There is no other way than calm, humble, common work

Jakub Puchalski: Seeing your many CDs, one can trace an idea behind them. A discovery or rediscovery of interesting, beautiful repertoire, often once well-known but later forgotten. The same one can say about your concert programs. You must be extremely hungry for new music.

Łukasz Borowicz: My interest in unknown music started very early. Since the childhood, once I started to collect Cds. It was at elementary school in my early years. And after getting to know the standard repertoire, I started my own research to discover new composers, new pieces, new performers. And somehow it went naturally, because when I started my conducting career, I was often assisting to many important productions at the Polish orchestras. First of all, at the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra where I was assistant to Antoni Wit, who was recording a lot of Polish music and he was promoting an unknown music, as well as the orchestra, as well the places I assisted too, at the Budapest Festival Orchestra, also at Teatr Wielki.

All the time I was getting the impulses about some new pieces, some new ideas, some new composers. So when I started my own way, my first position was the position of the artistic director of the Polish Radio Symphony in Warsaw and at that place it was natural that I was asked to record and to promote Polish music.

So it was a great chance for me because finally I was able to fulfill many of my dreams, especially with a forgotten repertoire of the 19th century. Because Polish repertoire of the 19th century consists mainly of operatic music, but also consists of a lot of good symphonic pieces. So during the radio years, if I can say so, I recorded a few Polish 19th century operas and some of them were recorded for the first time, like for instance the opera called Monbar by a friend of Frederic Chopin, Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński. Also, I was involved in promotion of Polish 19th century masters like Zygmunt Noskowski, whose symphonic works I recorded too. At that time, I was also expanding the operatic repertoire, working with our famous singers and recording with them. So, of course, I was very, very happy to record with late Ewa Podleś, to record with Mariusz Kwiecień, and to record three CDs with Piotr Beczała.

Polish music, international music, but also forgotten music started at the Warsaw Radio. Those recordings started there. And also there in Warsaw, I started to record one of the cycles I fulfilled. This was the first cycle. And this cycle was dedicated to the works of Andrzej Panufnik. Through the years, I recorded eight CDs for the label CPO. And it included a majority of the symphonic music composed by Sir Andrzej Panufnik. And this series also started my collaboration with German orchestras. I started to record with Konzerthausorchester Berlin. This complete was done both in Warsaw and in Berlin. Later, because of this, I also started to collaborate with different German orchestras. For instance, with Deutsche Sinfonieorchester Berlin, we produced a lot of CDs with music of Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén. We continue this series and we are going to record the last CD very soon.

And also I recorded the complete symphonic works by Grażyna Bacewicz. But then, after finishing my work in Warsaw, I expanded my collaboration with Poznań Philharmonic. That's the orchestra I've been working with since 2006 and this is my fourth season as a music director of the orchestra but I collaborate with orchestra as a principal conductor since 2006, so this is quite long relationship. I could say that in present days it's quite unique to work with one orchestra for such a long time. I can openly say that this is a magnificent time in my life and so is the relationship, the friendship with the orchestra, with musicians, with the whole Philharmonic team. In Poznań we recorded, through the years, over 20 CDs already.

And we keep recording some unknown music, also Polish music, but also connected to the Greater Poland, Wielkopolska region. We promote composers who are not so well known in the whole Polish musical society.

For instance, we recorded music by Stefan Bolesław Poradowski, a very interesting composer from Poznań who was also a teacher of my late professor Bogusław Madej. Here I feel a very strong connection. We recorded works by Feliks Nowowiejski, a great composer who was also connected very strongly to Poznań. So we recorded his oratorio Quo vadis?, and we recorded his Piano Concerto and Cello Concerto, and Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3.

