It is clear where Krzysztof Meyer’s interest in the piano began: he has played this instrument since childhood, on occasions well enough to perform in public. For many years, up to and including Sonata No. 4, he wrote piano pieces for himself. However, since then other pianists have included his works in their repertoires. For this reason, the majority of works on this recording can be said to be juvenile works, while in his later output the piano appears mainly in chamber music (in trios, quartets, quintets and duets with violin, cello, saxophone and bassoon). His output is completed with the following pieces: 24 Preludes for the piano (1977-78), Impromptu multicolore for 2 pianos (2000) and Piano Concerto (1989).

His early works reflect the times in which they were composed. Therefore, initially, Meyer's compositions reveal the influence of Bartók who, in the Poland of the early 1950s, was considered synonymous with modernity (the parallel triads at the end of Sonata No. 1 are reminiscent of the ending of Bartók’s String Quartet No. 6 and sound like a homage to the earlier composer). The later three sonatas illustrate the new trend towards sonorism which grew and matured in the 1960s. This was the signature tune of the so-called “Polish Composers’ School” which responded to serialism with the exploration of new sounds instead of systems and rules.  Sonata No. 5, composed after a long break, marks the beginning of Meyer’s own style which has since then been evolving naturally with the passing of time.

The recording opens with 9 miniatures written when he was an 18-year-old music student in Krakow. The title Aphorisms may have the connotation of concise and terse formulations of truth yet equally this cycle can be treated as a parade of different characters, as this word seems to fit the music best. These miniatures are atonal but this does not mean they are completely free, or a result of random choice in their construction. Alongside the elements of serial technique, the contour and the interplay of voices, the work is determined by two solutions which, over time, became Meyer’s signature sound.  One of these solutions is chords built of the intervals symmetrical in relation to hypothetical axes; the second solution is sophisticated counterpoint.

Sonata No. 1 continues the style of Aphorisms, except that this time a strict twelve-tone technique is used. Among Polish composers the twelve-tone technique (also known as dodecaphony) was not much used in the 1930s; however in the mid-late 1950s it exerted a certain fascination for a while. But, once composers had tasted this ‘forbidden fruit’ (from the point of view of the aesthetics of socialist realism), their enthusiasm quickly waned. This sonata turned out to be Meyer’s only fully dodecaphonic work.

Once you understand that, for Krzysztof Meyer, a musical composition means a meticulously constructed sound narration in which the aim is not presenting the listener with the fireworks of new musical ideas but with maximum economy in the use of musical material, you can see why he is  attracted to the tightness demanded by dodecaphony.  Introduction and Theme with variations are based on the row as a unifying basis. The general form is inherited from Bartók which is characterised by the similarities of successive movements; we can find this principle of building forms in many of Meyer’s later works. Therefore, within Sonata No.4 the Introduction is one of the variations, and the last variation returns to the opening theme of the work.

The fact that the next sonata written just a year later sounds totally different is a testimony to the spirit of exploration which marked the atmosphere of the 1960s. It creates the impression that the composer cut himself off from everything he had learnt earlier and set out on the journey of building his own individual style from scratch.

The first movement is dominated by long sound sequences achieved by different kind of trills; the piano sounds like a percussion instrument painting a mosaic of colourful figures. In the delicate and quiet second movement the contrast is achieved by “atomised” figures moving through all the registers. The third movement is the most dynamic and uses material from the previous two. The structure of Sonata No. 2 follows the pattern: thesis - antithesis - synthesis (this idea was later developed by the composer in String Quartet No. 1).  And what impression do we get from it? If we accept a comparison of a certain type of music with Impressionist painting, then Sonata No. 2 can be compared to abstract expressionism known from the paintings of Jackson Pollock.

In this exploration of the possibilities of colour in piano music, Meyer stood alone, as composers looking as he was for new sound effects were much more interested in other instruments. If they used the piano at all, it was the prepared piano. In the complete piano output of Meyer we never encounter piano preparation or the playing of strings inside the instrument, and even less the technique of 'tapping' the instrument. He is able to achieve new effects with the help of traditional techniques that have been slightly modified.

Among these innovations there is the silent pressing of the pedal and glissandi performed on black and not white keys. They were employed in the next Sonata created for the Bulgarian pianist Anton Dikov, with whom Meyer was associated during his studies under Nadia Boulanger in France. This has, however, nothing in common with what is frequently thought a typical style of the “school” (incorrectly, since people like Elliott Carter and Philip Glass were also students of Boulanger).

