Szymański & Mykietyn: Music for string quartet
Paweł Szymański (b. 1954): Five pieces for string quartet, Four pieces for string quartet, and Two pieces for string quartet; Paweł Mykietyn (b. 1971): String Quartet No. 2
Royal String Quartet: Izabella Szałaj-Zimak – violin I, Elwira Przybyłowska – violin II, Marek Czech – viola, Michał Pepol – cello
Hyperion Records CDA68085
Nominated for the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Chamber Music Award, the Royal String Quartet is one of the most dynamically developing string quartets in the world today. Established at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw in 1998, the RSQ combines outstanding musical works of the past with contemporary music, bravely pushing musical genres.
According to the Hyperion website:
The official titles of the works performed here are not helpful: what they conceal are the most extraordinary soundworlds from two composers at the vanguard of the contemporary Polish music scene, and the magicians of the Royal String Quartet summon from their instruments sounds of collective and individual wonder.
This is music to grab the attention of its audience—whether willing or not—and it will leave listeners emphatically having chosen a side of the fence.
According to the liner notes written by British musicologist Adrian Thomas:
The names of Paweł Szymański (born 1954) and Paweł Mykietyn (born 1971) may not be as widely known as those of Polish composers born before the Second World War, such as Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki or Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, all of whose string quartets have been recorded on Hyperion by the Royal String Quartet. Yet within Poland, Szymański and Mykietyn have long been regarded as being in the vanguard of a new direction in Polish music. Their outputs span chamber and orchestral music, choral and vocal music, opera, and music for the theatre and film.
[Sources: onpolishmusic.com, hyperion-records.co.uk]