In the recent years we also recorded works by 19th century Polish composer Michał Bergson, Warsaw-born composer, a very interesting figure. And with Jonathan Plowright, we recorded his Piano Concerto. With another Jonathan, with Jonathan Powell, we recorded Franz Xaver Scharwenka's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Scharwenka's great Symphony in C minor. I'm just mentioning the composers' names and and the titles of so many recordings but, you know, I think that the main line is to promote Polish music which is simply all forgotten or not promoted and thanks to the recordings, thanks to the reviews, thanks to the presence of the recordings in the streaming services this music is going to be performed more and more. And also I'm very very happy because it influenced the recognition of the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra both abroad and in Poland. Thanks to our recording activity we were awarded twice with the ICMA prize. First time the Poznań Philharmonic was awarded for Quo vadis? by Feliks Nowowiejski, this was in 2018, and recently we were awarded for our album called Urlicht, the opera recital of great German baritone Samuel Hasselhoorn. So, many many traces, many topics, many names, many ideas, but... the world is full of recordings. Almost every piece of the standard repertoire has many, many, many recordings. And of course, we are not escaping from playing the standard repertoire. We do it. But for the recordings, I think that the general purpose of the recordings today is to bring the music which had no luck and no chance to be presented as often as the music should be presented. And that's why it became forgotten. So, we try to reverse the situation and simply we record, we promote, and then the music goes back and the composers' names are going back too.

You mentioned Urlicht, the new CD awarded with the ICMA prize. This is a CD which is a little bit different than the others - not the symphonic repertoire, not whole pieces, but fragments, songs created together with the baritone Samuel Hasselhorn. How was this special project born?

This is a really unique project because I called it an opera recital. I mean, it's a baritone recital because there are orchestral songs, there are excerpts of the operas. So it's a combination, it's a great vocal-lyric symphony, which is combined of pieces by different composers. What unifies them is the time frame, the break of the 19th and 20th century. This is also the dawn of the great symphonic music of neo-romanticism. We are just on the border of new music which is coming, in a way. Also that's why we included an excerpt from Berg's Wozzeck onto the CD. So the main topic is the different various views on the subject of death in German culture, Austrian-German culture.

This topic was particularly important for the philosophy, for the music, for the composers as well, at the end of the 19th century, for the poets, for the poetry as well. So, that's why we thought to combine, to compose a non-existing symphony, which will tell, which will somehow analyze, which will somehow take the different views on the word: death. Death as a death of the soldier, death which happens due to the murder, like in Wozzeck. Death in the philosophical sense, and death which is also a way of escaping from the world, kind of suicide.

So, many, many aspects of death. And of course, we fought to give the hope at the end. And that's why we thought about the song Urlicht, which is of course the slow movement of the Mahler's Symphony No. 2. But also it's included in the beautiful cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn. We thought about Urlicht like kind of answering the questions we are giving. What's the sense of life? I mean, the deeply philosophical questions, sounding questions of the German philosophy and German culture of the end of the era, which finished with the outbreak of World War I.

Also for the symphonic orchestra, this is one of the most interesting periods in the history of music. We have Gustav Mahler, we have Richard Strauss, we have great orchestration skills, we have the orchestra which is enlarged to its maximum size. For every orchestra such a repertoire is an adventure. So that's why I can say that we composed for the CD a program which reminds somehow big vocal symphonies like Das Lied von der Erde by Gustav Mahler, or Lyrische Symphonie by Alexander Zemlinsky.

Zemlinsky, by the way, is present on the CD too. And we had a pleasure to collaborate with Samuel Hasselhorn, who is absolutely an enchanting, fantastic artist, for whom the spoken, the written word is the most important one. He's keen on poetry, he's keen on acting, he is keen on interpreting the text in a way which is truly unique. He has enormous experience with the German poetry too, because he is involved for the years for a huge recording project concentrated on the music of Franz Schubert. So, each year he is issuing a new album with the songs which were composed exactly 200 years ago, so, in a row, like 2023-2024, and each year makes an anniversary of 200, 200 anniversary of certain repertoire from Franz Schubert's work.

And of course, this made extreme experience for him with the poetry, with the interpretation of German song. And then, so it was natural for him to continue the idea developed by the history of music and by the history of art, developed idea of German song, Lied, which became orchestral song. So that's the main, let's say, base of the album called Urlicht. And we are extremely happy that this album got such a good reviews and such a good feedback from the listeners, from the music lovers. The fundamental idea of presenting the CD which will have an exact subject, and the subject is being overworked in the CD, I think it gave results - and we are very happy that we got the ICMA Prize. It's fantastic, both for the soloists, both for the orchestra, for everybody involved in the production, for our fantastic engineer, Filip Nedel, for everybody involved. Simply, that's also the orchestra's dream, to record the well-known repertoire. So, we recorded music by Gustav Mahler, by a very famous composer, famous pieces - something unknown but also something very well known concerning the repertoire.

