557253 bk Penderecki US 4/02/2004 04:30pm Page 4

Nina Tichman DDD

The American musician Nina Tichman has been acclaimed in the international
press as one of the leading pianists of her generation. Winner of numerous
PENDERECKI 8.557253
international competitions, including the Busoni, Mendelssohn and
Casagrande, she has appeared as a soloist with orchestra and in recital in the
major musical centres of the world and has been the subject of numerous radio
and television portraits in Europe, Asia, the Near East and North America. Her
Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2
diverse activities as soloist, chamber musician and teacher have led to
invitations to perform and teach in festivals such as Marlboro, Tanglewood,
Music from Salem, the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Ida Bieler, Violin • Nina Tichman, Piano
Frankfurt Feste, Rheingau Musikfestival and many others, often featuring
premières of works dedicated to her. Her recordings of music by Mendelssohn,
Debussy and Chopin have been greeted by the press as a major revelation. Nina
Tichman is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she was awarded the
Eduard-Steuermann-Prize for outstanding musical achievement. Her artistic
development was fostered by her mentors Jane Carlson, Dorothy Taubman,
Alfons Kontarsky and Wilhelm Kempff. In 1993 she herself was appointed
Professor of Piano at the Cologne Musikhochschule and in 1999 she led master
classes at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Recitals have included performances of
the complete piano works of Debussy in three evenings in New York and in
Frankfurt and other venues to great popular and critical acclaim, followed by
numerous invitations for concerts and recordings, including her début in Ida Bieler
Carnegie Hall. Nina Tichman’s solo recordings include releases of the complete and Nina Tichman
piano works of Aaron Copland and the complete piano music of Claude
Debussy. Most recently she has recorded the complete works of Beethoven for
piano and cello with the cellist Maria Kliegel.

