent dissertation, not even a solid article” (Bernhard). According to widespread interpretation, treatise on listening is nothing but an allegory; a symbol of failure, work not only unfinished but not even started, endlessly postponed, continually distracted and finally paving the road to the degenerate crime. Seen from this existential perspective, as in famous theatre adaptation by Krystian Lupa, defeat in writing about listening is a mere narrative background, anecdotal course of events which only serves to display grand metaphysical drama which is at the core of Bernhard's real interest.

KALKWERK / STUDIUM is rooted in an entirely different reading of „Kalkwerk”. Listening here is not an incidental alibi to examine more profound realms of human's existence. Quite the contrary. There is no drama in Bernhard outside of listening or perhaps the drama is the listening itself. Construction of the book seems to support this thesis. It is not built of characters but rather overheard and misheard voices – uncertain gossips, never fully reliable rumours and contradictory tales written down and given to the reader in a fragmented and sometimes disembodied versions. „Kalkwerk” is thus firstly a book on listening and more importantly a book to listen to and it is in the latter one where the piece displays its structural majesty. Seen in this way, it is questionable if treatise on listening had never been written. It is true that it was not conceived by Konrad, the main character of „Kalkwerk”. Yet one can argue that Bernhard wrote „Studium” himself, aware of the fact that the theme of listening calls for liteterature for the ear rather than the eye. 

If Austrian author wrote the treatise himself, the only possible way to depict it is to follow the auditory features of the given discourse, reconstructing Bernhard's theory of hearing. 

piątek, 6 maja 2016

Farewell to Emilia













fot. Maja Wirkus

FAREWELL TO EMILIA
A handful of acts dedicated to an empty building

13/05
Wolf Eyes

14/05
The Great Learning by Cornelius Cardew
perfromed by a workshop group of Fundacja Strefa Wolnosłowa

acts by Warsaw artists incl. 
Brud
Ray Dickaty
Alessandro Facchini
Gamid Ibadullayev
Irad Mazliah
Philip Palmer
Candelaria Saenz Valiente

co-curated by Paweł Nowożycki

czwartek, 7 kwietnia 2016

Ivy Snowstalkers of Ancient Apron














Piotr Kurek, Ivy Snowstalkers of Ancient Apron

Opera commissioned by Kody Festival
12/05/2016
Lublin, Centrum Kultury, 20.30

Piotr Kurek – music, dramaturgy
Michał Libera – libretto, dramaturgy
Łukasz Sosiński – scenography
Laura Ociepa – screenings
Magdalena Łazarczyk – costumes
Natalia Przybysz – voice
Anastazja Bernad – voice
Hilary Jeffery – trombone
Kamil Szuszkiewicz – trumpet
Jerzy Rogiewicz – percussions
Hubert Zemler – percussions


Libretto (excerpt):

(In less than five minutes)

Within basidia of hymenium
and moraine of Karachi

in whale calfs' unborn barnacles
or over shallow end
of a small vernacular gravel
of some Northwestern town
in the country
of Romani ground

eighteen wreck DEAD
buried
remains
count
down.


(In time, quite soon)

When you're all no longer here
'xcept some dusty sludge

in a paddle strained of smog
or of human stinky wet
your particles snowing down
amid the wooden planks
in the floors
of your homes

thirteen DEAD
buried
remains
kick
off.


(In a while)

When the times arrive
of no torso corpse

in a tombless land
only leftovers
disperse their turns
in the solids
underground
yet always over

fifty DEAD
buried
remains
out
set.


(Very soon)

In borers walks
over man's veins

spread from
Diabal to Maine
devoured
by linches
on bloody
wood

DEAD
buried
remains
birth
bow.


(Now)

Leave on
within

among end
and by
now
good
by
now

DEAD
buried
remains
now
grow.


wtorek, 15 marca 2016

Salon de Salon de Fleurus




















Salon de Salon de Fleurus
at
Salon de Fleurus

18/03 - 15/05
ms¹
Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź
Więckowskiego 36

Sound adaptation for an exhibition by ICI

It is quite certain that the space of the Salon at Rue de Fleurus, at the time Stein and Toklas were in residence, when canvasses of Picasso, Matisse and Cézanne graced the walls, when those paintings were viewed by Joyce and Pound in person … there is no doubt that the entire space of the salon at this time, in this most original company and accompanied by the most original originals, was filled with art enjoying the status of mere lesser replicas. This art was music. The music was played on phonographs, and had been recorded on vinyl or shellac records decorated with the words “Pathé” or “Odeon” as well as other words informing one that in these unassuming grooves one can find the voice of Mistinguett or of Maurice Chevalier. These texts were beheld by the eyes of Paris’ high society, yet they were just the same texts as those read by other Parisians. By anyone, in fact, who had come into possession of a copy and played their record on any other gramophone located in any other salon. The sounds which fell on the ears of Stein and Pound were just the same as the sounds heard in the houses of lesser-known streets. And they were just the same as the sounds which fall on our ears today, in our homes. We only need to avail ourselves of other copies of those same records, which as it happens is possibIe . You can buy copies. They are by no means cheap, but they are certainly much less expensive than the acquisition of a Matisse or Picasso canvas from Stein’s salon. 

