'Begin with Bach' - Chopin and His Europe Festival (Chopin i jego Europa Festival ) Warsaw, Poland 20 August - 6 September 2025
'Begin with Bach'
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| The Bach House in Eisenach [Bach's birthplace] Thuringia, Germany |
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A quite extraordinary J.S.Bach portrait as generated by computer (not AI) from his skull, contemporary paintings and descriptions |
We begin and end this year's 'Chopin and his Europe' Festival with Bach.The brilliant composer, who occupies a very important place in the Chopin universe, will also be present in an important, sometimes in an unobtrusive way, on each day of the festival events.
The programme of this year's Festival is created with the intention of presenting Chopin's works in a multifaceted context of music from Bach to Lutosławski. The 29 concerts will be filled with Polish and European music in the interpretations of traditionally two stylistic trends: contemporary and historically informed.
An important aspect will therefore be historically informed performance, represented in 2025 by soloists and ensembles with well-deserved reputations; performances will include:
Dmitry Ablogin, laureate of the 1st International Chopin Competition on Historical Instruments with the Freiburger Barockorchester (with both Chopin concertos), Giovanni Antonini's Il Giardino Armonico (Felix Janiewicz's Violin Concerto No. 5 interpreted by Alena Baeva), a leading Polish ensemble of this performance style: Martyna Pastuszka's {oh!} Orchestra (with Felix Janiewicz's Violin Concerto No. 4, interpreted by Chouchane Siranossian, and Beethoven's Piano Concerto in B-flat major, performed by Tomasz Ritter, winner of the First Chopin Competition on Historical Instruments).
We will also hear, after a long break, Concerto Köln with a particularly interesting juxtaposition: Janiewicz's Third Concerto in violin (with Evgeny Sviridov) and piano version, commissioned by the Institute and presented for the first time (with Tomasz Ritter).
Martin Nöbauer, a young pianist with an interesting personality, finalist of the 2nd Chopin Competition on Historical Instruments, will play his debut recital at the Festival.
A special place in the programme – which is a kind of reference to the 20th Festival – is occupied by two Bach recitals by Władysław Kłosiewicz, who will perform both volumes of Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier on the harpsichord. This unique work, so important in Chopin's teaching practice, found its continuation in Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues, arranged analogously to the Bach cycle in two volumes. Yulianna Avdeeva will present them at the festival in two recitals, creating an interesting context of creator-participant (it is worth remembering that Shostakovich took part in the First International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in 1927) and performer-winner.
'Chopin and his Europe' is pianism of the highest order; the year of the Chopin Competition will see its triumphs: alongside Yulianna Avdeeva (three times, including a very special chamber programme with Krzysztof Chorzelski dedicated to Andrzej Tchaikovsky), Bruce Liu will play with the Apollon Musagète Quartet (including Schubert and Mozart), Dang Thai Son and the young Sophia Liu will play both Chopin concertos with Marek Moś's Aukso Orchestra; with this ensemble, Kyohei Sorita and Aimi Kobayashi will perform Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos (the same concert will feature the first performance of Lutosławski's Partita in the version for cello, interpreted by Andrzej Bauer); in recitals, we will hear Kate Liu, Eric Lu, Ivo Pogorelic (in a programme including Bach and Chopin) and Ingrid Fliter (Chopin recital).
There will also be many virtuosos not associated with the Competition, notably Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko, who will perform Karol Szymanowski's Fourth Symphonie concertante and Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand with Sinfonia Varsovia under Bassem Akiki; Benjamin Grosvenor will give a recital (including Schumann's Fantasia in C Major) and Piotr Anderszewski will give a Brahms recital.
The space of sophisticated chamber music will be rounded off by the Hagen Quartet with Mao Fujita, making its festival debut (in a programme featuring Brahms and Shostakovich), and the resident quartet Belcea (another interestingly formatted programme featuring works by Mendelssohn, Mozart and Dvořák's Piano Quintet in A Major – with Alexander Melnikov).
The festival will open, as has been the tradition for several years now, with a violin recital by Fabio Biondi at the Basilica of the Holy Cross, an honourable, symbolic gesture by this great artist whose contribution to the promotion of Polish music in the world cannot be overestimated. The series of festival concerts will close with a recital – also in the Holy Cross Basilica and also Bach – by the eminent Belgian cello virtuoso, Roel Dieltiens.