8.557253 4
557253 bk Penderecki US 4/02/2004
Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933)
Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2
Chamber music has featured only intermittently in the
output of Krzysztof Penderecki. An accomplished
violinist as a student, he wrote numerous works for
small ensembles up until the First String Quartet of
1960. Thereafter, with the exception of a Second String
Quartet from 1969, the emphasis was firmly on
operatic, choral and orchestral works. Chamber
composition was restricted to short ‘homages’ for
friends and musicians until, in the 1990s, Penderecki
returned to the medium in earnest. The present disc
features one of his most significant chamber works from
the end of that period, as well as several shorter pieces
from either end of the composer’s career which place
his approach to instrumental writing in context.
Composed in Krakow during 1953, before
Penderecki had begun his studies at the Academy of
Music, what is now known as the First Sonata for
Violin and Piano was not published until the early
1990s. After several ominous piano chords, the Allegro
bursts into life with a lively, Shostakovich-like idea,
contrasted with a more expressive theme. This
alternation is then elaborated and varied along the lines
of a truncated sonata-form movement. The first idea
breaks off to reveal, after a pause, the more inward
world of the Andante, a muted violin pursuing its
Bartókian soliloquy over pensive piano chords. A
sudden surge leads directly into the toccata-like Allegro
vivace, its brusque main theme alternating with a
gentler idea in a brief but energetic rondo which
concludes the work with a flourish.
Composed in 1959, immediately after Penderecki
had won all three prizes awarded that year by the Polish
Composers’ Association and just before the start of his
international career, the Three Miniatures for Violin and
Piano suggest the influence of Webern in their
concision, expressive intensity and dynamic subtlety.
No. 1 contrasts detached piano chords with extended
violin techniques, No. 2 is a fractured violin solo, and
No. 3 goes some way towards reconciling the
8.557253
04:30pm Page 2
instruments in a dialogue of unpredictable contrasts.
Wholly abstract in its musical import, each piece is
intriguingly prefaced in the score with a poem from
Jerzy Harasymowicz’s cycle Genealogy of the
Instruments. The composer, together with pianist
Henryk Jarznynki, gave the première in Krakow during
June 1960.
Composed in 1984, Cadenza is actually an
appendix to the Viola Concerto which Penderecki wrote
the previous year. Both works begin with an intervallic
figure underlying much of the music that follows.
Although written without bar lines, Cadenza falls into
three, clearly discernible sections. The first of these
elaborates on the opening figure with increasingly
expressive arches and intensifying dynamics. At its
apex, this gives way to a lively central section with
much virtuoso writing for the instrument. The music
reaches a peak of activity, then a rapid slowing down
marks a return to the opening music and, finally, the
initial gesture. Grigory Schislin gave the première at
Luslawice in September 1984.
The Second Violin Sonata, completed in 2000, is
among Penderecki’s most substantial instrumental
works to date. The arch-like trajectory of its five-
movement form recalls several late pieces by Schnittke
(especially his Eighth Symphony and Second Cello
Sonata) and also Shostakovich (notably his Eighth
String Quartet). Quiet, pizzicato violin chords begin the
opening Larghetto, interspersed with impassioned
bowed phrases. The piano now enters with an upward
rushing scale, then the two instruments pursue a bleakly
lyrical dialogue, in the process expounding upon their
initial material. A brief, double- stopped cadenza
passage leads directly into the Allegretto scherzando, its
strutting, parodistic theme a familiar element in the
composer’s musical idiom ever since the First Violin
Concerto [Naxos 8.555265]. The music quickly
becomes more aggressive, before a fugitive recall of the
main theme, the violin now muted, and a tersely
2 3
inscrutable closing gesture. Marked ‘Notturno’, the second theme is contrastingly serene and expressive,
Adagio is the keystone of the work, and its emotional setting up a sonata-form structure which incorporates a
centre of gravity. The main theme unwinds unhurriedly cadenza-like passage going into the reprise and further
yet with an agitation that sees several climaxes references to the second movement, culminating in a
punctuate the movement’s free-ranging discourse. downward plunging sequence for violin, whose
Midway a wistful passage finds both instruments prolonged trill ushers in the final Andante. Less an
musing on the work’s opening gesture in a telling point autonomous movement in itself than a coda to the work
of repose. The preceding scherzo is alluded to, as a whole, it draws together previous ideas in a flowing
presaging a brief eruption, before the movement moves fantasia, at length disappearing regretfully into silence.
back into the plaintive territory from which it emerged.
A brief pause, and the Allegro breaks in with a forceful
idea again derived from that opening gesture. The Richard Whitehouse
Ida Bieler
The American violinist Ida Bieler received international recognition as first prizewinner on three continents, the
New York Concert Artists Guild, the Florence Concours Vittorio Gui, the Chile International Concours de Violon,
