Piotr Tarcholik / Monika Wilińska-Tarcholik GEMS OF EASTERN EUROPE

The socio-political situation in Europe in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries facilitated the development of national identities and distinctiveness of individual nations. A significant role in this field fell to music. Historians of music differentiate between two distinct trends: the mainstream current and the peripheral trend (the latter being also labelled ‘national‘), in which the social role of music was fundamental. References to a nation’s past, its heroes, literature, customs, language and folklore resulted in development of national schools (styles) of composition such as: Spanish (Sarasate, Albéniz), Scandinavian (Gade, Grieg), English (Parry, Stanford), Czech (Smetana, Dvorák), Hungarian (Erkel, Mosonyi), Russian (‘The Mighty Handful’), and Polish (Chopin, Moniuszko). This new release from violinist Piotr Tarcholik and pianist Monika Wilińska-Tarcholik  explores the nationalistic music of Eastern Europe, including works form Prokofiev, Bartok, Szymanowski, and Lepianka. (Arkiv Music)