Waclaw Geiger - Songs To Highlander Poems & Chambe

Wiwer, Katarzyna; Time Quartet, The

Waclaw Geiger was a versatile musician who was not only a composer, but also a singer and conductor. In his songs it is possible to hear not only an unusual musical imagination, but also his knowledge of the singing workshop. Songs written for poetic lyrics in the Podhale highlanders’ dialect began to be written in Cracow during the Second World War, when Waclaw Geiger became interested not only in highland motifs but also in poetry, in this case poetry in dialect. He used poems by Jan Masur, Aniela Gut-Stapinska and Hanka Nowobielska, and also was a close friend of the well-known Cracow poet Tadeusz Staich. The arrangement of the songs contained on the album for string quartet brought forth what is almost the essence of Tatra highlanders’ music, namely the presence of string instruments. And although the composer draws from Podhale region motifs with great taste, uses them creatively and without trying to create a pastiche of highland music, the typical highland music sections sound with here great brilliance and power. The new arrangement also gave the songs new timbres and gave the instruments the opportunity to work freely with the vocal part. The album’s program also includes chamber music pieces whose manuscripts come from the composer’s family archive. It is likely that most of these pieces receive their premiere on this release, and there are real musical gems among them.

Price: $26.98