"This disc includes piano music by the famous Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik and his daughter Roxanna Panufnik. Along with works written for the piano there are other pieces arranged by Roxanna Panufnik. Andrzej Panufnik started writing a cycle of 12 pieces, "Circle of Fifths", in 1947 after a five-year period of creative stagnation during the war. (The composer spent this time in Warsaw). Miniature studies - each lasting just over a minute - arranged as a circle of fifths (hence the name): on the tonic of C sharp, F sharp and so on. The pieces are united by one theme, in stark contrast to each other in tempo and dynamic, and leave you with the sensation of patterns, suddenly appearing at the corners of a kaleidoscope. At the heart of a vocalise for soprano and piano, "Hommage à Chopin", lie folk melodies from Mazovia, where Chopin was born; this disc presents three of five vocalises. The "Pentasonata", in five sections, was written in the year of the composer's 70th birthday (1984), based on the pentatonic scale, framed in five sections (penta - pentatonic, five sections, five beats). In the book "Impulse and Design in my Music" Panufnik states that in this piece, as in his other compositions, he sought to achieve "a balance between mind and heart, intellect and emotion". "Modlitwa" (1991) is also based on a vocal piece: a work for voice and piano on verses by Jerzy Pietrkiewicz. Andrzej Panufnik set only one verse to music, then left another to be recited over a musical background as the second part. "Reflections" (1968) clearly demonstrates the composer's commitment to mirror forms and musico-geometric ornaments, which serve as a structural base for the majority of his works. Finally, Roxanna Panufnik's "Second Home" is presented on the disc, which takes the form of variations on a Polish folk theme. All of this music, in the skill, inspiration, clarity and altogether extraordinarily meticulous performance of the excellent pianist Clare Hammond, gives the impression of a pure, unsullied innocence and beauty, aided by the magnificent sounds of BIS' SACD edition. It seems that Andrzej Panufnik managed to reach the summit for art in general of a "balance between mind and heart, between intellect and emotion"."
Artem Avatinian