Following the appearance of the complete set of fantasias for solo viola da gamba, arranged and performed by violist Mikał Bryła, it was clear that this was a memorable project, one that ranged from performance to production. To understand it in its entirety and to get a better understanding of the brilliant mind behind the project, a number of questions were posed to him about himself, his background, and the project, including previous discs involving this family of musicians.
I’ve noticed from your bio that you are a member of a very musical family; I was able to play the Mozart and Bach violin sonatas disc, which is excellent, and I wonder if you would give me an overview of how this all has been created as a family affair.
I come from a family with musical traditions. My grandparents were musicians, my parents are university professors and—it seems by force of momentum—my sister and I also took a path related to the performance arts. My wife and I met at a violin competition, the consequence of which is our marital relationship, which has lasted more than 15 years now. In this context, I share my passions with the person closest to me. One of the hobbies that I have begun to pursue more professionally is recording, beginning when we decided to record Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas together. Bach wrote the cycle for harpsichord, and it just so happens that my mother is a harpsichordist, so the project could be retained within the framework of family activities. Besides numerous coincidences, using this group guaranteed me the appropriate artistic level for my own planned publications of music.
What made you decide to form the Meccore quartet?
In fact, the Meccore string quartet was also founded by my wife. It was she who came up with the idea of playing in such a group. We were initially successful in this kind of joint music-making “for pleasure”, but over time all of us in the Meccore Quartet decided that we wanted to fulfill ourselves in a professional career. In Poland, the music education system is geared towards the training of future soloists from an early age. This gave us in the ensemble a great deal of peace of mind in terms of individual technical abilities, creativity, and imagination, which we were able to form based upon the stage performances in our youth. When we founded the quartet, we were already mature musicians with the ambition to succeed. After winning prizes at the International Quartet Competitions in London's Wigmore Hall and Borciani in Reggio Emilia, we began to present our interpretations to a wider audience around the world. In addition to the most important halls of Europe, we have toured the US a few times.
What sort of repertory do you perform and where? Do you or will you record with all of you playing?
As for my professional plans, they are always primarily related to the quartet. We want to be the first Polish quartet to record the complete string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven. We have already recorded a part of the early works, and the premiere with Opus 18 is planned for late 2024 for my label Prelude Classics. After years spent practicing, at first alone and over time together with my colleagues in the Meccore quartet, I'm certain that the most joy and sense of participati0n in something special, something that has a deeper meaning, comes from music that carries some content. I try especially on my own and with the quartet not to waste time on music that, in my opinion, has no depth or sense of specific feelings. It must exhibit qualities of sincerity, and usually such music is associated with the quality achieved by masters such as Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. In the greatest composers, the content is so multi-layered that the interpretation is not limited to the template of moving according to the rules of a particular style, but rather it is something beyond, something that can be experienced and lived in an almost tangible way. For me, transcendence in music is its essence, and it is something that escapes the rules and is directly related to spirituality. Spirituality is also present in music for me. That's what I'm looking for there.
Turning to your father, what influence did he have on you becoming a violist?
I obtained a master's degree in violin. The viola was an add-on at the time, and I initially played the viola only for the quartet. At some point, I decided to compete at the Henri Wieniawski International Violin Competition held in my hometown, after which I decided to become professionally involved with the quartet. My dad instilled in me the love of group musicianship, having himself been part of the Chopin Trio for more than 20 years, with whom he toured all over the world. On many occasions I witnessed hour-long sessions of practicing together in our home, and I certainly took from my childhood a love of familial music making. My dad also taught me to play an instrument, and by this I mean an instrument held with the da braccio technique. In this perspective, it doesn't matter if it's a violin or a viola. Sometimes I feel sorry for the violin, but going back to the Wieniawski Competition, years later (2022) I had the opportunity to perform with the semi-finalist candidates, who were obliged to perform the Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In a way, history had come full circle, and I experienced the violin solo part by standing as a soloist next to the contestants.
You mention his edition of the Telemann violin fantasias. How did these affect you as you were growing up?
Probably this is about my grandfather Florian, who was also a viola player. I recently learned about his development of violin fantasias. In fact, it was by chance that I came across a handwritten copy of his study of the fantasias in my own library, which coincided with my desire to record the cycle dedicated to the viola da gamba. I decided to include a violin theme and record Dolce from the Seventh Violin Fantasy by Telemann. I played some of the fantasias as a child because they provided a polyphonic alternative to Bach's more demanding sonatas and partitas. It was on them that I learned to think in a more dance-like way about some of the passages, and I certainly learned to embrace the para-movement form as a single cycle. At a young age, it was especially difficult to maintain concentration within an entire piece.
