PIOTR A. KOMOROWSKI (b.1977) : FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS - Journey to the Centre of Sound for percussion duo and tape (2015), Spring Landscape for string orchestra (2014), For Whom the Bell Tolls for piano trio (2019)! Hidden World for accordion and tape (2015), Synergy for percussion duo and tape (2018), The Sea for string quartet and tape (2015), Dialogues for percussion duo and string orchestra (2016). Piotr Sutt, percussion Bartłomiej Sutt, percussion, Zarębski Piano Trio, Stanisław Miles, accordion, ArtON Quartet, Progress Chamber Orchestra, Szymon Moruz, conductor.

Description: Piotr A. Komorowski is a composer, teacher, and "organizer of musical life". He currently serves as assistant Professor at the School of Music Education of the Casimir the Great University in Bydgoszcz. He is also a teacher of general music subjects at the Primary and Secondary State Music School in Kutno, and organizer and one of the originators of the ‘New Music’ Contemporary Festival in Bydgoszcz. He is an ordinary member of the Polish Composers’ Union and the president of the Polish Composers’ Union Kuyavian-Pomeranian Branch in Bydgoszcz. This new release is a showcase of his compositions, composed between 2014 and 2019. Komorowski is a thoroughly modern composer in terms of the techniques he uses, but the music remains very approachable. The electronic (computer or pre-recorded samples) component of these works, guided by spectral analyses, tends toward euphonic sounds, not infrequently strongly suggesting tonality; the acoustical pieces and the parts for conventional instruments in those with electronic parts, are also based on spectral harmonies, but are largely tonal in a relatively conventional sense; Spring Landscape, for string orchestra, is very much a richly textured tone poem, its harmonies free and mildly dissonant, not being derived from diatonic pitch relationships, but sounding evocative of the burgeoning energy of the natural world rather than emphasizing its technical methods. For Whom the Bell Tolls, the title borrowed from Hemingway to suggest a mood of anxiety and catastrophe, uses some extended techniques - mostly playing inside the piano - to produce sounds generated by the overtone series of strings and harmonics, which are more consonant than not. Here and elsewhere, there are passages with a potent rhythmic drive or pulsation, which helps to anchor the music to the familiar. The last movement, very tonal and rhythmically propulsive, is close to minimalism. The accordion provides unmatched harmonic material for incorporation into " a fusion of the sound of acoustic instruments with the electronic layer to create a homogeneous sonic world – a kind of hyperinstrument" in Hidden World, and much of the time it is hard to determine where the instrument ends and the electronics begin. Again, the overall effect is of an euphonic wall of sound, the complex harmonies producing what sound like largely consonant chords. In all the pieces, but especially those with electronics, the composer's use of spatial projection of sound to enhance the immersive listening experience.