Women of music. Songs
Vocals: Urszula Kryger, piano: Agata Górska-Kołodziejska
The workmanship is really excellent.
Dorota Szwarcman, Politics
Album Women of Music. The song is the result of work on the vocal work of women composers, on which, together with a mezzo-soprano, Prof.Ursula Kryger has included selected songs by Cecile Chaminade (France), Clary Schumann (Germany), Agata Backer-Grøndahl (Norway), Irene Wieniawski pseudonym Poldowski (Belgium/Uk/USA) representative of different parts of Europe. The album touches on the delicate area of women's presence in music during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and defends the thesis about the existence of artistically interesting compositions by them. The songs put together here are intended to show the workshop and composer's dexterity of women in creating songs for voice and piano. They prove that they remained at a high artistic level and followed the current musical trends of romantic Europe. This can be seen both in the musical language and in its symbiosis with poetic text taken from the best poets of that period. The material collected on the album to some extent refuts the thesis about the non-existence during this period of professional female composers, who from the creation of music lived and whose legacy was met with recognition of criticism.
Forgotten Polish piano music for four hands
Maria Szymanowska Piano Duo (piano: Agata Górska-Kołodziejska, Anna Liszewska)
[…] very worthwhile listening to.
Maximilian Burgdörfer
In 2017, the DUX record company released the album Zapomniana muzyka polska for piano for four hands performed by the Szymanowska Piano Duo (Agata Górska-Kołodziejska/Anna Liszewska). The album includes rarely played or previously performed songs of the romantic and early romantic period, in which the national element was highlighted. The work on the album challenged us with an interpretive challenge consisting in an individual and creative approach to the compositions of authors whose musical language is virtually unknown, not widely solved. It is an attempt to highlight in the interpretation of the main characteristics of the style of composers, often based on the first, sometimes unedited, editions. On the album we put together songs in a cross-cutting way – from early to late romantic. An additional advantage of this album is the fact that it presents works of artists associated with operatic (Kurpiński), piano (Szymanowska, Chopin, Paderewski) and chamber (Zarębski) forms, and sometimes only with didactics (Mikuli). Here we discover new areas of their composer's activity, additionally oscillating around national themes, sometimes colored with folk themes
In Chopin's circle – songs
Vocals: Beata Zawadzka-Kłos, piano: Agata Górska-Kołodziejska,
With Prof. Beata Zawadka-Kłos we built a repertoire based on dozens of songs by Polish composers including: Fryderyk Chopin, Oscar Kolberg, Michał Ogiński, Maria Agata Szymanowska, Wanda Landowska, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Stanisław Moniuszka, Włodzimierz Malawski, Grażyna Bacewicz, Jerzy Bauer, Andrzej Hundzik (first-time), Olga Hans and Dorota Brolik-Bekrycht (first exercise). In 2018, to celebrate the jubilee year of the 100th anniversary of Regaining Independence, we released the album In Chopin's Circle – Songs (AM Publishing House in Łódź, produced by Ars Sonora). Recorded compositions are works of artists who are ambassadors of Polish culture and piano in the world. Vocal work has never been the backbone of their legacy, which can be found in piano works. All the more important was the presentation of vocal lyric, which in a double way – through music and poetic text – emphasizes its native character.