Selected Review Excerpts

Selected Review Excerpts

2001

“Współczesność i tradycja”, Katowice

Context: Aleksander Gabryś’s 21 December appearance before a Katowice audience in the “Współczesność i tradycja” cycle; the program included works by Sperger, Bottesini, Giacinto Scelsi and Ronald Ford.

Source: Teresa Michalik, Ruch Muzyczny No. 3, Warsaw 2001.

A brief arrival from Basel, where Aleksander Gabryś was in his second year of further study at the Musik-Akademie, the talented double bassist linked with an appearance before the Katowice audience (21 December) in the “Współczesność i tradycja” cycle /…/. The soloist presented older works from the double-bass canon, which allowed the artist not only to substantiate his technique but also to reveal a feeling for style, both in Sperger’s little-known Sonata in B minor and in Bottesini’s Capriccio di bravura, which brought the program to a brilliant close. It also included contemporary compositions awaited with particular interest: Giacinto Scelsi’s C’est bien la nuit and Ronald Ford’s High Rice. The artist’s virtuosity and energy, his sense of the stage, and his excellent feeling for agogic and rhythmic dramaturgy inspired admiration. The exceptional beauty of the sound and the play of colors gave delight, especially in the Scelsi. (…) The artist’s undoubted virtuosity is already governed by an individual style, one that nevertheless takes the composers’ intentions into account, free and alert at the same time.

Melos-Etos Festival, Bratislava

Context: Melos-Etos Festival, Bratislava 2001; 13 November concert in Studio 2 of Slovak Radio with works for solo double bass, including music by Luca Lombardi, Ronald Ford, Giacinto Scelsi, Ryszard Gabryś and Iannis Xenakis.

Source: Pavol Šuška, Hudobny vot No. 12, Bratislava 2001.

On 13 November in Studio 2 of Slovak Radio, the talented Polish double bassist Aleksander Gabryś and the excellent Slovak piano duo - Eleonora Škutová and Mikuláš Škuta - appeared in a joint concert. In the first part of the program we heard compositions by various authors for solo double bass, which, thanks to the soloist’s suggestive interpretation, sounded extraordinarily effective. Aleksander Gabryś (1974) is a laureate of a number of European competitions and concentrates on contemporary music. In the concert he performed works in which the characteristic signs of new music (new playing techniques, the search for the instrument’s coloristic possibilities) combine with elements of instrumental theatre. The first work, Luca Lombardi’s Essay, brought together fierce, dramatic music with the double bassist’s falsetto “sprechgesang”. Ronald Ford’s High Rice, in turn, showed the influence of jazz. Giacinto Scelsi’s C’est bien la nuit was directed especially toward the instrument’s sonic possibilities. The next piece, An die Freude by Ryszard Gabryś, Aleksander’s father, was marked by elements of instrumental theatre - here, too, the double bassist sang, and at certain moments the audience could not refrain from laughter, for the piece carries moods of humor and seriousness at once. At the finale of this successful appearance came the technically extremely difficult Theraps by Iannis Xenakis.

Melos-Etos, Bratislava

Context: 6th International Festival of Contemporary Music Melos-Etos in Bratislava.

Source: Domino-Forum, Bratislava 2001.

In Bratislava, from 7 to 16 November, the 6th International Festival of Contemporary Music Melos-Etos took place: the most representative forum of its kind in Slovakia and a member of the European Conference of Promoters of New Music (ECPNM).

/…/ Among the foreign soloists, some represented a very high level - such as the world-famous Dutch clarinettist Harry Sapanaay, the fantastic young double bassist from Poland Aleksander Gabryś, and the renowned Swiss mezzo-soprano Brigitte Balleys /…/

2002

Festival successes and the Tadeusz Baird Young Composers Competition

Context: Solo successes in Davos, Banská Bystrica and Bratislava, and a composition distinction at the 43rd Tadeusz Baird Young Composers Competition.

Source: Monthly Śląsk No. 1, Katowice 2002.

