Henry Purcell, Georg Friedrich Händel, Johann Joseph Fux
Featured artists:
Michał Biel
If music… showcases star countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński in 17 songs and arias by three composers of the Baroque era: Purcell, Handel and Fux. Perhaps unexpectedly, he is partnered not by an ensemble of period instruments but by a pianist – his long-standing colleague Michał Biel, who draws on all the possibilities of a modern Steinway grand.
“On this album we have combined arias and songs that inspire and speak to us, “ says Jakub Józef Orliński. Some of them are quite well known, but others are less popular. I have been familiar with many of them for years, though I have to admit that, in some cases, I needed to mature artistically to be able to do what I envisioned when I first encountered them – Handel’s ‘Ombra mai fu’ and Purcell’s ‘Cold Song’, for example ... I love thinking of albums as pages out of my diary. They are a statement of where I am as an artist … They solidify my interpretations, which sometimes change over time.”