Biography (read more)

Grażyna Bacewicz was a Polish composer and violinist of the twentieth century, born in Łódź and trained in Warsaw and Paris, where she studied composition with Nadia Boulanger. She spent most of her career based in Warsaw, working through the Second World War and its aftermath as both a performing violinist and composer. Her output centers on works for violin, including seven violin concertos and five violin sonatas, alongside seven string quartets, four symphonies, and works for piano and voice. She died in Warsaw in 1969.

Bacewicz was the second Polish female composer, after Maria Szymanowska, to achieve national and international recognition, and her music, marked by a distinctive blend of neoclassical structure and modernist harmonic language, has drawn favorable comparisons to Shostakovich and Bartók. Renewed interest in her string quartets and concertos in recent decades has helped secure her a firmer place in the twentieth-century chamber and orchestral repertoire.

Sources:

Repertoire

Oberek No. 1 (Live from Yellow Lounge, 2021)

Performed by Bomsori Kim