After prestigious successes as a solo double bassist in the autumn at international festivals in Davos (XVI Forum Das Theatralische In der Musik) and in Slovakia (III Hudobné Salóny in Banská Bystrica, VI Melos-Etos Festival in Bratislava), the Katowice musician, now in his third year in Basel on a scholarship from the Lyra Foundation in Zurich, reminded audiences of himself again as a composer, a laureate of the 43rd Tadeusz Baird Young Composers’ Competition, decided in November 2001 in Warsaw. /…/ It is worth emphasizing that Aleksander Gabryś the instrumentalist is already the dedicatee of several solo works inspired by his instrumental virtuosity and by the possibilities opened by the artist’s compositional imagination. /…/

16th Warsaw Music Encounters

Context: 16th Warsaw Music Encounters, May 2002; Krzysztof Knittel, Sonata da camera No. 11 for double bass and synthesizers, and Ryszard Gabryś, An die Freude.

Source: Beata Bolesławska, Ruch Muzyczny No. 13, Warsaw 2002.

The penultimate day of the festival was planned as a concert filled mainly with electronic music. In the hall of the Mazovian Centre of Culture and Art, Krzysztof Knittel presented his latest Sonata da camera No. 11 for double bass and synthesizers, this time finding an excellent partner in the young double bassist (and composer) Aleksander Gabryś. The latter also displayed vocal and acting abilities in his father Ryszard’s An die Freude, a grotesque reference to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the text of the Ode to Joy. In this work, sonoristic double-bass sounds are overlaid with fragments of text interpreted by the soloist in various, often almost demonic ways. /…/

Finale of the Silesian Philharmonic’s 57th season

Context: Announcement of the Silesian Philharmonic’s season-closing concert with Piotr Radko’s Double Bass Concerto.

Source: Dziennik Zachodni No. 141, Katowice 2002.

The Silesian Philharmonic musicians end their 57th season on Friday with Roman Lasocki and Aleksander Gabryś. /…/ Much can be expected from the final concert; Piotr Radko’s Double Bass Concerto will be performed. The solo part will be played by the most talented double bassist of the young generation, Aleksander Gabryś. /…/

Piotr Radko’s Double Bass Concerto

Context: 21 June concert closing the Silesian Philharmonic season; premiere of Piotr Radko’s Double Bass Concerto.

Source: Teresa Michalik, Ruch Muzyczny No. 16/17, Warsaw 2002.

During the concert on 21 June closing the Silesian Philharmonic season, the young double bassist Aleksander Gabryś, playing a historic nineteenth-century instrument, presented Piotr Radko’s Double Bass Concerto - the newest work (world premiere) by the forty-five-year-old Katowice Academy of Music alumnus active in Germany - with bravura, in a virtuoso, grand Romantic style.

/…/ The composer was prompted to write the Double Bass Concerto, dedicated to Aleksander Gabryś, a recent graduate of postgraduate studies in Basel, by earlier experiences with this instrumentalist, who had given the first performance of his Allegro Barbaro for double bass and piano. Completed in 2000, the Concerto was received by listeners with extraordinary warmth, which does not often happen to double-bass soloists, who are rather poorly endowed with concert and symphonic repertoire. All the greater is the joy with which a new work should be welcomed /…/. In the twenty-minute space of the Double Bass Concerto, a very serious, almost exalted work full of concentrated expression, kindred spirits met: an impetuous conductor endowed with great self-awareness, a composer writing with a “sharp” edge, and a spectacular soloist with a flexible, co-creative personality. The impression was imposing /…/.

Piotr Radko’s Double Bass Concerto

Context: Performance of Piotr Radko’s Double Bass Concerto, dedicated to Aleksander Gabryś, with the orchestra conducted by Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk.

Source: Marcin Mońka, Gazeta Wyborcza, Katowice, 24 June 2002.

The first soloist of the evening was Aleksander Gabryś - an excellent double bassist of the young generation, a graduate of the Katowice Academy of Music. He performed Piotr Radko’s Double Bass Concerto, dedicated to him by the composer. He played with naturalness and precision, working well with the orchestra conducted by Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk. /…/

10th Silesian Days of Contemporary Music

Context: 10th Silesian Days of Contemporary Music, Polish Composers’ Union Festival in Katowice; Aleksander Gabryś, Abraxas for string instruments and tape.

Source: Marek Skocza, Dziennik Zachodni No. 235, Katowice 2002.