An important element of the Festival will be the presentation of the Polish participants in the forthcoming Chopin Competition: as in the case of the previous edition of the Competition, five recitals with the participation of 10 pianists are planned in the Basilica of the Holy Cross; these concerts are organised in cooperation with the Mazovian Institute of Culture.
Traditionally, selected concerts will be available for streaming online on the YouTube channel of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, as well as in broadcasts and rebroadcasts on Polish Radio 2. Closer to the date of the Festival, we will provide information on the broadcasting schedule.
The full detailed programme of the festival is available here
https://festiwal.nifc.pl/en/2025/kalendarium/
Recital Reviews
Profile of the Reviewer Michael Moran : https://en.gravatar.c atom/mjcmoran#pic-0
All artists' photographs by Wojciech Grzędziński / NIFC
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For health reasons I unfortunately was not unable to attend or review recitals until the evening of 22nd August 2025
Reviews will be posted in reverse order of live performance (latest recital first to appear). This saves readers the labour of scrolling way down the site after each recital to read the latest review
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26.08 TUESDAY 7:00 p.m.
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Symphonic concert
HOMAGE TO
JANUSZ
OLEJNICZAK
Please browse through this post I devoted to Janusz
http://www.michael-moran.com/2024/10/the-passing-of-janusz-olejniczak-1952.html
DANG THAI SON* piano
SOPHIA LIU** piano
AUKSO CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Of THE CITY OF TYCHY
MAREK MOŚ conductor
Program
Fryderyk Chopin [1810–1849]
Concerto in E minor, Op. 11
Allegro maestoso
Romance. Larghetto
Rondo. Vivace
Intermission
Fryderyk Chopin
Concerto in F minor, Op. 21
Maestoso
Larghetto
Allegro vivace
MONDAY 25.08 7:00 p.m.
Ballroom of the Royal Castle in Warsaw
Harpsichord recital
WŁADYSŁAW KŁOSIEWICZ
Program
Johann Sebastian Bach [1685–1750]
Das wohltemperierte Klavier (Book I) (1722)
I remember in the distant past, if one mentioned playing and studying Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier one was almost looked at askance as ‘a dull intellectual’ and further, interested in dreaded mathematics! How times have changed under the influence of say Myra Hess (1890-1965) and Rosalind Tureck (1913-2003). I will not venture to open the Pandora's Box of Bach concerning these works performed on either clavichord, harpsichord or piano.
Polish composers musicians have always been deeply attached to the original keyboard music of Bach, often on period instruments in historically informed performance. Chopin adored J.S.Bach and played these works before giving concerts and also in maintaining useful practice and polyphonic elements in his compositions. He probably had in mind the cycle of keys in Das Wohltemperierte Klavier when he conceived the group of Preludes Op.28.
An amusing story ...
One evening after a recital in Paris where the great Polish pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski had included some Bach in his recital programme (as he often did), a female admirer came up to him and said in French (the story is even more amusing in that language)
"This Bach that you play Monsieur Paderewski, it is very nice music. Does he still compose?"
Paderewski, terribly alert mentally, without batting an eyelid replied
"Madame, this gentleman Bach you so love has been decomposing for two hundred and fifty years."
Her reaction to this quip is forgotten.
Aleksander Michałowski (1851–1938) was a Polish pianist, pedagogue and composer who, in addition to his own remarkable abilities (testified by his many historic recordings), had a profound influence upon the teaching of piano technique particularly the works of Chopin and Bach. He founded what might be loosely termed the 'Polish School'.
Michałowski had a large number of gifted pupils who became great concert pianists in their own right (the great harpsichordist and pianist Wanda Landowska, Vladimir Sofronistsky, Mischa Levitzki, the brilliant Boleslaw Kon and Heinrich Neuhaus (teacher of Richter and Gilels) were among the most famous).
Bach presented Das Wohltemperierte Klavierwork 'For the use and profit of young musicians who are anxious to learn, as well as for the enjoyment of those who are already expert in the art.' - as it was presented to us. The work is simultaneously absolute music and pedagogic text. The first volume betrays great variety of Baroque figuration and dance rhythms, composed over a long period of time.
I cannot possibly test your patience by examining each prelude and fugue of Book I individually. I will not analyze in detail the interpretation of each by the eminent harpsichordist Władysław Kłosiewicz.
However, certainly these works, all masterpieces, deserve the closest possible analytical attention. If you have ever seriously studied the piano or harpsichord, Bach is the kernal of instruction by any great teacher.
