In her own words, Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) had been gifted by nature with a “small, invisible engine” that allowed her to do in ten minutes what others needed an hour for. This inner drive can be demonstrated in all areas of this Polish artist’s life. She was an excellent violinist from an early age, had success as a writer and already wrote her first compositions as a teenager – all at a dizzying pace. Even so, the quality of her works are not superficial in the least. This new release by cpo is the second in a series of her complete symphonic works. After presenting her Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4, works from the early 1950s, Łukasz Borowicz and the WDR Symphony Orchestra perform more examples of Bacewicz’s wealth of expression. These include the neoclassical outbursts of the Overture (1943) and the Second Symphony (1951), the sophisticated, already strongly timbre-oriented Variations for Orchestra (1957) and Tre movimenti, by which time Grażyna Bacewicz had achieved her “late” style – the so-called “sonorism”, in which the colour of sound plays an essential structural role. After these “three movements”, the “small engine” ran for almost another four years – this phenomenal musician had completed everything faster than the others. Her invisible drive can still be heard here today.