Zdzisław Piernik, "Piernik Plays"

Side A
Zdzisław Piernik:
DIALOGE FOR TUBA UND TONBAND
8' 45"

Bogusław Schäffer:
PROJEKT FUR TUBA UND TONBAND
14' 26"
Zdzisław Piernik gewidmet

Side B
Roman W. Zajaczek :
TEMA CANTABILE CON PIERNICAZIONI
per tuba universale e pianoforte
7' 34"
Zdzisław Piernik gewidmet
Zdzisław Piernik, Tuba
Maciej Paderewski, Klavier

Marian Borkowski:
VOX
per uno strumento ad ottone
4' 49"
Zdzisław Piernik gewidmet

Elzbieta Sikora :
IL VIAGGIO 1
per tuba solo con pianoforte
11' 14"
Zdzisław Piernik gewidmet
Zdzisław Piernik, Tuba
Maciej Paderewski, Klavier
Recording Producer: Gerhard Narholz
Publisher: Edition PRO NOVA, Sonoton
Coverphoto and design: Intersound


I became aquainted with Zdzisław Piernik in Torun. The master's performance on the tuba and the "prepared" tuba is, by European standards. a phenomenon. But can you compare performing on the tuba to performance by Pollini or Szeryng? It is not possible ... too bad! Could it be that music in its heterogeneous nature is undemocratic? (all are apparently equal, some more equal-some adjectives do not yield easily to degrees of comparison: equal, common, average, etc.; negative adjectives are best compared, oh God, and how pleasant to compare them, how pleasant). Then music is undemocratic. But maybe our reasoning is faulty. Zdzisław Piernik is beyond compare on the tuba. And perhaps this is important. He also performs an all-purpose instrument: into the "spirals" of the tuba he puts parts of different instruments; to realize in this wild and somewhat acrobatic means our (mine in particular) dream of a "multicoloristic" instrument. The bassoon and saxophone mouthpieces complete everything. The tone color of the tuba transforms and is rich in degrees previously unknown. Of course, this does not happen automatically, the master uses different overblowings, partially presses valves while he rages on this brass elephant with unprecedented lightness and fantasy. The best thing is that Zdzislaw performs on this super-tuba as if he were a connoisseur of contemporary structure (he isn't). He is gifted with great intuition which could arouse the envy of other instrumentalists. He has also contrived a beautiful gesture which I have never seen elsewhere: if the applause is very loud and long, he points to the tuba lying on the ground. He is a tuba phenomenon and an idealist! Fascinating on the tuba-that is to say victory of mind over matter. -- Bogusław Schäffer.

The tuba, an instrument not often met in solo performance, has secured itself a certain position on the concert stages of our coumry thanks to the performances of Zdzisław Piernik, a virtuoso whose mastery has become a sensation in our country and abroad.

The artist began on the trumpet, later in high school he studied performing on the viola and contrabass, composed a little, performed in jazz groups, and finally in 1968 embraced the tuba, beginning study with Juliusz Pietrachowicz in Warsaw's Higher School of Music. And here, perhaps, he found his calling...

As earty as 1970 Zdzisław Piernik won first prize in the general Polish competition of young musicians in Gdańsk, then he played concerts co-operated with Polish Radio and Polish Television, played in musical and dramatic theaters, and played concerts variously abroad in East Germany, West Germany, and Austria-everywhere receiving enthusiastic reviews. -- "Zycie Warszawy", Warsaw, March 4, 1977