Kłosiewicz courageously performed the entire Book I without a break which in itself is a concentrated musical feat of a high intellectual order. His execution on the Neupert/Blanchet faltered only occasionally. The entire audience remained silent and attentive throughout what may have been two hours of concentrated listening to learned harpsichord music. Such a huge listening development in stamina from the past ! This too indicates Kłosiewicz's ability to hypnotize us with superb sound in that, for harpsichord, acoustically perfect ballroom.
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| Five Paul McNulty fortepianos in the exquisite Ballroom of the Royal Castle, Warsaw Lt. to Rt. J.A.Stein (ca.1788); A. Walter (ca.1792); C.Graf (ca. 1830); J. Pleyel (1830); L. Boisselot(1846) |
The Ballroom of the Royal Castle, an aesthetically overwhelming room, is a superb musical venue for the performance of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier . It is a period perfect setting for such a magnificent masterpiece. This contributed much to our emotional involvement.
Domenico Merlini (1730-1797), the distinguished eighteenth-century Italian architect from Brescia, who brought Palladianism to Poland, together with the Dresden-born architect Jan Christian Kamsetzer (1753-1795), designed it in the second half of the Neo-classical eighteenth century. They benefited from the valuable allegorical guidance of the Polish King Stanisław Augustus.
The room contains miraculously preserved elements of the original stucco work, the rescued statues of Apollo and Minerva by André Le Brun and a sculptural composition depicting a timely allegory of Justice and Peace, mired as we are in a period of gruesome war. The original Royal Castle was methodically demolished by the Nazis with explosives placed by architects. It was restored by skilled artisans and raw labour by the entire population of Warsaw and beyond, mainly for free. New gold leaf now glisters from every crevice in a blaze of mirrored chandeliers in a overwhelming appearance similar to when construction was just completed.
A magnificent and rare evening. One slowly became convinced, as the musical tapestry unfolded, of Bach as essentially a religious composer. He was a profound humanist. This emerges from his deepest psyche, yet not from any formalized expression of belief in any specific creed, despite his devotion to the Lutheran faith.
Kłosiewicz gave us such an extraordinarily uplifting evening that managed to regenerate my faith in creative human nature in the face of the profoundly negative and threatening aspects of our times.
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Domenico Merlini (1730-1797) (Chiesa San Martino, Castello, Italy) |
SUNDAY 24.08 7:00 p.m.
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Symphonic concert
AIMI KOBAYASHI** piano
KYŌHEI SORITA** piano
ANDRZEJ BAUER*** cello
RADOSŁAW KUREK* piano
ŁUKASZ HAJDUCZENIA* narrator
AUKSO CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Of THE CITY Of TYCHY
MAREK MOŚ conductor
Programme
As the motto of the festival is 'Begin with Bach' the concert opened almost surprisingly for me with the so-called 'Air on a G string' from the Orchestral Suite No.3 (BWV1066). This was not mentioned in the programme and was performed with sweetness, tenderness and subtlety by the orchestra without a conductor. The orchestra was 'led' only by the charming female concertmaster.
Arnold Schönberg [1874–1951]
Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, Op. 41 for
string orchestra, piano and narrator *
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| Arnold Schönberg by Egon Schiele |
I had never heard this work or even knew the Byronic poem on which it is based. In fact, I did not even know of its existence. However, what was clear, was of it being a topical polemic. Contemporary commentary by artists is welcomed in view of the appalling nature of current world events and apparent political paralysis. We hover on the threshold of a world war and witness the increasing emergence of merciless, dubious, lawless figures on the political landscape.
It is a most impressive and timely work, an inspiration to programme it. The part of the narrator or reciter was fluently taken by the gifted and highly talented Polish baritone Łukasz Hajduczenia. Certainly the English language is a trial to non-native speakers and Hajduczenia was fulfilling in this demanding role. His diction was occasionally in need of attention but wrestling as a 'foreigner' with Polish I am full of sympathy. A most impressive performance was also accomplished in this challenging work by the Ausko Chamber Orchestra of the City of Tychy under their inspiring conductor Marek Moś.
The Ode to Napoleon, Op. 41 by Arnold Schönberg, originally for string quartet, piano, and narrator, was completed on 12 June 1942. The narrator takes the text from Lord Byron and his 1814 Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte. The catalyst for the composition and its current relevance was the abdication of Napoleon and his exile to Elba. Other similar works by Schönberg employing a narrator with ensemble are Sprechgesang or Sprechstimme Pierrot lunaire or Erwartung.