Vina del Mar and in Rome the Concorso Valentino Bucchi. An honours graduate of the Juilliard School New York
and the Musikhochschule Cologne, her musical development was guided by four great instrumentalists: Ruggiero
Ricci and Oscar Shumsky in the United States and Max Rostal and Nathan Milstein in Europe. Ida Bieler has
appeared as soloist with orchestra and in recital in major music capitals throughout the world. She has been a
regular guest at major international festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, Casals Festival Puerto Rico,
Schubertiade, Paris Festival Châtelet, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Schwetzinger Festspiele, and the
Beethoven Fest Bonn, and has collaborated with artists such as Rudolf Serkin, Gerhard Oppitz, Mischa Maisky,
Boris Pergamenschikow, Paul Meyer, and Sharon Kam. Ida Bieler’s artistic interest has focussed on interpretations
of complete cycles including performances and recordings of the sonatas of Bartók and Hindemith, Schumann,
Grieg, Brahms and Beethoven. Her compact disc recordings have won the Echo Klassik Prize, and the Cannes
Classical Award. A special project since 2000 has been her performances of the complete Bach Sonatas and
Partitas for Solo Violin, as well as the Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, which received critical acclaim
throughout Europe. Her active commitment to contemporary music has led to performances and premières of
works by Krzysztof Penderecki, Volker David Kirchner, György Ligeti, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. In 1999 at the
invitation and under the direction of the composer, she performed Penderecki’s Metamorphosen – Concerto per
violino ed orchestra no. 2. In addition to her versatility as a performer, Ida Bieler is a passionate and committed
pedagogue. Her first full professorship was at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt. Currently she leads the violin
master-class at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf. She has led master-classes throughout the world
including the London Guildhall, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Tokyo, Toronto, New Zealand and Australia. She
is the initiator and artistic advisor of the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now in North Rhine-Westphalia, is a
member of the International Music Academy in Bonn and artistic director of the newly founded string festival
Rheinische Streicherakademie. Since 1993 Ida Bieler has been a member of Germany’s renowned Melos Quartet.
In 2001, she founded the Trio Tichman-Bieler-Kliegel with the pianist Nina Tichman and the cellist Maria Kliegel.
8.557253
557253 bk Penderecki US 4/02/2004
Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933)
Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2
Chamber music has featured only intermittently in the
output of Krzysztof Penderecki. An accomplished
violinist as a student, he wrote numerous works for
small ensembles up until the First String Quartet of
1960. Thereafter, with the exception of a Second String
Quartet from 1969, the emphasis was firmly on
operatic, choral and orchestral works. Chamber
composition was restricted to short ‘homages’ for
friends and musicians until, in the 1990s, Penderecki
returned to the medium in earnest. The present disc
features one of his most significant chamber works from
the end of that period, as well as several shorter pieces
from either end of the composer’s career which place
his approach to instrumental writing in context.
Composed in Krakow during 1953, before
Penderecki had begun his studies at the Academy of
Music, what is now known as the First Sonata for
Violin and Piano was not published until the early
1990s. After several ominous piano chords, the Allegro
bursts into life with a lively, Shostakovich-like idea,
contrasted with a more expressive theme. This
alternation is then elaborated and varied along the lines
of a truncated sonata-form movement. The first idea
breaks off to reveal, after a pause, the more inward
world of the Andante, a muted violin pursuing its
Bartókian soliloquy over pensive piano chords. A
sudden surge leads directly into the toccata-like Allegro
vivace, its brusque main theme alternating with a
gentler idea in a brief but energetic rondo which
concludes the work with a flourish.
Composed in 1959, immediately after Penderecki
had won all three prizes awarded that year by the Polish
Composers’ Association and just before the start of his
international career, the Three Miniatures for Violin and
Piano suggest the influence of Webern in their
concision, expressive intensity and dynamic subtlety.
No. 1 contrasts detached piano chords with extended
violin techniques, No. 2 is a fractured violin solo, and
No. 3 goes some way towards reconciling the
8.557253
04:30pm Page 2
instruments in a dialogue of unpredictable contrasts.
Wholly abstract in its musical import, each piece is
intriguingly prefaced in the score with a poem from
Jerzy Harasymowicz’s cycle Genealogy of the
Instruments. The composer, together with pianist
Henryk Jarznynki, gave the première in Krakow during
June 1960.
Composed in 1984, Cadenza is actually an
appendix to the Viola Concerto which Penderecki wrote
the previous year. Both works begin with an intervallic
figure underlying much of the music that follows.
Although written without bar lines, Cadenza falls into
