CD 1:
Pięć pieśni do wierszy Juliana Tuwima na głos i fortepian/Five songs on poems by Julian Tuwim:
Szczęście/Happiness
Przymierze/Covenant
Modlitwa/Prayer
Erratum
Wszystko/Everything

Dyzio marzyciel/Dyzio the Dreamer (Julian Tuwim)
O Grzesiu klamczuchu/About Grześ, the Little Liar (Julian Tuwim)
Bezdomna/Homeless (Julian Tuwim)
Staruszkowie/Old People (Julian Tuwim)
Aniołowe lica/Angel Faces (Julian Tuwim?)
Prośba o piosenkę/Request for a Song (Julian Tuwim)
Polały się łzy me/My Tears Fell (Adam Mickiewicz)
Le Général/The General (Jacques Audiberti)
Ewangelia szczęśliwych/The Gospel of the Happy (Stanisław Baliński)
Jezusek/Little Jesus (anonymus)
O matusiu moja/Oh Dear Mommy Mine (anonymus)
C’est d’un’ maladie d’cour/Of an Illness of the Heart (Jules Laforgue)
Jednego całowałam z miłości/I kissed one for love (Tola Korian?)
Ballada starofrancuska/Old French Ballad (Julian Tuwim)
Walczyk/Little Waltz (Julian Tuwim)
Alkoholik (Julian Tuwim)

CD 2:
Huit Chants populaires juifs/Eight Jewish Folk Songs (traditional):
Ich bin a balagole/I am a Coachman
Wigenlid/Cradle Song
Di gilderne pawe/The Golden Peacock
Unser rebeniu/Our Dear Rebbe
In droisn is a triber tog/Outside, it is a Dreary Day
Gwaldže brider/Hey there, Brothers
Di alte kashe/The Old Question
Fraitik far nacht/Friday Evening /Passacaille (Vocalise):
Elegia żydowskich miasteczek/Elegy for the Jewish Villages (Antoni Słonimski)
Pogrzeb/Funeral (Mieczyław Jastrun)

Trois Poemes chantés (Wanda Maya Berezowska):
Szukam dla pieśni mojej/I’m in search of a melody for my song
Lalka/The Doll
Mały więzień/The Little Prisoner

La Rue/The Street (Wanda Maya Berezowska)
Deszcz/Rain (Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz)
Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas/Portrait of the Bird-That-Does-Not-Exist

Cztery pieśni do słów Tadeusza Śliwiaka/Four songs on words by Tadeusz Śliwiak:
Zielony skrzypek/The Green Violinist
Strach na wróble/The Scarecrow
Kompozycja/Composition
Adoracja drzewa/Adoration of the Tree

Nie winię/I’m Not Blaming Anyone (Ludwik Żuk-Skarszewski)
Pożegnanie/Farewell (Zygmunt Różycki)
Gdybyś/If you (Ludwik Żuk-Skarszewski)

Simon Laks (1901–1983) belonged to the group of young Polish musicians who, encouraged by Paderewski and Szymanowski, pursued careers in Paris of the interwar period. Due to his Jewish descent, he was deported in 1942 to Auschwitz, where he was able to survive as director of a camp orchestra in Birkenau. Long known primarily for the account of his survival, Music of Another World, his compositions, too, have meanwhile attracted international attention. This double-CD presents all of the composer’s existing songs and melodramas, largely in first recordings. Owing to the outstanding quality of the music as well as of the Polish and French texts, but above all against the background of the experiences that flowed into them and make them a testimony to deeply moving humanism, these works deserve a special place in the musical history of the twentieth century.

Songs and melodramas based on poems by Jacques Audiberti, Claude Aveline, Stanisław Baliński, Wanda Maya Berezowska, Mieczysław Jastrun, Jules Laforgue, Adam Mickiewicz, Tadeusz Śliwiak, Antoni Słonimski, Julian Tuwim, Ludwik Żuk-Skarszewski as well as the Eight Jewish Folk Songs and Polish folk song arrangements.

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Recordings: 29/30 April 2019, 13-14/16 August 2019, 10-13 February 2020, 28 February 2020, Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin-Dahlem.