Lord Byron had announced in January 1814 that he would absolve himself from the writing of poetry. However, Napoleon’s abdication once again fertilized his compulsion to write. The announcement of the abdication came on 9 April and on 10 April, Byron wrote to his publisher, John Murray, that he’d written an ‘ode on the fall of Napoleon’.
‘Tis done—but yesterday a King!
And armed with Kings to strive—
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject—yet alive!
( from Stanza I)
The lament condemns Napoleon (stanza 11) for not ‘dying as honour dies’. Napoleon escaped from Elba after 11 months of exile, reached Paris on 20 March 1815, and was finally defeated at Waterloo before his final exile to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena before his death in 1821. Needless to say, the modern Napoleon for Schönberg was Adolf Hitler.
Schönberg specified that the narrator had to be a ‘singer of high musicianship’ since the part required a precise spoken rhythm to fit with the piano and the string quartet.
The work was composed during the Second World War as a protest against tyranny.
'Schoenberg heard the Ode live in its original form only at a rehearsal preceding the concert in honor of his 75th birthday (13 September 1949) in Los Angeles. The speaker was William Schallert, I was the pianist, and the quartet was led by Adolph Koldofsky. In a special coaching session with the speaker, Schoenberg, his dark eyes flashing expressively while he recited lines from the work, emphasized, above all, their dramatic and expressive values. The inflections of pitch, marked so carefully in the score, were treated in a secondary manner. The main impression of the Ode was, and remains, one of powerful dramatic expression.' (Notes by Leonard Stein)
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Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) |
In an introduction in English titled “How I Came to Compose the Ode to Napoleon,” Schönberg described both the creation of the work (commissioned by the League of Composers) and its orientation to Beethoven’s Eroica and Wellington’s Victory: “I know it was the moral duty of intelligencia [sic] to take a stand against tyranny. But this was only my secondary motive. I had long speculated about the more profound meaning of the [N]azi philosophy.”
Schönberg’s pupil Leonard Stein recalls that his teacher oriented his shaping of the declamation to the diction of Winston Churchill, whose voice he had heard on the radio, and made a connection between the conception of op. 41, the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and Roosevelt’s declaration of war on Japan. (Arnold Schönberg Centre, Vienna).
Byron was adored in the United States as a Bohemian, adventurer and freedom fighter. Schönberg was deeply committed to that popular image of the poet. He was also concerned with tyranny and the promise of democracy and human dignity as in the past. This Ode is, apart from being a musical composition, also a type of 'concealed' political manifesto (as are many musical compositions including some by Chopin) using a symbol-laden composing technique; when the narrator declaims the words “the earthquake voice of victory,” motivic musical recollections of the Marseillaise and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony emerge.
So one must pose the question, in the midst of World War II, why did Schoenberg turn to Napoleon, of all celebrated historical figures and even select the poetry of Byron for inspiration? Well, the great British Romantic poet had written an iconoclastic poem concerning Napoleon Bonaparte and was deeply disillusioned by his metamorphosis from freedom fighter into dictator. Arnold Schönberg transformed Byron's critical ode into a didactic musical work for strings, piano, and a narrator.
If thou hadst died as Honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again—
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night
(from Stanza 11)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
[1756–1791]
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Mozart (1756-1791) and his sister Nannerl (1751-1829) with their father Leopold (1719-1787) |
Concerto in E flat major for Two Pianos **
K. 365/316a
Allegro
Andante
Rondo. Allegro
We have been so fortunate in brilliant young couples performing Mozart double concertos in Warsaw! Eric Lu and Kate Liu in the 2023 Chopin and His Europe Festival and now Aimi Kobayashi and Kōhei Sorita in this same Double Concerto by Mozart K365 in 2025.
After returning from compositional work at Paris and Mannheim, Mozart wrote this concerto to amuse himself and his sister Nannerl. There is an intense and energetic playful 'family' dialogue between the two pianos with each other and the orchestra. Mozart was a light-hearted fellow and not a tormented soul. Aimi Kobayashi and Kōhei Sorita made full use of their pleasure performing together, which became a delight for us all.
The scholar Alfred Einstein writes of the work which I cannot compete with for succinctness: 'In general, the Concerto is a work of happiness, gaiety, overflowing richness of invention and joy in itself, and thus is evidence of how little the secret of creative activity has to do with personal experience, for it was written just after the bitterest disappointments of Mozart's life.'
