8 Tracks: To Listen To Before The End By Stefan Wesolowski

This is what my childhood sounded like. It is the soundtrack to my carefree happiness in the company of my brothers and sisters. There are five of them, and they all had direct and essential impact on my aesthetic and spiritual construction. I owe each of them something different. And I love them very much.

Bach had to make my list because he has been with me since my very start and he is the greatest of the geniuses. The only problem was what to choose. I picked the first part of the first Brandenburg Concerto, the flashy and fanfarous opening of the whole. This is the piece which I listened to in my most difficult moments and it would always save me from the deepest darkness. This penetrating brass disrupts every temptation of hopelessness. Because it is so beautiful, so perfect and so optimistic, it makes you ready for everything. With this music in the background I can wait with open arms for an asteroid to hit the Earth.

I have been playing the violin since I was 6 and it has become and integral part of my life. When I was a child I used to play in the street. Later I would take part in competitions and won prizes. I was very good and talented but recalcitrant and lazy. At some point it was composing which took over the place of violin and I stopped practicing as much as I should. But my heart still beats for the playing at the highest level, and I feel I will return to it. Anyway, I am a worse composer than Szymanowski and playing for example La Fontaine d’Arethuse feeds my soul and reminds me the importance of quality and truth in art.

This one is also a reminder of my childhood. This time it is what my imagination sounded like. I used to spend long hours on writing books, drawing and thinking about fantastic things and unusual adventures. Of course it was strongly influenced by books, films and tv series as for example „Robin of Sherwood”.

I fell in love with Wagner quite late – as an adult person. Before, I considered him a representative of music gigantomania, the Third Reich patron and an eulogist of Aryan supremacy. What a terrible mistake it was! When I got into Wagner’s operas, I understood how complex, sensitive and multidimensional this music is. I consider “Tristan und Isolde” his opus magnum. “Liebestod” is one of the most beautiful pieces about love and death ever written. The song became the patron of my first album, and it was also its title.

It is probably the only song about love and death which with its intensity and beauty may equal with Wagner’s Liebestod. At the same time it is also one of the greatest pieces of baroque, which once I was strongly fascinated with.

A wonderful song which contains all that is necessary for its summary – calmness, reconciliation and nostalgia. It is also extremely beautiful. It makes a great bridge between my childhood with “Robin of Sherwood” on tv, and the adulthood with “The Sopranos” where it opens the episode „Guy walks into a Psychiatrist’s Office”. I love the Sopranos! I love the feeling that the soul does not get old.

I was tempted to introduce here, instead of Chopin, Spring Rounds which is 4th movement of The Rite Of Spring by Stravinsky. To be honest with myself I wasn’t very frank here and I choose that for pragmatic purposes. This due to the name of my new album which name paraphrases The Rite Of Spring. The truth is, that despite my love of Stravinsky I felt obliged to finish this collection only with that exact Prelude of Chopin. This seems to me an ideal end, an ideal sum-up, 2 minutes of harmony and perfection, not a single note too many, nor a single note too lacking. After that, let it end.