Adam Baldych
Portraits

In Portraits, Polish violinist and composer Adam Bałdych crafts an extraordinary musical journey, blending lamentation, jubilation, and prayer to reflect on the fragility of life and a call for peace. Inspired by historical accounts and today’s conflicts, Bałdych’s virtuosic violin—both standard and Renaissance—leads his Polish quintet in a seamless interplay of improvisation and precision. This meticulously crafted album transcends words, offering a powerful narrative of hope, beauty, and resilience that resonates deeply.

Adam Bałdych violin, renaissance violin
Sebastian Zawadzki piano, upright piano
Marek Konarski tenor saxophone
Andrzej Święs double bass
Dawid Fortuna drums

Music produced by Adam Bałdych & Mateusz Banasiuk
Music composed by Adam Bałdych, except “Prelude” – composed by Sebastian Zawadzki
Recorded between October 15th – 17th, 2023, at Boogie Town Studio, Poland
Sound engineer, mixing and mastering: Mateusz Banasiuk

Cover photo by Wiktor Franko

More about the album:

There is an urgency and an intensity about Polish violinist/composer Adam Bałdych; both traits run deep in his work. A total commitment to what he does is clear from the music that he makes and the emotions he conveys. But in “Portraits” such imperatives have been strengthened: the music carries astonishing pathos and weightiness of expression, as are natural for an artist reflecting on these troubled times. Bałdych explains: ‘When I was working on the pieces, reports from people who survived the Second World War were a source of inspiration for me. The topic feels very important to me in view of the growing conflicts in Europe and the world. I read eyewitness accounts from that time and I wanted to take a stand against what thousands have to suffer again today. A call for peace in the world. A variety of very emotional pieces has been created, which attempt to portray people and living conditions and the times in which we live. It is about worries, but also about the indescribable beauty of the world which I try to capture in my sounds and in the music’.

There is a spiritual side to this music too. “Portraits” combines lament, prayer, jubilation and exuberance. After all, for an artist to want to contribute to the discussion is only human - even if as an instrumental musician he doesn’t have words at his disposal. And yet speechless is not a word you could ever use to describe Adam Bałdych, quite the opposite. His music opens up a realm of experience that extends beyond the boundaries of the spoken word. He is a virtuoso, educated in Katowice and at Berklee College, with many awards to his name, and also the experience of having played in venues all over the world.

And yet he is also a team player who knows how important it is to let ideas take form, to come to life by first affecting those around him: ‘When I brought the music to the band rehearsal, we first spent a lot of time working out the instrumentation and arrangements. It was a bit like classical music, we listened to the registers of the instruments and looked for the appropriate space for them to really speak at their most powerful. The process was a meticulous, almost surgical. Although we are all improvisers, and each of us wanted to put as much of our individual voice into the music as possible, we also wanted to plan precisely the execution with great precision, as the best way to maintain that freedom and not lose any of our personalities. It was a very inspiring process.’

This creative tension between the inward- and the outward-facing, between personality and community is at the heart of this programme of 15 pieces. Adam Bałdych's violins lead the music, both his normal instrument and his splendidly sonorous Renaissance violin (a unique replica by an Austrian luthier), which opens up lower registers with its woody tones. There is a vigorous and lively energy in his longstanding Polish quintet: ‘We have a very honest relationship with each other, based on an understanding of the culture and tradition we grew up in. And we understand each other intuitively, giving each other the space to develop narratives. It's like a polyphonic composition, made up of many voices, each one letting one fellow player into the foreground, with the others then acting as a counterpoint. Each of us is an independent personality, we respect each other and at the same time we all respect the music as a whole, and develop it together.’ “Portraits” has emerged into life as a force field.

There is a reason why “Portraits” is not just thought-provoking but also uplifting. And that is because the Adam Bałdych Quintet has an incredibly powerful story to tell. Even without the use of words.