This concerto was full of youthful joyfulness from the beginning Allegro to the end with these two performers. I strongly felt the historical and delightfully artificial social atmosphere of eighteenth century Vienna. I felt a degree of that artful Viennese Gemütlichkeit and charming conversational tone, the vocal nature of many of the musical phrases, the playful musical questions and answers thrown between the pianos, the gaiety of the musical competition erupting between brother and sister. A musical accomplishment effortlessly achieved by
The second movement is marked Andante by Mozart which avoids any emotional complication or arguments between brother and sister as might occur in an Adagio which often evokes lost romantic love.
Throughout their performance I could hear operatic arias in cantabile passages which, I am sure, is what Mozart intended. The expressiveness lies in the magic of the phrasing and the infinitesimal hesitations of conversational musical speech as the music tenses and relaxes. I felt both these Japanese pianists were in an ebullient, irrepressibly joyful mood, particularly in the Rondeau Allegro final movement. I imagined each as if drinking a flute of musical champagne, the Mozart notes rising like an insistent festive mousse.
Witold Lutosławski [1913–1994]
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The noble and fastidious face of the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski 25 January 1913 - 7 February 1994 |
Partita for violin and orchestra ***
arr. Andrzej Bauer for cello and orchestra Allegro giusto Interludium Largo Interludium Presto |
It was during my earliest remarkable encounters with Poland and working not living in Warsaw in the early 1990s that I first encountered the music of Witold Lutosławski. Already ill with cancer and frail, in his last public performance he conducted his Fourth Symphony at the 1993 Warsaw Autumn Festival. I have never forgotten this profound musical experience.
Witold Lutosławski is without doubt a truly great modern composer in many genres, predominantly for me his piano concerto performed by Krystian Zimerman. The first memory that springs into the viewfinder of my mind hearing his astounding work were my experiences during the avant-garde year of revolution 1968.
During those years I was in Paris writing my own experimental 'indeterminate' avant garde texts influenced by the style of the Nouveau Roman literary movement (Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute, Alain Robbe-Grillet). I was deeply interested in the contemporary classical music of Messiaen, Nono, Berio, Dallapiccola, Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Pousseur, Stockhausen, Boulez, Kagel and Xenakis. I now tend to agree with Penderecki that the avant-garde movement in the arts oftentimes led these deeply imaginative artists into a creative cul-de-sac.
In 1968 I also attended as an observer many of the classes and premieres given by the German electronic composer Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne (Courses for New Music). I continued with my own literary work but heavily influenced by the structure and scope of contemporary classical music, the Nouvelle Vague cinema, Nouveau Roman literature, German Expressionism and French Symbolist poetry.
The 25th January 2013 was the sole previous occasion on which I heard this piece live. It was during the Lutosławski Centenary concert at the Warsaw Filharmonia. One of the world's great musicians, the bewitching and elegant virtuoso violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter had come to Warsaw to perform works that Lutosławski had dedicated to her and to receive a medal and a statuette for her selfless musical work and extra-musical philanthropy.
The sound she produced was like gossamer threads woven around us. Breathtakingly beautiful. This cello transcription by the great Andrzej Bauer took us to yet another dimension of interpretation. Unconventionally melodic, the work appeared as yet another example of Lutosławski's by now perfected 'controlled aleotoric' compositional method (despite the apparent inner contradiction of such a term). Then the Interludium for Orchestra (1989).
This composition is really one of the most remarkable orchestral works I have ever heard. The brilliant Andrzej Bauer on the cello and the Ausko Chamber Orchestra of the City of Tychy under their inspiring conductor Marek Moś can scarcely be compared to Mutter and the Warsaw Philharmonic under Antoni Wit and neither should they be. All musical performances are unique.
His transcription creates a different sound world and a gear shift in sensibility. I recall Mutter stood like some variety of statuesque musical Venus who had wandered out of Botticelli's Primavera, a discreet garland of exotic flowers ascending from the hem of her black gown.
Addressing the audience in German after the concert, she observed:
'Witold Lutosławski is a gift from God. It was 1985 when I first encountered his music, and it was a turning point in my life - he opened a window into the future. It was very fortunate. For me, Witold Lutosławski created the most perfect music.'
If you can excuse my personal musical 'madeleine cake', this fine performance by Andrzej Bauer of a marvellous, although aurally demanding work, set me back on the wandering 'lawless' roads of my musical youth.
