First ever all-Mykietyn CD announced

Very busy writing my last chapter, but need to go through the motions of blogging from time to time, so as not to forget how to do it…

PWA (Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne – ‘Polish Audiovisual Publishers‘) announced recently (on my Birthday, no less!) that they will be issuing a CD devoted to music by Paweł Mykietyn (cover pictured below) – the young Polish composer (b. 1971) whose recent String Quartet No. 2 was commissioned and premiered (and never performed again ) by the Kronos Quartet. There are many Paweł Mykietyn pieces I’m very fond of (such as Eine kleine Herbstmusik, and 3 for 13, and La Strada) – though there are also some I’m not mad about (such as Shakespeare’s Sonnets, or U Radka), and some I dislike (such as Epifora, or Ignorant i szaleniec, or the Piano Concerto). However, I consider him an immensely talented musician (and a splendid clarinetist!), and am expecting him to become a truly great composer. For the time being, I eye each new piece with interest and suspicion…

I’m not sure if the album announced by PWA now is the same there was talk about roughly a year ago. If that is the case, then we should expect a disc of incidental music – Mykietyn writes a lot of stuff for the theater. However, no details have been revealed on the PWA web page yet – it might be a disc of proper concert music, which I personally would prefer (as much as I appreciate his incidental efforts, which are actually quite splendid).

(Sorry for all the brackets in this post (they just kept coming (couldn’t stop them)).)

[NOTE ADDED IN 2011: Hm, not sure where the mean-spirited air of this note came from. I've toned it down a bit. There's another post around here somewhere where I mention Mykietyn's microtonal work, which I found quite breathtaking, really.]

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