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Artist: Rafal Blechacz
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Rafal Blechacz:

Chopin

“I feel that I have had some adventures with these pieces before recording them,” says Rafal Blechacz, whose latest album is a tribute to his compatriot Chopin. “I’m freer today regarding the use of tempo rubato, dynamic contrasts and emotional extremes, and maybe I’m braver with certain ideas. I didn’t want to wait any longer before going into the studio.” 

Blechacz’s devotion to the art of Chopin predates his victory in the 2005 Warsaw International Chopin Piano Competition – when he became just the fourth Polish winner in its prestigious history. It has continued to deepen and mature over the years, underpinned by a desire to uncover fresh layers of expression and meaning. Rafal Blechacz – Chopin presents his insightful interpretations of Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, among the most musically adventurous and technically demanding in the piano repertoire. It also includes two carefully chosen companion pieces: the Nocturne Op. 48 No. 2 and the Barcarolle Op. 60. The album will be released by Deutsche Grammophon in all formats, including a 2-LP vinyl edition, on 3 March 2023. 

Chopin completed his Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor in 1839 while staying at Nohant, the novelist George Sand’s idyllic country manor south of Paris. The work channels elements of technical display, lyricism and dance rhythms into the framework of a four-movement sonata. Its sombre slow movement, the famous Funeral March, originally conceived in 1837 as a free-standing piece and often performed as such, is one of Chopin’s most popular compositions; its pathos and drama, however, are intensified when heard in the context of the sonata as a whole. 

Rafal Blechacz:

Chopin Polonaises

Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz has just released his third recording of Chopin on Deutsche Grammophon (his fifth album for the label overall) and continues to demonstrate his rare ability to bring fresh interpretation and new insight to these works. The winner of the 2005 Chopin Competition, including a sweep of all five first prize awards, Blechacz has now recorded his interpretations of Chopin's popular and demanding Polonaises which were published during the composer's lifetime, available now.  The album has already reached Gold status in Poland.

It was with a polonaise in G minor that the seven-year-old Frédéric Chopin first appeared before the public as a composer, in Warsaw in 1817. Twenty-nine years later his career came full circle with the Polonaise-Fantaisie op.?61, one of the last works that he completed before his death. The polonez's origins lie in sung dances performed at rural weddings, but by the 17th century it had evolved into an instrumental dance popular at the courts of the Polish aristocracy before being taken up by composers such as Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Telemann, Joseph Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. In Chopin's hands it acquired an unprecedented formal and conceptual perfection. The experience of exile proved to be of existential significance for Chopin. It was not the gallant atmosphere of the Warsaw salons that created a bond between him and his homeland but the desire for freedom, political independence and humanity. From 1830 the Poland of mazurkas and polonaises became an increasingly remote ideal.

Rafal Blechacz:

Johann Sebastian Bach

Praised by the Washington Post as "a musician in service to [Bach's] music, searching its depths, exploring its meaning and probing its possibilities", the now 31-year-old Rafal Blechacz, winner of the 2005 International Chopin Piano Competition, has been immersed in Bach since childhood and has cultivated a strikingly natural eloquence in his mature interpretations of the composer's keyboard works. 

Blechacz's first Bach album, set for release on Deutsche Grammophon on February 10, opens with one of the pianist's signature pieces, the Italian Concerto BWV 971, and includes the Partitas No.1 in B flat major BWV 825 and No.3 in A minor BWV 827. The programme also comprises the four Duets BWV 802-805, enigmatic pieces from Part Three of the Clavier-Übung, the Fantasie and Fugue in A minor BWV 944, and the chorale Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring as transcribed for piano by Dame Myra Hess.

Rafal Blechacz approaches each of these works with an awareness of the history of Bachian performance. Knowing about period instruments and performance practice, he agrees, can help reveal how the composer might have intended his music to be played. Yet he is also convinced that, when it comes to bringing Bach's music to life, head must never rule heart. "Of course, it's very important to be well informed about Baroque style," he observes. "But sometimes with Bach I feel it's even more important to listen to your heart and your intuition."