How did you start your work with Samuel Hasselhorn? Did you perform together?

We were joined by common friends in Berlin from the recording industry and from the recording circles. Samuel was searching after an orchestra and conductor who was interested in a not obvious repertoire and we were connected and then we started to talk, then we started to analyze the repertoire, then we started to analyze the perspectives of creating something truly unique. It also was a unique chance to work in a calm way. There was no hurry during recording sessions and we worked in a very old style, which I love because as a CD collector and recording history fan, I know that present times are not as comfortable for artists in terms of recording situation as it was in the past. So we tried to recreate the way as it was.

Calm rehearsals, then sessions and no hurry, because the music hates an impatient atmosphere. There is need to be time for common understanding, for rehearsing the music, for playing, performing the music together - and then to record. So this was a unique chance. I mean, it's not unique because we work always like this in Poznań, at the Poznań Philharmonic, but this project was truly unique. And we are happy because we started already the ideas for the second album.

What are the ideas for the second album?

They are not precise yet, but of course we are going to follow the idea of creating another lyrical symphony. So again, a few subjects, mainstream works combined with some unknown ones. We'll see. There are going to be the results of the brainstorm soon, and let's hope that soon we will have more details to share about the coming project.

Okay, and how are other plans for the other recordings or concert programs?

The concert season of Poznań Philharmonic is truly full, and full of ideas as well. I'm so happy that our orchestra collaborates with famous artists who willingly come back, because of the special atmosphere of the orchestra. The special friendship and the links which the orchestra creates with the guest artists are truly unique. So we are very happy to work with our guest conductors, with Ariel Zuckerman, with Paul McCreesh, and with many other artists who come very often to us, and also with our fantastic soloists. Through the years we had fantastic soloists as our guest artists and also artists in residence. We started the idea of artists in residence like one of the few orchestras in Poland. Our orchestra was also a first orchestra which created the idea of performing concertos which are being played by the soloists of our Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra team. So, each season more than ten soloists of the orchestra appear with their own symphony and they perform all unknown or well-known concertos from the standard repertoire. Of course, all the sections of the orchestra are included in this project, so strings, both winds and brass, percussion, harp. I mean, everybody has a chance to present himself with the orchestra. The public loves it, and it's incredible how it works, I mean, how beautiful performances are and how much we enjoy them. So, Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra has really adventurous unique season which could be observed by everybody on the web. All the information are there, and also we are quite frequently making broadcasts with the Polish Radio Program Two, but also some of our concerts are being presented with Deutschlandfunk. So, both Polish and German radios present us. Of course, our recordings are present at the other radio stations too. For instance, Radio France promoted our recording of Scharwenka music and thanks to the ICMA award, our recording with Samuel Hasselhorn is being presented in many radio stations. And we are welcoming the listeners, both on the radio and on streaming services, but first of all the guests who are coming in person to visit us and to listen to the music at the Poznań Philharmonic.

I would say that your way of working with the Poznań Philharmonic is quite unusual for the present days. You work very hard on a regular basis. Is it not so easy today when especially conductors are flying all over Europe, all over the world actually, and usually have no time to work with their orchestras?

I think that's somehow the tragedy of our times. That in the past conductors were spending much more time with their orchestras. They could create the results which were unique, especially I'm talking about the sound. Now the world becomes unified in terms of music making. Majority of the orchestras play fantastic. I mean, because the level goes up and up and up and it's obvious that technically everything is getting better because the abilities of the musicians are endlessly growing.

On the other hand, I feel that the majority of the orchestras lack common daily work with their conductors. That's a difficult topic because the whole system is constructed in a way that everybody is touring. Of course, it's important, but when I go back with my memories to my CD collection, and when I think about the recordings I adore, they are usually the recordings made by the conductors who had a long relationship with their own orchestras, and they developed something which is truly unique, both in terms of sound, both in terms of common understanding. And that's what matters. So, I believe that common work brings fruits. And there is no other way than calm, humble work on the sound, on the repertoire, on the style. I'm very happy and I'm very honoured that with the Poznań Philharmonic we can create the sound we were dreaming about.

I'm sure it is fruitful, this way of working, which is evident in the ICMA Prize and so many other prizes, reviews and concerts. Thank you for the interview and let's see what we'll have next time from you.

Thank you.