Saturday 23.08.25
19:00
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
MAO FUJITA piano
HAGEN QUARTET
LUKAS HAGEN violin
RAINER SCHMIDT violin
VERONIKA HAGEN viola
CLEMENS HAGEN cello
Dmitry Shostakovich [1906–1975]
String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73 (1946)
Allegretto
(‘Blithe ignorance of the future cataclysm’)
Moderato con moto
(‘Rumblings of unrest and anticipation’)
Allegro non troppo
('The forces of war unleashed')
Adagio
(‘In memory of the dead’)
Moderato
(‘The eternal question: why? and for what?’)
The Third String Quartet was Shostakovich’s sole composition during the year 1946. He dedicated it to the members of the Beethoven Quartet, who gave the first performance in Moscow on the 176th birthday of Beethoven, December 16, 1946.
Living in Warsaw in Poland, so close to the war raging mercilessly in Ukraine, it was next to impossible for me to divorce myself from the symbolic and expressive significance of this performance by a Russian composer of genius. However I am Australian with no slavic blood or family memory of the convoluted, bloody history of this part of Europe. I can only give you my impressions as a Westerner listening to Western musicians perform Russian music. My particular filter. In addition, my personal preoccupation with the music of Fryderyk Chopin colours my thoughts and musical imagination. So many of his compositions were inspired by the nostalgic emotions of a Polish exile and the anger aroused by war.
Critical performances of this work in peacetime are mainly directed towards appreciation of the composition as pure, courageously adventurous, chamber music. However, the Borodin Quartet, one of the leading Soviet ensembles of their day established in 1946, the first year of peace, insisted the subtitles being appended to the movements in all their performances.
One cannot help but feel convinced that, although the titles have never been published in an edition of the music, application to the present situation in Europe would achieve the approval of the composer. They not so mysteriously fit the nature of the music:
I: 'Calm unawareness of the future cataclysm'
II: 'Rumblings of unrest and anticipation'
III: 'The forces of war unleashed'
IV: 'Homage to the dead'
V: 'The eternal question: Why? And for what?'
The Hagen Quartet reflected an unassailable peak of professionalism as an ensemble yet with many flashes of soloistic brilliance and expressive inspiration. The beauty of the ensemble sound on their period original instruments, created by the greatest of makers, was remarkably rich in this hall.
The structure of this challenging quartet is unusual (five movements, with themes from earlier movements recalled in the finale). Much of the writing is chromatic and unsettling without a clear tonal focus.
The opening Allegretto moved me into childhood thoughts with its innocence, delight and clear lack of the intimations of the darker of life experiences. The carefree play of a child before the tigers of experience begin their feast. There are even moments of irony here. Shostakovich does indicate a dolce opening for the performers which the Hagen Quartet managed with inspiration. The second theme evolves as a lugubrious premonition.
There is a deep sense of unease in the second movement Moderato con moto, music with a sense full of foreboding. There is an almost sensual memory of a phantom waltz which dissolves into a muted instrumental silence.
Aggression and the tumult of battle is the dominant emotion of the third movement Allegro non troppo. The quartet takes one almost physically by the throat and ear in a violent attempt to create in sound the horrifying explosive weaponry of modern war. This was magnificently achieved by the Hagen with the limited volume of four instruments in a quartet rather than the battery of a full orchestra. This movement was brought to threatening life by means of their cohesive collective ensemble of dynamics, intonation, tone, timbre and texture.
The expressive fourth movement Adagio ('Homage to the dead') was a profoundly moving, extended Passacaglia. One almost without resistance, was forced by memory to recall in the mind's eye the limitless and oppressive video footage of destruction, war dead and maimed that we are confronted with daily in Ukraine. I was put in mind of the human anguish contained in the late quartets of Beethoven.
These powerful emotions proceed without hesitation into the Moderato finale. The cello’s dark, sensual theme is accompanied by pizzicato harmonics on the viola. Shostakovich recalls themes from earlier in the work and the quartet dissolves enigmatically through scarcely perceptible ppp into almost unbearable yet beautiful silence.
This hiatus was preserved for contemplation by the Hagen for some time after the concluding sound drifted into the ether. The conviction was inescapable that in 2025 this immortal quartet, performed by such great instrumentalists, contained vastly more than 'pure music'. Marked morendo (fading away to die) by Shostakovich, it seemed, at least to me, a tragic expression of the ghastly reality that confronts us today.
Johannes Brahms [1833–1897]
Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 (1861–1864)
Allegro non troppo
Andante, un poco adagio
Scherzo. Allegro – Trio
Finale. Poco sostenuto – Allegro non
troppo – Presto, non troppo
The Brahms Quintet has had a chequered career in gestation to say the least! Steve Lacoste in a note for the LA Philharmonic wrote movingly and revealingly: 'The development of Brahms’ Piano Quintet is not unlike the metamorphic journey of the butterfly from larva to cocoon to its final emergence as a miraculous winged creature.'
