Grażyna Bacewicz - Symphony no. 3

Grażyna Bacewicz - Trzecia Symfonia
Premiered in 1952

Conductor: Jan Krenz
Orchestra: Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra

0:00 - Drammatico
9:35 - Andante
17:33 - Vivace
21:47 - Finale

Bio
Grażyna Bacewicz (1909 - 1969) was born into a musical Lithuanian-Polish family in Łódź, Poland. Grażyna and her brothers and sister all learned the violin and the piano from their father [1]. She gave her first performance at age 7, began her conservatory education at age 10, and composed her first piano piece at age 11 [2]. She entered the Warsaw conservatory several years later at age 19. It was here that she became interested in literature and philosophy [1]. After graduating, following the advice of Karol Szymanowski and the generous cash flow of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, she went to study in Paris, which was a wellspring of musical culture at the time [2]. There, she studied with Nadia Boulanger. She would go to Poland to teach and return to Paris to study with Carl Flesch. Eventually, she wound up in Warsaw.

Bacewicz's musical life was often disrupted by a personal life which was difficult and complex and by the tempestuous forces of history that ceaselessly beat and batter the Polish nation. Her father was a Lithuanian, and, in 1920, the second Polish Republic seized control of Vilnius. Her father illegally crossed the border to Lithuania and hoped his family would follow him [1]. Bacewicz, who had visited and performed in Lithuania, hoped to work in Kaunas, but nobody accepted her applications [1]. For the sake of her career in music, she stayed in Poland [1]. During World War II, she and her husband stayed in Warsaw, where she participated in the underground movements that strove to keep Polish culture alive during the Nazi occupation [1]. In the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising, the entire city was destroyed building by building, so Bacewicz, her husband, and her two-year-old daughter, Alina, fled the destruction [2]. They were held in Pruszków and were not deported to a labor camp only because they had a two-year-old [2]. She also suffered a heart-attack, but continued her work regardless [2]. She died in Warsaw at age 59.

Bacewicz's approach to music was starkly different than that of the romantics. She believed that "... music does not express anything; no ordinary emotions from human life. It simply expresses itself and its own affections." [3] She was also a pessimist and a believer in determinism, denying free will [4]. Her unique convictions about music and life affected her style, which is extremely aggressive and dark. Like all great artists, no matter how total their convictions, there is a kind of antinomic contrast in their output. Bacewicz's music too, expresses things antithetical to her own sense of herself, which she admitted while writing about the premiere her Sinfonietta (1935) [1]: "Frankly, I listened to that piece as though it weren’t mine at all, but written by some very wise composer. I can’t believe I wrote it. It's so extremely lively and cheerful and witty, with not a single second of waffle. I can’t understand, in truth, how such an embodiment of pessimism as myself could write such merry music" [5]. Though, of course, art often elucidates ideas and truths that the artist doesn't believe in. Regarding emotional expression in Bacewicz's music, as the popular (probably spurious) anecdote about Niels Bohr goes: it works even if you don't believe in it.

Symphony no. 3
Bacewicz's third symphony comes about during her mature neoclassical period [6].

I - Drammatico
The first mvt is so "motivically integrated" that it appears monothematic [1]. There is a standard first and second theme, but the second theme derives (3:44) from the first theme (0:10). Throughout the whole first mvt, there is bombast and anxiety with few moments of reprieve. It reminds of Shostakovich, but it also calls to mind Witold Maliszewski at times (compare 3:39 with Maliszewski's 3rd symphony, for example).

II - Andante
After the explosive 1st mvt, the second mvt begins with a quiet reprieve in a mysteriously playful mood. As the mvt unfolds, the symphony reaches closest to moments of romantic-era expression, but Bacewicz interrupts them with grand flashes of dramatic gravitas or begins to build a moment only to have it lead somewhere foreign.

III - Vivace
A kind of playful scherzo, though the mood drifts back to the grotesqueness of the first mvt. It is here that we see more unison in the main groups of instruments, creating three simultaneous monotextures working together [6].

IV - Finale
While the previous two mvts only hint at or drift toward the mood of the first mvt, the finale offers the logical continuation of the story. This musical landscape is dotted with many twists and turns: we see the explosiveness of the first mvt, the feigned romanticism of the second (25:05), and some of the playfulness of the 3rd mvt (28:08). The ending signals the victory of the 1st mvt's energy.

Bibliography pinned

Видео Grażyna Bacewicz - Symphony no. 3 канала Polish Scores