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Piotr Pławner: Polish Violin Concertos CD review – haunting melodies couple with sparky dances

  
  

Piotr Plawner violinist
Doing justice to Yehudi Menuhin’s famous vibrato … Piotr Pławner Photograph: PR Company Handout

There are four rewarding works to be discovered on this disc, although only two of them are technically concertos, and only one isn’t blink-and-you’ll-miss-it short. That’s the Violin Concerto by Andrzej Panufnik, written in 1971 and recorded in concert in 2014 by Łódź-born violinist Piotr Pławner, the Kammersymphonie Berlin and conductor Jürgen Bruns. The second movement, with its seemingly endless lines of melody, reminds us that the concerto was written for Yehudi Menuhin and his famous nonstop vibrato. Pławner does those long lines justice here, before wrapping up the piece in a spiky, frenetic Polish dance. We also get studio recordings of the sparky 12-minute concerto that Grażyna Bacewicz wrote for herself to perform, plus Alexandre Tansman’s compact Cinq Pièces pour Violon et Petit Orchestre, which aren’t a million miles away from Stravinsky in neoclassical mode, and the haunting, then punchy Andante and Allegro by Michał Spisak.

 

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