In autumn 1862 Brahms sent Clara Schumann the first three movements of a quintet in F minor for two violins, viola and two cellos—the same ensemble that Schubert used for his great C major Quintet D 956. Her response was warmly enthusiastic:
'What inner strength, what richness in the first movement, with the first subject immediately seizing hold of you! How beautifully written for the instruments—how easily I can picture them neatly bowing away … How bold the transition at letter B, how intimate the subsidiary first subject, then the second subject in C sharp minor, then the development of the latter and the transition back to the first subject again, and how wonderfully the instruments blend together, and that dream-like passage at the end, then the accelerando and the bold, passionate ending—I can’t tell you how moved I am by it, and how powerfully gripped. And what an Adagio—it sings and sounds blissful right up to the last note! I start it over and over again, and don’t want to stop. I like the Scherzo very much, too, only the trio seems somewhat very short to me? And when will the last movement arrive?
Brahms sent the work to his friend and musical mentor the violinist Joseph Joachim. ‘It is’, Joachim commented to Brahms, ‘a piece of the greatest significance, full of masculine strength and sweeping design—that much is immediately apparent to me.' However, Joachim had reservations about the effectiveness of its scoring. Brahms then remodeled it as a sonata for two pianos. Clara Schumann was shocked after receiving it ‘I can hardly believe what you write to me about your quintet!’, she told Brahms on 10 March 1864. Brahms finally recast it as a piano quintet.
When Hermann Levi heard the work in its latest recast quintet form he told Brahms on November 5, 1865:
The Quintet is beautiful beyond words. Anyone who did not know it in its earlier forms of string quintet and two-piano sonata would never believe that it was not originally thought out and designed for the present combination of instruments… You have turned a monotonous work for two pianos into a thing of great beauty, a masterpiece of chamber music…'
Levi thought it the most significant chamber work since the death of Schubert, whose structural influence is present. Brahms also seems to recall the opening bars of Beethoven’s Appassionata Piano Sonata Op 57.
The Hagen Quartet approached the work with an almost grandiose masculine command of Brahms. I was reminded at times of the great Amadeus Quartet that I grew up with in my youth, presented in those days as the very pinnacle among string quartets. With the strong contrasting timbre of the piano played by this talented young Japanese artist against the strings, glorious melodies were permitted to emerge and, at times, created an almost symphonic palette of colour, dynamics and expression. The contrapuntal nature of much of the composition was revealed transparently.
Despite this monumental nobility of utterance, I felt at times a distinct lack of subtle lyric expressiveness that Brahms weaves into all his compositions. I will not analyze each movement, save to say that the Hagen and Mao Fujita, in a passionate and triumphal conclusion to the Brahms, made a conclusive statement of the power of music to overcome any obstacles perversely erected by humanity. The scale of creativity they brought to the work prompted me from my seat in an unaccustomed standing position to applaud!
No encore was offered, which I felt simply confirmed this concert as not a 'performance' by artists but as a spiritual therefore musical, honoring of a tragic and valiant nation embroiled in an unprovoked war.
Friday 22.08.25
20:30
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Alexander Melnikov piano
Belcea Quartet
Passion, coupled with precision, unheard-of expressiveness and pure emotion characterize the concerts of the Belcea Quartet. With the Romanian violinist Corina Belcea, the Korean-Australian Suyeon Kang on second violin, the Polish violist Krzysztof Chorzelski and the French cellist Antoine Lederlin, four different artistic provenances meet and unite to create unique excellence.
Program:
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Fugue in E flat major, Op. 81 No. 4
This Fugue is the earliest of four pieces grouped together for publication but not by Mendelssohn himself. The work was composed in 1827, when he was only 18 years old. Mendelssohn’s astonishingly precocious gifts, arguably on a level with Mozart or even greater, were obvious from the outset in this counterpoint and fugal writing. Beethoven's last quartets had a deep effect on the young composer. In many ways it is tribute to Mendelssohn's idols Bach and Beethoven and an extraordinarily appropriate choice for this festival.