/…/ There was plenty of well-deserved applause. Even greater applause went to Aleksander Gabryś’s new work Abraxas for string instruments and tape /…/, in which, onto the fixed element of the tape (noises, waves), the ensemble threads the sounds of successive strings, with extraordinarily interesting rhythms in the cellos and double bass. Music of the cosmos, a run toward fullness of happiness, fullness of knowledge, or whatever else one may wish... Bravo. /…/

Finale of the Silesian Philharmonic’s 57th season

Context: Performance of Piotr Radko’s Concerto for double bass and orchestra with Aleksander Gabryś as soloist.

Source: Marek Skocza, Dziennik Zachodni No. 146, Katowice 2002.

/…/ The Silesian Philharmonic musicians closed their 57th artistic season with a powerful accent /…/ through two stirring creations: the very young double bassist Aleksander Gabryś and the violinist Roman Lasocki, returning to the stage after a serious illness. /…/ Piotr Radko composed the Concerto for double bass and orchestra with Aleksander Gabryś in mind. /…/ An essential role in the very good reception of Radko’s new composition was played by the young instrumentalist, who showed unusual maturity and enormous musical culture. Through his music, Gabryś refutes the claim that the double bass is an ungrateful instrument. He can spin the tenderest confessions on it, only a moment later to become an equal partner of the orchestra, to which Radko assigned a role equal to that of the solo instrument. Aleksander Gabryś did not “race” with the very well-led orchestra and did not show off his virtuosity. Thanks to that, we could enjoy both the depth and the beauty of Piotr Radko’s work.

2004

Ars Cameralis Silesiae Superioris

Context: Krzysztof Knittel and Aleksander Gabryś, W stronę Buñuela; screening of the film Un Chien Andalou.

Source: Ruch Muzyczny No. 2, Warsaw 2004.

Within the strong current of multimedia exploration at Ars Cameralis Silesiae Superioris, Krzysztof Knittel and Aleksander Gabryś met; their program W stronę Buñuela sparkled, provoked, and drew one in with extraordinary dynamism, energy and compositional ingenuity. /…/ The dominant event of the evening was the screening of Un Chien Andalou; both musicians proved to be highly creative, witty accompanists fully suited to that image.

16th Days of Music by Kraków Composers

Context: 16th Days of Music by Kraków Composers, International Festival of Contemporary Music, May-June 2004; Aleksander Gabryś’s solo recital with works including music by Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar, Klaus Huber, Thomas Kessler and Gabryś’s own Nano.

Source: Adam Walaciński, Dziennik Polski, Kraków, 01.06.2004.

/…/ A strong accent was Aleksander Gabryś’s solo recital, the Basel-based double bassist presenting an interestingly assembled program. Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar’s 3 Moments musicaux, written as compulsory pieces for a performance competition in Paris, gave him an opportunity to show excellent command of traditional technique, while two stylistically varied works by Swiss composers testified to his considerable interpretive potential. Ein Hauch von Unzeit VII by the venerable Klaus Huber - fragile music, woven from short phrases and single sounds divided by pauses, kept in subdued dynamics - was played very subtly and delicately; in Thomas Kessler’s Kontrabass Kontrol for double bass and computer, meanwhile, Gabryś unleashed a veritable orgy of sounds, drawn from the instrument also by various unconventional modes of playing. /…/ In his own composition Nano, intended for a “creative double bassist”, Gabryś showed what he can do. It is a piece from the realm of so-called instrumental theatre, in its essence close to free performance: the performer not so much plays a work as “plays himself”, using the most varied means - gestures, speech, singing, screams, instrumental actions and so on - all of it heightened, denaturalized and delivered with great expression. /…/

Wenn der Kontrabass ertönt

Context: IGNM Basel Jour fixe at Gare du Nord; Aleksander Gabryś recital with works by Jevgenij Iršai, Witold Szalonek, Klaus Huber and Thomas Kessler.

Source: Nikolaus Cybinski, Basellandschaftliche Zeitung No. 234, 6 October 2004.

