Among contemporary Polish composers, Henryk Gorécki has nearly outdistanced the long-established popularity of Krzysztof Penderecki, partly due to his willingness to abandon the international style fostered in Darmstadt in favor of a calm, quiet, and accessible style that nonetheless effectively takes on the challenge of Poland's disastrous place in the scheme of world events in the twentieth century. While Gorécki gets the glory, at least in the United States, one Polish composer who has been plowing the same field for ...
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Among contemporary Polish composers, Henryk Gorécki has nearly outdistanced the long-established popularity of Krzysztof Penderecki, partly due to his willingness to abandon the international style fostered in Darmstadt in favor of a calm, quiet, and accessible style that nonetheless effectively takes on the challenge of Poland's disastrous place in the scheme of world events in the twentieth century. While Gorécki gets the glory, at least in the United States, one Polish composer who has been plowing the same field for easily as long is Wojciech Kilar (pronounced "hVoy-Jee Kee-lahr"), and yet his name is mainly only known to fanciers of film music. Chances are, no matter who you are, you've heard it; among Kilar's film credits are such scores as Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Ninth Gate, Death and the Maiden, and The Pianist. Kilar: Piano Concerto is the second of Naxos' attempts to bring Kilar's generally excellent music to a more general audience, and while it's good, it's perhaps a little less than...
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