The mere vocal presence of Mistinguett or Chevalier at Rue de Fleurus 27, especially in the form of precisely grooved vinyl or shellac, seems a very particular work of art. This artwork announces - in this very salon in the 1920’s, 1920’s and 1930’s - the arrival of the work entitled Salon de Fleurus, dated from the early 1990’s. And this announcement fulfils its own ambition: perhaps the records – copies – played in the salon were already for Stein and her guests in fact more significant and tell them more about the history than the original artworks, whatever those artworks might, properly, be – say, as performed live in concert. If it is true that mere copies might have meant more, it is because fiction was turned by those records into real history and because the listeners were given the space to contemplate and review the past while listening. Perhaps this is why the music could not have been canonised in the Salon – precisely because it had already been canonised before. Questions where, why and how certain narratives about modern music were originated through the salon structure had already found answers in these unassuming records themselves, even before those records reached the music stores from where they progressed to Rue de Fleurus and other streets of pre-war Paris. And if it’s true that the answers to these questions are not very present in the copies of “Mon homme” or “La femme a la rose” which were to be found in the salon, we may still hope that answers will be clearer in the copies found in Salon de Fleurus. These are versions which Stein and her friends could not have listened to because they represent a phonographic “life after life” of  the hits of Paris from the time of the Salon, giving us some insight into the period that followed – from the forties until today. 

czwartek, 21 stycznia 2016

POPULISTA WINTER TRIANGLE


















Populista 
presents
Barbara Kinga Majewska, Emilia Sitarz
play
Franz Schubert 
Winterreise

BR POP14

1. Gute Nacht
2. Die Wetterfahne
3. Gefrorne Tränen
4. Erstarrung
5. Der Lindenbaum
6. Die Post
7. Auf dem Flusse
8. Rückblick
9. Irrlicht
10. Der greise Kopf
11. Wasserflut
12. Die Krähe
13. Letzte Hoffnung
14. Im Dorfe
15. Der stürmische Morgen
16. Täuschung
17. Mut
18. Rast
19. Frühglinstraum
20. Einsamkeit
21. Der Wegweiser
22. Das Wirsthaus
23. Die Nebensonnen
24. Der Leiermann

Voice by Barbara Kinga Majewska
Piano by Emilia Sitarz
Concept and rearrangement by Barbara Kinga Majewska and Michał Libera

Recorded and edited at homes by Barbara Kinga Majewska and Michał Libera in 2015
Additional recordings by Michał Kupicz
Additional edits by Robert Migas
Mixed and mastered by Ralf Meinz

***



















Populista 
presents 
Richard Youngs
plays 
Parallel Winter

BR POP15

Voice, guitar and zither by Richard Youngs
Composed, recorded, mixed and mastered by Richard Youngs

***



















BR POP16

Populista
presents
Joanna Halszka Sokołowska
plays
Franz Schubert 
Winterreise

Voice by Joanna Halszka Sokołowska

Recorded by Michał Libera in Komuna// Warszawa on 29th of October 2015
Mixed and mastered by Ralf Meinz
Premiered at Playback Play in Dwa Osiem on 12th of December 2014


***

All three CDs:

Produced by Michał Libera
Cover art work by Aleksandra Waliszewska
Layout by Piotr Bukowski
Published by BôłtRecords
Distributed by MonotypeRec

***

Motto of Populista Winter Triangle came about on 13th of December, 2014. It was a cold and windy day, a classic of pre-winter Warsaw, cold, wet, transparent yet at the same time grey, or perhaps mostly grey. It was also a day of the first Warsaw show of Richard Youngs in Komuna// Warszawa. Not fully by accident, there was a piano in the room, which made Richard propose performing „Parallel Winter”. Few hours later he was introducing the piece to the audience saying that its duration is something in between fifteen and forty five minutes. It is because, he continued, that the piece has as many lines as we have winter days and hence is something one needs to go through, not unlike going through winter.

Is there a better introduction to „Winterreise”?

Legendary music cycle of Franz Schubert accompanies the poems of Wilhelm Müller and is today more than a classic, it is a must in virtually all and any music canon, a model of romantic songbook about misery, love and solitude and last but not least – a 19th Century equivalent of a pop album mirroring emotional lives of generations to follow after its completion in 1828. Musicians' encounters with Schubert are rarely coincidences, especially in case of „Winterreise”. Regardless of approach, methodology in developing the interpretation, performance's concepts and techniques, facing the cycle is always a challange. It is due to the scale of the piece, varied and settled performance traditions, canonic value and more than often inconspicious refinment of the music which all together require musician to engage deeply and responsibly. It always means something when somebody takes on Schubert.

Interpratations of Barbara Kinga Majewska and Emilia Sitarz are crazy, funny, touching, sad, passionate, icy, irreverent, charming, sharp, ironic, tender, sweet, sensual, repulsive, ostensibly true and movingly artificial. Most of all however, they are a consistent, unhesitating and precise story of high integrity, not easy to forsee though, even for Winterreise's experts. The story is a far reaching interpretation of Schubert and Müller, bold and consequent, not stopping half way, not sucking up to the history of great performances of the piece. Quite the contrary, it is an undogmatic exegesis, open and idiosyncratic, the one that only the two artists in team with the producer, Michał Libera could create, an interpretation displaying new tensions and new interrelations existing in Schubert's cycle. At the same time, it is a work of great admiration and respect, more than often characterized by prudish perfections and surprising faithfulness to the romantic original.

The version of Joanna Halszka Sokołowska is diametrically different, although the distance from Schubert seems comparable in both cases. The album is in a way a field recording of a night session in the theatre. In less than two hours, her singing was captured with no rehearsals, in one go, and was followed by no overdubs or other studio treatments. It seems to be closer to Richard Young's „Parallel Winter” than the other take on Schubert. Perhaps because they both share a thoroughly camouflaged conceptual content uniting all the details and formal decisions with the content interpretation. It is switfly covered with the sound of pop or folk music or whatever kind of music it is which is more about playing than performing. Hence its theory comes more from an instinct and accurate decision than detailed exegesis, which by the way seems quite close to Schubert's fascination with folk songs. But there the similiarities with the original end.