NEW ALBUM: My Life Preisner's Music
On May 16th 2025, the album My Life Preisner’s Music will be released (on CD and vinyl as well as digitally).
It features 17 musical themes for 70th birthday of Zbigniew Preisner, brilliantly interpreted by the internationally acclaimed Dominik Wania.
Read what Annette Insdorf, Film Professor at Columbia University, wrote about this album.
“When I teach the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski at Columbia University, I always mention that Zbigniew Preisner is one of the world's greatest film composers. He has many fans among my students. And now there is a new album, a haunting distillation of his movie scores into solo piano performances. It demonstrates how he is the master composer of the tritone, trill and tremolo. Listening to his compositions in their own terms - separate from the cinema screen - foregrounds his distinctive and often plaintive melodies.
Because orchestration, lyrics and narrative function are absent, the listener can focus on the richness of the "standalone" music, beautifully performed by Dominik Wania. For example, the memorable score from Kieslowski's "Double Life of Veronique" now feels more ominous than lyrical. From "Mouvements du desir," the tinkling piano sounds grow into cascading notes that envelop the listener. Whether classical (as in "When a Man Loves a Woman" and "The Waltz from The Funeral") or jazz ("The Secret Garden"), the music reigns when there is no movie screen to distract us. This is equally true of the minor-key gems like "Dekalog" and the briskly upbeat "Transient from Twilight" (which invokes for me the joy of Jon Baptiste's compositions).
In addition to Preisner's scores, the mournful "Lacrimosa" is stripped down from a public performance - which included a choir - to a more personal evocation of grief via solo piano. Finally, listening to "Lost and Love" suggests that if Frederic Chopin and Keith Jarrett had an heir together, it would be Zbigniew Preisner”.
Also, listen to one of the pieces: „The Waltz” from the production at the Burgtheater in Vienna, „The Funeral”, directed by Thomas Vinterberg.
The Funeral - The Waltz
P.S. The album will be available worldwide. The media patron in Poland is Polish Radio Channel One https://jedynka.polskieradio.pl. Distribution in Poland is handled by Universal, and worldwide by Word and Sound.