That's the Landscape
Series: Revisions (CD)
What should one start with when writing about Zygmunt Konieczny (b. 1937)? His outstanding achievements in the fields of songwriting and film music? His mastery of linking the music to the lyrics in his small-scale pieces? His timeless song standards that appeal to so many generations (which in popular music is a token of the utmost success)? His ‘Grande valse brillante’? ‘Sweet Peas and Roses’? ‘The Carousel with Madonnas’? Or ‘That Lass’s Eyes’? One could go on indefinitely with this list.
Composer and new media expert Cezary Duchnowski had already taken up Polish popular songs before. This time, he comes up with new arrangements of the classics, exploring the spaces between the past and the present. While listening to Konieczny’s songs as interpreted by Agata Zubel, Bartek Wąsik, Andrzej Bauer, and NOSPR orchestra, we never lose touch with the originals. They are constantly present and vibrant, and they make themselves felt. Paradoxically, though, we do not hesitate even for a moment whether we should follow Duchnowski’s vision. He is an artist to be trusted. Fortunately, too, Zubel makes no attempts to become another Ewa Demarczyk but instead remains true to herself.
‘A song is a cure for everything’, once wrote a Polish classic of the genre, and he was obviously right. Another songwriter’s statement one can hardly argue with is ‘a true song must have lyrics’. Still, in Konieczny’s songs there are no ‘musts’ since they have all that is necessary for a song (‘necessary’ is incidentally also the meaning of that composer’s surname in Polish).
- Series: ANAKLASIS
- No. of edition: 1
- Published: 2025
- Type: CD
