KRYSTIAN ZIMERMAN – Szymanowski: Works For Piano [CD]

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: 4863007
Barcode: 0028948630073
Release Date: 30 Sep 2022
Genre: Classical

One of today’s leading pianists sheds new light on an unjustly overlooked composer:

for Krystian Zimerman, Karol Szymanowski’s piano music deserves to stand alongside that of their compatriot Chopin.

When Krystian Zimerman travelled to Fukuyama, Japan, in June 2022, it was to complete a journey that had taken 28 years: a recording of music by his compatriot Karol Szymanowski that he had first begun in 1994. The spur came on the one hand from the fast approaching 140th anniversary of Szymanowski’s birth (* 6. Oktober 1882), and on the other hand from the prospect of recording in a beautiful concert hall in Fukuyama designed by Zimerman’s friend Yasuhisa Toyota, whose acoustics Zimerman has long admired. “In Toyota’s halls, every note is clear,” Zimerman says, “yet each is in a cushion of warm surroundings.”

For this album Zimerman has selected repertoire that for him shows the essence of Szymanowski, aiming to shed new light on his music and place him firmly in the canon of great composers of piano music. Each work or group of pieces represents a different, distinctive stage in his development. The album features the Masques op. 34, recorded in 1994 but never released, alongside interpretations of the Variations on a Polish Folk Theme op. 10 and selections of Préludes and Mazurkas.

TRACKLIST:
from Préludes op. 1
1) No. 1. Andante ma non troppo (in B minor)
2) No. 2. Andante con moto (in D minor)
3) No. 7. Moderato (in C minor)
4) No. 8. Andante ma non troppo (in E flat minor)

Masques op. 34
5) No. 1. Shéhérazade. Lento assai. Languido
6) No. 2. Tantris le Bouffon. Vivace assai
7) No. 3. Sérénade de Don Juan. Vivace

from Mazurkas op. 50
8) No. 13. Moderato
9) No. 14. Animato z elegancją i grandezzą
10) No. 15. Allegretto dolce. Naiwnie i sentymentalnie
11) No. 16. Allegramente. Vigoroso

Variations on a Polish Folk Theme op. 10
12) Andante doloroso rubato
13) Tema. Andantino semplice
14) Var. 1. Meno mosso
15) Var. 2. Agitato
16) Var. 3. Lento mesto, ma poco agitato
17) Var. 4. Allegro molto agitato
18) Var. 5. Andantino
19) Var. 6. Andante dolcissimo
20) Var. 7. Più mosso
21) Var. 8. Marcia funebre
22) Var. 9. Più mosso (Allegro)
23) Var. 10. Finale. Allegro vivo

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