three, clearly discernible sections. The first of these
elaborates on the opening figure with increasingly
expressive arches and intensifying dynamics. At its
apex, this gives way to a lively central section with
much virtuoso writing for the instrument. The music
reaches a peak of activity, then a rapid slowing down
marks a return to the opening music and, finally, the
initial gesture. Grigory Schislin gave the première at
Luslawice in September 1984.
The Second Violin Sonata, completed in 2000, is
among Penderecki’s most substantial instrumental
works to date. The arch-like trajectory of its five-
movement form recalls several late pieces by Schnittke
(especially his Eighth Symphony and Second Cello
Sonata) and also Shostakovich (notably his Eighth
String Quartet). Quiet, pizzicato violin chords begin the
opening Larghetto, interspersed with impassioned
bowed phrases. The piano now enters with an upward
rushing scale, then the two instruments pursue a bleakly
lyrical dialogue, in the process expounding upon their
initial material. A brief, double- stopped cadenza
passage leads directly into the Allegretto scherzando, its
strutting, parodistic theme a familiar element in the
composer’s musical idiom ever since the First Violin
Concerto [Naxos 8.555265]. The music quickly
becomes more aggressive, before a fugitive recall of the
main theme, the violin now muted, and a tersely
2 3
inscrutable closing gesture. Marked ‘Notturno’, the second theme is contrastingly serene and expressive,
Adagio is the keystone of the work, and its emotional setting up a sonata-form structure which incorporates a
centre of gravity. The main theme unwinds unhurriedly cadenza-like passage going into the reprise and further
yet with an agitation that sees several climaxes references to the second movement, culminating in a
punctuate the movement’s free-ranging discourse. downward plunging sequence for violin, whose
Midway a wistful passage finds both instruments prolonged trill ushers in the final Andante. Less an
musing on the work’s opening gesture in a telling point autonomous movement in itself than a coda to the work
of repose. The preceding scherzo is alluded to, as a whole, it draws together previous ideas in a flowing
presaging a brief eruption, before the movement moves fantasia, at length disappearing regretfully into silence.
back into the plaintive territory from which it emerged.
A brief pause, and the Allegro breaks in with a forceful
idea again derived from that opening gesture. The Richard Whitehouse
Ida Bieler
The American violinist Ida Bieler received international recognition as first prizewinner on three continents, the
New York Concert Artists Guild, the Florence Concours Vittorio Gui, the Chile International Concours de Violon,
Vina del Mar and in Rome the Concorso Valentino Bucchi. An honours graduate of the Juilliard School New York
and the Musikhochschule Cologne, her musical development was guided by four great instrumentalists: Ruggiero
Ricci and Oscar Shumsky in the United States and Max Rostal and Nathan Milstein in Europe. Ida Bieler has
appeared as soloist with orchestra and in recital in major music capitals throughout the world. She has been a
regular guest at major international festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, Casals Festival Puerto Rico,
Schubertiade, Paris Festival Châtelet, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Schwetzinger Festspiele, and the
Beethoven Fest Bonn, and has collaborated with artists such as Rudolf Serkin, Gerhard Oppitz, Mischa Maisky,
Boris Pergamenschikow, Paul Meyer, and Sharon Kam. Ida Bieler’s artistic interest has focussed on interpretations
of complete cycles including performances and recordings of the sonatas of Bartók and Hindemith, Schumann,
Grieg, Brahms and Beethoven. Her compact disc recordings have won the Echo Klassik Prize, and the Cannes
Classical Award. A special project since 2000 has been her performances of the complete Bach Sonatas and
Partitas for Solo Violin, as well as the Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, which received critical acclaim
throughout Europe. Her active commitment to contemporary music has led to performances and premières of
works by Krzysztof Penderecki, Volker David Kirchner, György Ligeti, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. In 1999 at the
invitation and under the direction of the composer, she performed Penderecki’s Metamorphosen – Concerto per
violino ed orchestra no. 2. In addition to her versatility as a performer, Ida Bieler is a passionate and committed
pedagogue. Her first full professorship was at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt. Currently she leads the violin
master-class at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf. She has led master-classes throughout the world
including the London Guildhall, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Tokyo, Toronto, New Zealand and Australia. She
is the initiator and artistic advisor of the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now in North Rhine-Westphalia, is a
member of the International Music Academy in Bonn and artistic director of the newly founded string festival
Rheinische Streicherakademie. Since 1993 Ida Bieler has been a member of Germany’s renowned Melos Quartet.
In 2001, she founded the Trio Tichman-Bieler-Kliegel with the pianist Nina Tichman and the cellist Maria Kliegel.
8.557253
557253 bk Penderecki US 4/02/2004 04:30pm Page 4

