The Nocturne is a romantic piano piece in which a nocturnal, romantic atmosphere is expressed, where perfumed melodies float serenely over a calmly murmuring accompaniment.-Credit where credit is due: the inventor of the genre is the Irish composer John Field, who made fame as a pianist of his own works. It needed the genius of Chopin to perfect the genre to the highest artistic level: Chopin's Nocturnes are the archetypes of romantic piano music, and count among his best loved works.

This interesting disc from Dux surveys early Polish string quartets by two major figures in Polish music who were contemporaries of Chopin, Ignacy Feliks Dobrzynski, and Stanislaw Moniuszko. Moniuszko is best known through his operas and large sacred choral works; outside of the two string quartets played here by the Camerata Quartet, he produced almost nothing in terms of chamber music. Dobrzynski wrote four operas, of which Monbar, or the Freebooters (1838) was the work the composer considered his most important. However, in posterity it is through instrumental music that Dobrzynski is known – his two symphonies, various pieces in concertante format, and numerous chamber and solo piano works have kept his name alive.

Les Explorateurs is a chamber ensemble based around pianist Joanna Ławrynowicz, with guest musicians coming in according to the requirements of works at hand. Ławrynowicz has recorded over thirty CDs for Acte Préalable (AP) spanning more than a decade, and was apparently the first Pole to record the complete works of Chopin - also for AP. For these two new releases she and cellist Łukasz Tudzierz combine in genial, committed performances to reveal to the world another batch of forgotten gems from seriously neglected composers. The Dobrzyński disc in particular is outstanding in every respect - perhaps AP's finest to date.

"The wonderful discoveries that I have made during my research on neglected repertoire often make me wonder why it is that so much beautiful Polish music has fallen into oblivion" - thus writes Acte Préalable (AP) impresario Jan Jarnicki in his customary preamble for the CD booklet. Music-lovers who have bought previous AP discs will have asked themselves the same question - how to account rationally for the big repertoire gap between Chopin and Szymanowski, and again between Szymanowski and Penderecki/Górecki. The names capable of filling those holes are legion, a fact to which many previous AP recordings are persuasive testimony.