Der ersten Jour fixe der IGNM (Internationalen Gesellschaft für Neue Musik) Basel der neuen Saison in der Gare du Nord bestritt der seit fünf Jahren als freier Musiker in Basel lebende Kontrabassist Aleksander Gabrys. In seinem einstündigen Recital mit Werke von Jevgenij Irsai, Witold Szalonek, Klaus Huber und Thomas Kessler beeindruckte er als virtuos und engagiertspielender Musiker, dem technische Schwierigkeiten – und in allen vier Stücken gab es die zuhauf – keine Probleme bereiten, wenngleich ihm in Irsais Fremotonia (zu deutsch etwa: Gebrüll, Getöse, auch Geheul) der Schweiss in Strömen vom Gesicht floss./…/

11th Silesian Days of Contemporary Music

Context: 11th Silesian Days of Contemporary Music, Katowice 2004; performance of Witold Szalonek’s Musica concertante per violbasso e orchestra with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Source: Teresa Michalik, Ruch Muzyczny No. 24, Warsaw 2004.

/…/ An artistic event of extraordinary dimension was Witold Szalonek’s Musica concertante. Bertram Turetzky and Fernando Grillo had played this half-hour score, but only this performance seems to bring a version with the features of an urtext. Gabryś junior was able to draw on the composer’s personal interpretive remarks and “lessons”, having performed the Cadenza from Musica concertante more than once; and since he is at the same time a creative, restless composer, the artistic result struck with the depth of introspection /…/.

CD released by the Polish Composers’ Union at Polish Radio

Context: Recording of works by Edward Bogusławski; Aleksander Gabryś’s solo part in Concerto-fantasia.

Source: Magdalena Dziadek, Śląsk No. 12, Katowice 2004.

Works by Edward Bogusławski were recorded by excellent artists: the Camerata Impuls orchestra under the direction of Małgorzata Kaniowska. The solo part in Concerto-fantasia is played by Aleksander Gabryś, to whom the work is dedicated. The well-known virtuoso nerve of Gabryś junior, and his unerring feel for the atmosphere of the music, did not fail this time either. /…/

2005

Witold Szalonek’s Musica concertante

Context: Performance of Witold Szalonek’s Musica concertante with NOSPR, discussed after the 11th Silesian Days of Contemporary Music.

Source: Monthly Śląsk No. 6, Katowice 2005.

It is the noblest kind of sacred music, because without emblems or citational blackmail, cathartic, which the double bassist Aleksander Gabryś grasped with a certain boundary expression, but also with discretion. Being a composer himself, he was able, in a refined way and in accordance with Szalonek’s thinking, with whom he had consulted in advance, to shape all those aleatoric elements and improvisational opportunities provoked by the score’s graphic notation. We received, also thanks to the excellent NOSPR instrumentalists, a version fully in keeping with the notation and intentions of the Author who had died three years earlier: an “urtext” version, deeply moving. /…/

Ensemble MW2

Context: Comment by Adam Kaczyński, head of Ensemble MW2, about Aleksander Gabryś as the ensemble’s new performer.

Source: Adam Kaczyński, head of Ensemble MW2, Gazeta Wyborcza, 7 October 2005.

/…/ We currently have a new performer in the ensemble - Aleksander Gabryś from Basel. He is a wonderful double bassist, a performer. Excellent both instrumentally and theatrically. /…/

Malta International Theatre Festival

Context: “Malta” International Theatre Festival in Poznań, 2005; appearance in a work by Ryszard Gabryś and in Dinu Ghezzo’s Samson In Dresden.

Source: Tomasz Praszczałek, Ruch Muzyczny No. 17, Warsaw 2005.

/…/ The sensational double bassist Aleksander Gabryś, in a work by his father and also in Dinu Ghezzo’s Samson In Dresden, created a true artistic creation, both musically and theatrically. /…/

20th Organ Conversatorium in Legnica

Context: 20th Organ Conversatorium in Legnica, 2005; Ryszard Gabryś, Il cicerone per contrabbasso ed strumenti ad arco, Camerata Impuls conducted by Małgorzata Kaniowska.

Source: Marcin Tadeusz Łukaszewski, Opcje Cultural Quarterly No. 4, Katowice 2005.