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| The Pass of Killicrankie as sketched by Mendelssohn on his famous Scottish tour of 1829 (MS. M. Deneke Mendelssohn d. 2, fol. 19). |
Capriccio in E minor, Op. 81 No. 3
The Capriccio in E minor (Op. 81 No. 3) was composed in 1843 while Mendelssohn was in Leipzig. The movement starts out with a barcarolle sung on the first violin with superb intonation (an unmatched feature of Belcea), tone, texture and beauty by Corina Belcea. Mendelssohn then creates a fugue in the style of J.S. Bach. This was in likely homage to Bach which Mendelssohn’s resuscitation of the St. Matthew Passion changed the direction of musical appreciation of the great composer.
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| The Château de Chillon (23 Dec 1843). This tiny watercolour by Mendelssohn measures only a few centimetres across (MS. M. Deneke Mendelssohn c. 49, fol. 97). |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
String Quartet in C major (K. 465)
Hans Keller (1919–1985) was an Austrian-born British musician and writer. He made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, as well commentating on many unrelated fields of intellectual endeavor. He was well known on the BBC for his waspish wit. I shall never forget hearing him analyzing this quartet with another musicologist on BBC Radio 3. After a hesitation on the part of the other concerning a point of history, Keller crushingly commented in his inimitable mitteleuropäisch accent 'I see you do not know your Haydn quartets.' Silence followed.
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| Josephium, exterior view, engraving, ca 1785 (Josephinum, Medical University of Vienna) |
This renowned quartet known as the 'Dissonance', is the last in a set of six known as the 'Haydn' quartets (1782-1785). They caused him some anguish and great labour and were never intended to be performed as a group. Mozart adored Haydn (known in history as 'the father of the string quartet') in a climate of mutual reverence. Unlike Mozart, Haydn flourished in the courtly milieu more as a Kapelle-servant than a Kapelle-master, rather a 'sad slave' to composition. This quartet of 1785, dedicated to Haydn, 'distinguished Man and dearest Friend', is 'one of the sui generis moments of his creative life' (Jan Swafford).
It opens darkly on the pulsing cello, even in normally sunny C major, which is joined to create a marked dissonant mysterious atmospheric effect with an A-flat on the viola, E-flat on the second violin and finally an A natural on the first violin. The A natural is intentionally wrong. One explanation of Mozart's harmonic adventure that I read in Swafford, which I found most interesting, is that Mozart had joined the Masons a short time before this composition. The philosophy of uncertain darkness giving way to the certainty of illuminating light lies at the very core of Masonic belief. In the quartet we never return to that darkness.
As the great Vietnamese pianist Đặng Thái Sơn remarked at a masterclass I once attended 'When in the presence of a great performance, there is nothing left to be said.' This was exactly how I felt at the conclusion of this stellar interpretation. The cohesion of the ensemble and dialogue between instruments was quite extraordinary. This was a performance that achieved the highest elegance, grace and refinement. The long second movement Adagio cantabile, the heart of the piece, was deeply affecting. The final movement Allegro molto, a contredance, was bursting with life, joy and wit. Such a musical experience !
Antonín Dvořák
Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81
Actually the piano quintet is not such a popular genre as one might think - there are not that many. Those that have been written express the very essence of the composer and with the Dvorak Quintet in A major op. 81 we have his personal lyricism and love of the Czech folk idiom beautifully allied. It is also a masterpiece of the form. The composer wrote it in 1887 utilizing original melodies he composed in the folk style. the Allegro ma non tanto was spirited in performance and Melnikov with his supreme musicality and keyboard virtuosity dovetailed into this excellent Belcea ensemble.
He is highly musical and was careful to subordinate the piano when necessary, listening closely to the what the string players are expressing. The Dumka: Andante con moto had a central European feel to it from this quartet who expressed a fine flowing cantabile. The Dumka is a ballad form that alternates slow-fast-slow tempi. It originated on the steppes of Ukraine but is well known in the Czech lands.
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| The 'Furiant' |
The Scherzo (Furiant): molto vivace I felt was at a tempo possessing great energy for this physical Czech dance known as the furiant. The Finale was a lively and highly joyful polka (so needed today with this cloud of despond hovering over the planet) with an exuberant tempo for this dance. Melnikov was in full seamless ensemble here. Of course, it gave him ample opportunity with this magnificent quartet to display his solo pianistic and musical skills with excellent touch, tone and palette of colour. His emotional range in this tightly constructed, much admired and loved work was exemplary.
An enthusiastic standing ovation !
As an encore they most affectingly and musically performed the moving Andante from the Brahms Quintet in F minor Op. 34
I spoke to them all later backstage and found them all in possession of immense musical integrity and friendliness, incredibly warm artists with no personal vanity in evidence whatsoever, considering their immense musical talents.
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