JERZY MĄDRAWSKI (b. circa 1962): Dialogues for 2 Accordions, String Orchestra and Piano, Concerto for Accordion, String Orchestra and Timpani, Solo Accordion: Online Labyrinth Music, Ballade, Diptych for 2 Accordions.

Description: Accordionist-composer Mądrawski has an inventive, wide-ranging approach to his instrument; always approachable but stylistically varied even within the three-year span (2017-19) in which these works were written. His idiom is basically tonal, with modal, folk-like inflections and a greater or lesser degree of chromaticism; a fondness for repetitive ostinato patterns is evident, and also for the clustered percussion effect that Piazzolla delighted in. The first movement of the classically structured Concerto sounds like a meeting between Piazzolla and Bartók; a virtuosic cadenza explores some modern harmonies in moderation. The central Largo is lyrical and melancholy, in the form of variations on a folksong-like melody. The music becomes darker, swelling to a sonorous outpouring of grief and fades away. The rambunctious rondo-finale has the feel of an exuberant folk celebration, the participants beginning to sound a bit tipsy by the end. Dialogues, modal and and rhythmically insistent, with a lively strutting personality, provides the three soloists with ample opportunities for spirited interchanges. The Diptych is chromatic with some biting dissonances; based on two Latin aphorisms, the first movement is mysterious and enigmatic while the second, "Tempus fugit", has an inexorable sense of propulsive, post-minimalistic flow. Online Labyrinth is highly chromatic, by far the nearest thing to atonality here, intended to suggest the impersonal complexity of the digital world, but the Ballade is entirely tonal, an impulsive, Romantic piece that in an extended lyrical passage hearkens back to Chopin. Bartosz Głowacki, Maciej Frąckiewicz, Bartosz Kołsut (accordions), Anna Parkita (piano), Podkarpacka Chamber Ochestra; Elżbieta Przystasz.