Were there any other influences on your education and career?
I think especially important here is my love of listening to music and collecting phonograph recordings. It was out of this infatuation with numerous publications and artists' interpretations that I began to indulge in the temptation to record what I myself had to say. At first this was done at home, but over time technical facilities ceased to be a problem. In addition to recordings for CDs, I repeatedly recorded for various radio and television broadcasts. I always tried to peep at how the professionals do it, and in this way I gathered experience that allows me now to supervise the recording session myself. I know how to operate the complex software and interface related to running the recording, which allows me to manage my time as I see fit. The result of such management of the recording space is the album with 12 Fantasias by Telemann. It turned out to be possible to be made entirely by myself, and that was good to know.
Turning to Telemann, who I agree is one of the most significant composers in music history, your notes are rather nicely comprehensive. But what intrigued you about these fantasias?
Above all, I was aware that Telemann spent part of his life in the territories of Poland. He stayed in Zary and in Silesia. The influence of Slavic music and Hanakian borrowings can be felt in this cycle. I tried to highlight such phenomena by exaggerating the virtuosic disposition of some pieces. Due to the different possibilities of the instrument as opposed to the viola da gamba, I was able to choose a tempo that was appropriate in my sense, so that the overall character of the selected movement was presented more in a context that interested me. I found the whole series extremely interesting. It is free from repetition of a single thread and each of the Fantasias is in a different key. Often, the constituent movements are distinguished by a different marking than the composer's suggestion of the choice of tempo, or by specifically defining the movements suggests a particular performance detail. This involves the alternating use of dance names, character names, and the occurrence of names from the Sonata Allegro structure. Such an essence deprives the cycle of monotony and makes the set of Fantasias diverse without a sense of weariness.
What were some of the issues involved in doing an adaptation or transcription?
First of all, I had a hard time developing the cycle in terms of choosing the right style, and it mainly depends on my sense of aesthetics. I have always tried to be guided by the purpose of the works as meant for concert performance, but also with a compositional purpose. My intention was to interfere as little as possible with the source and to transcribe the whole so as to maintain consistency. Unfortunately, the reality of the instrumentation and gamba tuning could not be avoided or bypassed, which necessitated a somewhat staggered treatment of chordal arpeggios. Phrases conducted originally in a lower register, sometimes below that of a modern viola, also proved to be an obstacle. Sometimes whole areas of the music, in my opinion, had been moved by an octave to preserve the logical musical sense of the passages in question. I tried to maintain Telemann's assumption of preserving the direction of the runs, but transposition was necessary. These and many more treatments depended mainly on my experience in Baroque music and my imagination for moving through the transcription with good taste.
What struck me is that these works are really multivoiced, though of course they are for a single instrument. Can you comment on this?
In my opinion, this is due to the technical details of the instrumentation. The gamba has six strings, four of which are tuned similarly to a modern viola. This situation determines a certain difficulty in moving freely in the text and phrasing, because one is (on the viola) limited in a certain way due to only four strings. By having a smaller range and registers, the possibilities tighten, as it were, which in a way forces a new environment for the instrumentalist. I consider myself an instrumentalist with a good technical background, for I have often played works by Wieniawski, Paganini, Lipinski and many other virtuoso showpieces, but Telemann's Fantasias in transcription proved to be very demanding. I have the impression that the viola, through its size, hinders freedom of context when performing the entire cycle under concert conditions. As you mentioned, the general polyphonic nature, the multiple voices, fugue or canonic passages, etc., often require barré playing technique: that is, holding more notes simultaneously. This perspective, the sometimes-quick paragraphs of multi-threaded writing, and the frequent flipping of the music into different registers builds up an overall picture of very challenging works. The original purpose of the cycle for amateurs may thus seem laughable. This is what Telemann wrote about concerning the cyclical publication of individual movements in the source materials. Of course, we are talking here about dedicating the cycle to a different instrument in principle, sometimes changing the text to make it viable on the viola, and this already places the material in a different light.
How would you place them in terms of style, given that the 1730s were a decade of change?
I tried to keep all the material as clear as possible and not deviate too much from the source. By this I mean respecting all ligatures and articulatory suggestions of the composer. It was a model for me, so I think there is room to perform the whole thing in the Baroque style with the preservation of the period instrument and bow. This is how I worked out the notes, but I play on a contemporary instrument and with a bow of a different construction than in the Baroque. It feels more of a natural environment, and I felt that the whole project was important to me. Too many things were new and required responsibility, from the performance itself to the recording, to experiment, moreover. I wouldn't call it a compromise, just a conscious decision where I could present myself in my debut album, as it were, from a viewpoint that satisfied me. Answering more succinctly: I think the cycle is possible to perform in a variety of styles even in the restrictive world of period interpretation, but I hope that a balanced, more Romantic performance will also appeal to some. In essence, my final point was that those interested in my recording should enjoy listening to it at the artistic level of the entire release.
