Philharmonic of Mr Kleks

The album recorded by the NFM children's choirs, the Rondo Vocal Ensemble and the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra conducted by Małgorzata Podzielny features songs from films about Mr Kleks, arranged by Michał Ziółkowski. Well-known songs, composed by Andrzej Korzyński et al., have been arranged by Ziółkowski in a fascinating, vocal and instrumental version in a truly fairy-tale mood.

Polish premiere 15.12.2023

World premiere: 2.02.2024

Publishers: NFM, CD Accord

Conductor: Małgorzata Podzielny

Performers: NFM Girls’ Choir, NFM Boys’ Choir, Rondon Vocal Ensemble, NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra

For the composer [Michał Ziółkowski] belonging to the generation of Mr Kleks’ “students”, the songs recorded on this album and arranged into a suite are an orchestral fantasy, woven into well-known melodies sung by a children’s choir and an “adult” mixed choir. This is true – Ziółkowski uses a large orchestra, treating it as a vast, multicolored treasury of various sounds. So much trouble to remember children’s songs? The orchestral setting may seem superfluous and while listening, it is easy to glide through the melodies of the songs you have heard. Yet there are so many details, colourful nuances, carefully hidden little things that only a curious child can find. As if were looking at the melodies through all the colourful stained glass windows that decorate the palace in Nieborów, which played the Academy in the film.

The fairy-tale material on this album is the result of collaboration between Michał Ziółkowski, the Wrocław choirmaster Małgorzata Podzielny and the choirs she leads. On the album we can hear the Girls' and Boys' Choirs of the National Forum of Music and the Rondo Vocal Ensemble (bringing together graduates of the Grażyna Bacewicz Primary Music School in Wrocław, or more precisely, graduates of another choir – Con Brio). The decorative orchestral tapestry is the work of the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra.

As an addition to the suite of songs from films about Mr Kleks, the album includes the song My Fantasy, made popular by the band Fasolki and created by Andrzej Marek Grabowski (Mr Tic-Toc) and Ewa Chotomska (Aunt Clothilde) for a television programme. The song is connected with the film trilogy by assuming the perspective of a child, distancing themselves from the world of adults. The children’s point of view is the key to enjoying Mr Kleks’s songs. It was, among other things, allowing the youngest to have a voice on the screen that made Korzyński’s songs so popular.

This does not mean, of course, that adults cannot enjoy this music. Just give in to your sonic fantasy. This fantasy comes from a slightly different, auditory fairy tale. It is sensitive and attentive like Mr Kleks himself. Let’s not be afraid to open this door, because both children and adults need fairy stories. In this respect they are not much different.

Szymon Atys