In Sonata No.3 sonoric effects serve a form which clearly diverges from the opposition and synthesis of contrasts typical for the “Polish Composers’ School”. Throughout six clearly diverse movements a long tension is built up. With the passage composed according to the rules of dodecaphony (used here by Meyer for the last time), there is a contrasting episode which is a negation of the leading idea of the twelve-tone technique, with the sounds fulfilling the role of the tonal centres. A fast dynamic passage is followed by a static episode in which development stops altogether. All the time the form of texture changes continuously: from the most simple - where there are just single sounds over a longish time, to very complex - which demands great technical skill from the pianist. The function, which is traditionally performed by musical themes, is taken over in this work by colour and dynamics.

Sonata No. 4 was composed during a visit Meyer made to Paris which happened to coincide with the period of the student’s revolution in May 1968. It is not however a musical revolt – this is something that Meyer had left behind him, but rather a  result of a new approach of employing sonoric means in the service of more traditional music. There is in it a clearly delineated form of six contrasted movements culminating with the epilogue which is a variation of the first. The source of pianistic virtuosity are fast scales, tremolo, and also clusters of sounds. In the unison, drawn as if with a thick line (Interludio II), the pianist is faced with a challenge (which a listener who doesn’t have the score before his eyes doesn’t even suspect) – this  music has to be played with the right hand legatissimo and diminuendo from fff, while the left the opposite: staccatissimo and crescendo from ppp.

The low opus number of Sonata No. 5 derives from the fact that it bears the title of work destroyed in 1975, of which only certain passages are utilised here. It is dominated by a slow and moderate tempo with the exception of a short Furioso in the second movement. The composer explains its name in this way: ‘The effect which could be visually represented as an explosion of a stream of sound rays is repeated many times and hence the title of the work Sonata de sons rayonnansts’.

The character and expression of Sonata No. 5 as well as the later works recorded on this CD are determined by a harmony based on the strict order of intervals and particularly the symmetrical chords mentioned earlier. Meyer – a supporter of the thesis that music should play on the emotions of the listeners (the most commonly used notes for the player is the word “espressivo” and even “molto espressivo”). He considers harmony the most important thing in music. However he doesn’t see the point of returning to Romantic harmony although the way in which he builds up his music narrative could be associated with Romantic aesthetics. The long-term building of tension often proceeds in a quasi-rhapsodic manner as if in continuous tempo rubato. There are many figures deriving from the extended trill. Many harmonies are borne out of arpeggios and the structure sometimes gives the impression of “falling to pieces”. To use these somewhat old-fashioned metaphors, this music seems to “strive” towards something; in other words, it creates an expectation; while categoric “statements” are expressed through cadence and chord progression.

This could be the description of a work entitled Quasi una Fantasia composed for the participants of the first Beethoven piano competition organised in 2006 in Bonn on the initiative of Paweł Giliłow. The wish of the organisers was to refer in someway in this work to the music of the patron of this competition, so the title has an association with the Moonlight Sonata, the initial motif reminds one of the beginning of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, later on one can hear an echo of the beginning of the theme of variation from Piano Sonata op. 109. The competition required the composer to give the players a chance to display their technical virtuosity as well as their beautiful sound in the traditional meaning of the word.

Indeed this “beautiful sound” is indispensable in all of Meyer’s works and it is difficult to imagine Sonata breve, a very intimate music, without it. Composed in the form ABA’CA”,  Sonata breve develops in such a way that successive returns of the first themes sound more and more “leggiero”, and in the last passage, the music gradually dies down and dissolves.

The last sonata is dedicated to the musicologist, Zofia Helman.  This work gives us huge scope for analysis. The contrasts present here are a result of the continuous juxtaposition of the traditionally conceived “melody with accompaniments” with canons in their various forms. Meyer’s fondness for counterpoint makes a lot of his scores brim with “Franco-Flemish artifices”. The complicated time relationships between successive passages are a puzzle for musicologists. And even if such things need not be of interest to the listeners of his music, it is difficult to imagine that the meticulously thought-out construction of these sound structures and narratives could not have influenced the way in which they are perceived and experienced.

Thomas Weselmann