You have done special work that most performers don’t do, and that is doing the recording and mastering yourself of the SACD. Can you describe this process for us?
The whole process has proven to be extremely challenging, as the single-person involvement generates a certain burden of responsibility in a large number of ways. I'm very pleased with the final result, but I can also give a little insight into the behind-the-scenes issues for our readership.
First and foremost, I target an informed audience that sourced from my publishing firm, as I aim to provide recording services of the highest possible quality. This applies to the artistic qualities and the emotionality found on the recording, but also in terms of the technical aspects. This is the direction of the creation I defined for myself at the very beginning, and at the moment I only want to release Hybrid SACD discs. This is the case with the Telemann, but I also decided to have a disc covered with a layer of 24-carat gold made on special order for me, which is available in a limited edition in the publisher’s website. I've called this series Luxury Audiophile Selection, and if anyone feels like listening to the difference between the two mediums or is a fan of queuing audiophile releases, that is the purpose of my business. In terms of the printed portion, I try to make sure that the edition is hand-folded in a print shop, and the booklet contains a technical description of the recording and how it was produced. I am always interested myself in such a description, so I decided to include and allocate adequate space for it. Financially, the sale of my products makes it possible to carry out more projects, so I am very pleased if there is interest and this draws me to carry out more projects. Fortunately, I have many ideas.
Any technical issues that arose during this rather impressive process?
The most challenging part was keeping an eye on the appropriate level of the performance itself, which involved repeatedly listening to the recorded material and creating a list of moments on the fly where opportunities for even better performance could occur. It's not even about pure instrumental accuracy, but rather about the emotional message and hours of commitment. With this awareness came a cool treatment of mundane matters regarding recording technology, turning on all components and recording in complete silence. This was not obvious, as acoustically I was most comfortable with the space of the church, in which various elements moved with a specific frequency (hz), i.e. specific sounds stimulated additional effects inside the church space. After completing the recording, there remained editing, mastering, and SACD authoring, where some issues arose that were also new to me, but I handled everything in a productive fashion. In the end, I am very satisfied with the product I produced for music lovers to enjoy. I also gathered valuable experience, which I will certainly bring to my next productions.
I noticed that the sound was particularly resonant and powerful. What can you say about the recording venue?
From the beginning I saw for Fantasias a space that was sacred. I decided on the main aisle, though a place on the side of the church. I found a space that satisfied me in terms of reverberation. I also wanted some dampening of the walls around me, so St. Casimir's Church turned out to be perfect. Besides, the parish priest was wonderful and gave me a lot of freedom to work. I think the acoustical qualities and the right balance between the space from the microphones and the distant reverberation/delay are appropriate. This is exactly how I envisioned it from the beginning,
What is next for you in terms of performance and Prelude Classics recordings?
Another is a project that has already been recorded together with my mother, a harpsichordist, and it is based on recording the works of composers from the Benelux region. Mom has decided to record a set of six suites by Jan-Baptiste Loeillet, which will be released before the end of this year. I plan to release the aforementioned set of Beethoven quartets together with the Meccore String Quartet in late 2024, and with the greatest possible panache. We are trying to keep the concert venue; that is, to record the entirety only from concert performances. In our opinion, such performances are accompanied by a different levels of excitement and commitment than if done in a studio session. The first CD with Quartets No. 1-3 from Opus 18 is already in the editing stage. Certainly, the next two releases will be something different from what we have recorded so far. I'm trying to make each project have its own individuality and be perceived as a different concept.
What would you like to record?
I often miss interacting with the violin and works that are more demanding than the viola part in some of the chamber literature. Of course, I am aware of the special role of this instrument in the group, but recently I have increasingly felt the desire to encounter more virtuosic works. The thought arises to commit to a recording with solo pieces of arrangements and works dedicated to the viola from such an extent that I can introduce myself to a wider audience with the solo recital repertoire. Perhaps there will also be something recorded by me on the violin. I think I won't pass up Bach's Cello Suites either, but these are plans for the second half of next year. Of course, I will not hesitate to inform our prospective audience about such an initiative. Thank you very much for the interview and I wish you many positive impressions of my Prelude Classics. Cheers!
Thank you very much for this fascinating in-depth overview.
Bertil van Boer