Grazyna Bacewicz: Piano Concerto; Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra; Overture; Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion

Album review

The piano music of Grażyna Bacewicz has not been terribly often recorded. Pianist Peter Jablonski, coming off a successful recording of her solo piano music, now turns to her concertos: a piano concerto and a concerto for two pianos, with her Music for Strings, Trumpets, and Percussion to round out the program and a sparkling overture from the grim year of 1943 to start things off. The soloists are ably backed in high-energy music by the Finnish Radio Symphony under conductor Nicholas Collon. This is immensely appealing music, and it is no surprise that it landed on classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2023. Except for the two-piano concerto, these are early Bacewicz works, and as with almost every other Eastern European composer over the years, she showed the influence of Bartók. That is especially evident in the Music for Strings, Trumpets, and Percussion, but even there, one hears a lyricism and a fluid approach to structure that is entirely characteristic of Bacewicz. She often exploited motor rhythms, not in the dry Stravinskian way nor in the hard-edged mood of Prokofiev (although both these composers are among her influences), but with a certain liveliness that pianist Jablonski catches beautifully. Her slow movements are lushly orchestrated, and Jablonski and second pianist Elisabeth Brauß bring out a nocturnal feel that harks back to Chopin. With the details of the keyboard work clearly shown in Ondine's recording at the Helsinki Music Centre, this is a recording that may rewrite the 20th century repertory a bit. Other pianists are going to want a piece of the action, but they will have a task at hand if they want to match Jablonski.

© James Manheim /TiVo