Bacewicz: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1

Musicologist Adrian Thomas considered Grażyna Bacewicz’s string quartets “unrivalled in 20th-century Polish music and… one of the century’s most significant contributions to the genre”. Her folk-music infused First Quartet dates from student days at the Paris Conservatoire, while exceptional polyphonic skill, intense emotion and playful, high spirits characterize the Third Quartet. Both the Sixth and Seventh Quartets unite tradition with a strikingly effective and highly personal exploration of progressive contemporary techniques. As Lutosławski observed, in the “rapidly changing artistic currents” of the times, “it was [Bacewicz’s] music which helped create that atmosphere”.