/…/ The Chamber Orchestra Camerata Impuls under the direction of Małgorzata Kaniowska took part in the presentation of Il cicerone per contrabbasso ed strumenti ad arco. The double-bass part in Ryszard Gabryś’s work was performed by Aleksander Gabryś, the composer’s son, who is also the author of the cadenza for this piece. In this somewhat shocking, but also witty, work in terms of its sonic, formal and technological solutions, Aleksander Gabryś showed imagination, masterful playing and acting abilities. /…/

“Polska Muzyka Najnowsza” — NOSPR Festival of Premieres

Context: “Polska Muzyka Najnowsza” — NOSPR Festival of Premieres, Katowice 2005; premiere of Aleksander Gabryś’s If it’s Truth with the Silesian Quartet.

Source: Jarosław Lewicki, Gazeta Metropolitalna No. 7, Katowice 2005.

The Silesian Quartet inaugurated the festival premieres by partnering Aleksander Gabryś, invited to make music in a double role: as the author of If it’s Truth, a moving and warmly received work, and as leader in the world premiere of this eleven-minute composition inspired by E. E. Cummings’s poems, their poetics and syntax. /…/ It was undoubtedly the first, moving event and “flash” of the festival, immediately appreciated by the circle of participants /…/. The score, its existential truths and form fascinated listeners; already in the first backstage reviews, people emphasized the exceptional force of the message - sonic and “spiritual” - the original conception, expression and sonoristics, aspects brought out by the author’s participation in the premiere. /…/ Endowed with many talents - creative, instrumental and theatrical - Aleksander Gabryś is moving toward neosyncretic art; that is his element. Domestic artistic traditions bear fruit, but so does everything this thirty-year-old Katowice native learned and discovered in Basel, as a graduate of the local Musik-Akademie and a member of Ensemble Phoenix Basel, a group oriented toward avant-garde music and valued in Europe. We await the next scores and approaches to the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk.

2008

dissonanz #101

Context: Discussion of an Aleksander Gabryś composition referring to Quijote, the mirror and narrative improvisation.

Source: Andreas Fatton, dissonanz # 101, Basel 2008.

/…/<<Ich möchte>>, sagt Aleksander Gabrys zu seinem Stück, <<dass sich in dem Futurum-Spiegel das altrittertümliche Perfectum besieht.>> Aus Quijotes Ringen mit dem Spiegelritter wird so eine grossangelegte erzählende Improvisation, die Knt, Wittgenstein oder Calderon zitiert – und überhaupt von einem Tief-Sinn ist, wie ihn nur polnische Kontrabassisten haben können./…/

Gunten by Helmut Oehring, Ensemble Phoenix

Context: Helmut Oehring, Gunten, Ensemble Phoenix; the role of Kraus at the double bass.

Source: Sibille Ehrismann, Basellandschaftliche Zeitung No. 285, 18 October 2008.

/…/Wie immer bei Oehring sind auch hier die acht Musiker gleichzeitig Darsteller, vor allem Instituts-Kollegen von Jakob: etwa der prinzipientreue Kraus am Kontrabass, oder der dumme Peter an der Bass- und Kontrabassklarinette. Alle Musiker sind in kurze graue Schulhosen und Jackett gekleidet (Kostüme: Regina Lorenz), und sie spielen ihre Rollen gut. Vor allem den grossgewachsenen Kraus charakterisiert Aleksander Gabrys mit einer guten Mischung von körperlicher Überlegenheit und devoter Haltung. /…/

2009

13th Silesian Days of Contemporary Music

Context: 13th Silesian Days of Contemporary Music, Katowice, November 2008; works by Michel Roth, Alfred Knüsel, Franco Donatoni and Junghae Lee.

Source: Teresa Michalik, Ruch Muzyczny No. 1, Warsaw 2009.

/…/ Aleksander Gabryś gave unique interpretations of compositions by outstanding Swiss composers: Michel Roth’s Kavalkade for singing double bassist (world premiere) and Alfred Knüsel’s Kadenz I IV. Both works proved highly refined: Roth’s piece, inspired by a poem by Pessoa, swept one along with its energy and vitality; Knüsel’s delighted with poetry and subtle sonoristics. One admired the ease and naturalness with which Gabryś overcame the virtuoso traps of Donatoni’s multilayered composition LEM, and then calligraphed the “musical script” of the Korean composer Junghae Lee in Iyon (“crossing water”), a work unfolding as if in another time. /…/