Nina Tichman DDD

The American musician Nina Tichman has been acclaimed in the international
press as one of the leading pianists of her generation. Winner of numerous
PENDERECKI 8.557253
international competitions, including the Busoni, Mendelssohn and
Casagrande, she has appeared as a soloist with orchestra and in recital in the
major musical centres of the world and has been the subject of numerous radio
and television portraits in Europe, Asia, the Near East and North America. Her
Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2
diverse activities as soloist, chamber musician and teacher have led to
invitations to perform and teach in festivals such as Marlboro, Tanglewood,
Music from Salem, the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Ida Bieler, Violin • Nina Tichman, Piano
Frankfurt Feste, Rheingau Musikfestival and many others, often featuring
premières of works dedicated to her. Her recordings of music by Mendelssohn,
Debussy and Chopin have been greeted by the press as a major revelation. Nina
Tichman is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she was awarded the
Eduard-Steuermann-Prize for outstanding musical achievement. Her artistic
development was fostered by her mentors Jane Carlson, Dorothy Taubman,
Alfons Kontarsky and Wilhelm Kempff. In 1993 she herself was appointed
Professor of Piano at the Cologne Musikhochschule and in 1999 she led master
classes at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Recitals have included performances of
the complete piano works of Debussy in three evenings in New York and in
Frankfurt and other venues to great popular and critical acclaim, followed by
numerous invitations for concerts and recordings, including her début in Ida Bieler
Carnegie Hall. Nina Tichman’s solo recordings include releases of the complete and Nina Tichman
piano works of Aaron Copland and the complete piano music of Claude
Debussy. Most recently she has recorded the complete works of Beethoven for
piano and cello with the cellist Maria Kliegel.

8.557253 4
557253 rr Penderecki US 19/02/2004 10:19am Page 1

NAXOS
8.557253
Chamber music has featured only intermittently in the output of Krzysztof Penderecki who,
during the last forty years of the 20th century, focussed mainly on operatic, choral and orchestral
works. The present disc includes several shorter pieces from either end of the composer’s career,
as well as one of his most substantial instrumental works to date, the Second Violin Sonata, which
recalls not only the composer’s own First Violin Concerto (Naxos 8.555265) but several late pieces DDD
by Schnittke and the Eighth Quartet of Shostakovich. This is its world première recording.

PENDERECKI: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2

8.557253
Krzysztof

PENDERECKI: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2

WORLD PREMIERE Playing Time
PENDERECKI RECORDING 55:59
(b. 1933)
Violin Sonata No. 1 (1953) 7:46
1 Allegro 3:10
2 Andante 2:12
3 Allegro vivace 2:23
Miniatures (1959) 3:56
4 Movement 1 1:19
5 Movement 2 0:49
6 Movement 3 1:48

www.naxos.com

Made in Canada

Booklet notes in English

h & g 2004 Naxos Rights International Ltd.
7 Cadenza for solo viola (1984) 7:19
(transcribed for violin by Christiane Edinger, 1987)
Violin Sonata No. 2 (2000) 36:57
8 Larghetto 5:35
9 Allegretto scherzando 4:25
0 Adagio 12:42
! Allegro 9:46
@ Andante 4:29
Ida Bieler, Violin • Nina Tichman, Piano
Recorded at Konzertgalerie Il Bagno, Burgsteinfurt, on 2nd, 11th and 12th June, 2003

8.557253
Executive Producer: Bernhard Wallerius • Producer: Martin Frobeen
NAXOS

Sound Engineer: Arnd Koppers • Editors: Karin von Groß and Karin Karbach
Booklet Note: Richard Whitehouse
Cover image: Gentleness (1997) by Stasys EidrigeviÇius (b. 1949) (by kind permission)