Barbara Drazkov - Psalmy (2021)

The album is a creative arrangement of fourteen biblical Psalms of David in a poetic translation by Jan Kochanowski with music by Mikołaj Gomółka (Melodie na Psałterz Polski) from 1580.

"We have recomposed the Renaissance four-voice a cappella songs from 440 years ago into a minimalist-avant-garde idiom for bass-baritone and prepared piano. The inspiration here was both the minimalist recomposition of Max Richter and Kwadrofonik's folk Requiem, as well as John Cage's avant-garde sounds. a combination of traditional, tonal melody with the unusual, often murky and atonal sound of a prepared piano. Reaching for the pearl of Polish Renaissance music, we wanted to expose a vocal expression far from the simplicity typical of 16th-century singing. , and incidentally also wind instruments (duduk, cornet), often of undefined tonality. Some studies were a consequence of meanings and symbols present in poetry, others play with sound "effects", and still others were born accidentally. They were moving, beautiful and interesting, because - as the father of recomposition, Igor Stravinsky noted - although each music is about different music, it is primarily an art of expression, and the emotions contained in the Psalms - fear, gratitude, anger and love - remain universal, without due to the musical aesthetics in which they are conveyed. " Barbara Drazkov, Maciej Straburzyński