Tomasz Konieczny; Lech Napierala - Schubert: Winterreise

An unusual combination of two recordings spread over two discs.

One music - Winterreise by F. Schubert and two completely different poetry cycles.

One original - the cycle of W. Muller and the other � Winter journey - a series of poetry by S. Baranczak.

This outstanding Polish translator and poet refelcts the twentieth-century world in his cycle. Baranczak's world is the world of late twentieth-century civilisation, seen from its centre, and not the periphery.

That world is defined by the following elements, features and concepts: rooftop aerials (II), global warming (VI), bank fraud, gangs preparing a 'heist', the idea of the welfare state (VII), awareness of Einstein's theory of relativity�'space reduced in time' (VIII), television, offering contact with the world (IX), a huge Dodge lorry, exhaust fumes (X), a 'sniper', the 'weather report' and 'sport'�all featuring on the daily news (XI), the electronic 'beep' of a quartz watch reminding someone to send a cheque or take a pill (XIII), a jet plane tracing a white line of exhaust fumes across the blue sky and the notion of 'rejection' in relation to faulty goods (XV), an aeroplane's flight over a gigantic agglomeration (XVII), a car dashboard and a disc jockey's voice over a transistor radio (XVIII), a red light at a junction of a four-lane highway, a Honda car, a 'give way' sign (XX), car graveyards, cinder bins, tangled cables (XXI), a neon light (XXIII), a Walkman with earphones, rap music, compact discs (XXIV).

The second disc features the more traditional Winterreise performed in its original version.

All this in a lovely performance by Tomasz Konieczny with the accompaniment of Lech Napierala.