Overtures

Stanislaw Moniuszko: Overtures
Stanislaw Moniuszko: Overtures & Dances
I admit it - I am biased, being born in Poland, and used to listening a lot of Moniuszko's music on Polish radio. I now live in Australia and still hear Chopin, Wieniawski, Lutoslawski, Gorecki, Penderecki, Szymanowski ... but never Moniuszko. It seems Moniuszko's music is Poland's best kept secret - which should be revealed to the world. I have bought this CD and love it. I recommend it without hesitation to everybody who may be missing this marvellous music or never heard it in the first place.

Yes, this composer is one of Poland's best kept secrets. That being lifted from the first reviewer's text, and being the owner of the Witold Rowicki CD of mostly these same overtures, the difference between this CD and the one with Witold Rowicki as conductor are like night and day. Unfortunately, this CD is the "night" version. That is to say, Rowicki's performances on his older CD, particularly with regard to the overtures "Halka" and "The Raftsman," are animated as those of Leonard Bernstein's performances when he was young, and the tempos and articulations make the music very exciting and engaging. The performances here with Satanowski as conductor are for the most part completely uninspired, and do not do justice to this fine composer. It is as if these overtures were being conducted in the plodding manner of Otto Klemperer on one of his "off" days. Articulations by the orchestra are relatively poor or sloppy, and the recording engineer did not seem to be at his best either. I don't think conductor Satanowski understood this music at all. These overtures should be performed with all the zest of the Berlioz overtures, yet the conductor seemed to be in Strauss waltz mode here. My bottom line is that the definitive performance with modern sound (the Rowicki recordings date from the 1960's yet still sound great) is yet to be made. Since at this writing there is only one copy of the Rowicki CD available on Amazon at a rather high price, I'd recommend trying to find them at .mp3 sites. There are also some performances on YouTube that may also illustrate how this CD misses the boat on being a definitive recording.

Moniuszko's most famous operas, Halka and The Haunted Manor still retain places at the fringe of the repertoire (especially in Poland), and they are truly fine works, displaying strong melodic gifts and a fine ear for structure and instrumentation, and the results are often delightful, atmospheric music. A disc of overtures from mostly less famous operas should thus be very welcome. Unfortunatly, this disc doesn't really represent the pieces in the best possible light, since the performances are lacking severely in fire and excitement. In short, these are dull, plain run-throughs with little verve or vitality and in particular lacking in terms of dramatic contrasts. I have not heard the alternative older disc by Fitelberg and Rowicki, but I strongly suspect that it is vastly preferable to CPO's effort here. Sound quality is fine, for all its worth.