Chopin: Mazurkas & Sonate No. 3

Presentación del Álbum

It's a bit surprising for a young pianist like Lukas Geniušas to release two albums of Chopin in a row, although the fact that Geniušas was a winner of coveted high honors at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw goes a long way toward explaining it. Geniušas has a confident way with Chopin that does nothing fancy but will leave listeners with the music in their heads. His program falls into two parts, with a group of mazurkas, drawn from various sets, followed by the Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58, and he both shows an individual personality and lets these very different works speak for themselves. Geniušas' mazurkas are propulsive, pausing at times for lyrical details that gain in impact from being set off, and his tempos are strict enough to emphasize the folk roots of the mazurka, the most Polish of the genres in which Chopin worked. The Piano Sonata No. 3 is as close as Chopin came to really engaging with the tradition of Classical structure, and here Geniušas takes time and brings out the modulations on which the outer movements depend. His playing is clean throughout, and though there is both more expressive and more virtuosic Chopin, there's an X factor of assured charisma here that holds the listener's attention. Clear sound from Mirare, captured at the medium-sized Gustav-Mahler-Saal in Toblach, Italy, is another major draw.
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