Godziszewski’s Szymanowski re-released!
Jerzy Godziszewski’s recordings of Karol Szymanowski’s complete piano pieces were the first complete set in history. The CD incarnation was released in 1998 (on 4 discs) to great critical acclaim (in Poland – I’m not aware if the set ever reached Western ears). It garnered several awards. But as it was released by the Polish Radio, it quickly went out of print (they have very small runs). I’ve been on the lookout for used copies for a while but they were all rather expensive. Well, I have reason for jubilation, because now the set has finally been re-released! And while not as cheap as some of those recent EMI boxes (not to mention Brilliant), it’s more or less affordable (mid-range, I’d say; it costs about 80 PLN – that’s roughly 20 EUR, 28 USD, 17 GBP).
The old set looked like this (PR CD 111-114), box and individual discs:
And here’s the cover of the new one (PRCD 1261-64):
And here (a Polish Radio page) is where you can listen to some samples.
It’s nice to see this selection has the Prelude & Fugue in C sharp Minor. This is a criminally overlooked piece, and e.g. the Naxos cycle lacks it.
Very interesting. Thanks for pointing that out – I wasn’t aware of it. Really strange that it was left out of the Naxos set – it’s the piece that Busoni mistook for Schoenberg’s, isn’t it? That fact alone should have been reason enough to include it.