A unique mixture of influences characterizes the style of Polish composer Czeslaw Marek (1891-1985), who from 1915 lived in Switzerland. When his music was first revived in the 1990s, it was hailed by the press as being an important voice of music in the first half of the 20th century. The first instalment of a complete edition of his music, originally released in 1996-2000 in close co-operation with the Zentralbibliothek Zürich where his estate is housed, received an ECHO Classical award, and the further instalments strengthened the picture of Marek as a most influential individual and surprising composer, strongly rooted in tradition, especially his Polish ancestry, but not being afraid of stretching tonality as far as possible (but without, as one contemporary put it, letting it sound ugly).
