Pianist shines in pair of weekend concerts
The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra opened its classical music season series with works by Polish composers, some known and others less well known. With many dignitaries and consulates general in the audience plus a large turnout by the Calgary Polish community, the scene was set for an evening of “Polish Spectacular” music, vigorously conducted from the podium by an emotive Edmond Agopian.
The real star of the show however, was the beloved 1992 Honens Laureate and audience favourite Krzysztof Jablonski, who played both Chopin piano concertos, offering the First in E minor on Friday and the Second in F minor on Saturday. Playing with astute refinement of tone and complete control over the instrument, he made splendid performances of both works. The first two movements of the E minor concerto evinced sheer musicality, appropriate use of rubato at all times, disciplined tone, and near flawless technique. Perhaps most enjoyable of all was his ability to create a sense of timeless floating throughout the second movement, allowing Chopin’s trademark speculative interiority to fill the hall.
The third movement conveyed a much more straightforward, less adventurous interpretation of both tempo and articulation of the main theme. No matter: It worked well, and Jablonski respected the music, endowing it with suitable character and virtuoso shine.
Saturday night’s performance of the Concerto in F minor was equally beautiful and especially melancholic in places, with captivating tone in the second movement and a robust yet subtle character in the third.
The cheering audience demanded two encores, and Jablonski obliged, choosing Chopin’s sentimental nocturne Lento con gran espressione for his first and continued the eloquent mood with his arrangement of Piazzola’s famed tango Oblivion.
And Friday night, Jablonski endeared himself to the many appreciative Chopin fans in attendance with ripping encores of the ‘ Military’ Polonaise and the famously turbulent C minor Etude ( Op. 10, No. 12) with unerring left- hand arpeggiated agitation, modulated duly with clear, refined tone.
The concert opened with an orchestral arrangement of Chopin’s Polonaise in A major and a sturdy accounting of the late nineteenth- century composer Zygmunt Noskowski’s Variations on an Original Theme. Next, the orchestra shifted gears easily into Henryk Gorecki’s stylistically fused Pieces in the Olden Style, of which they played the hymnlike Third.
Gorecki’s hymn tune is, at times, clearly stated, and at other times suppressed under the texture of cluster chord dissonances surrounding each melodic note and accompanying harmony. The fused style represents both music’s future superimposed upon the past, while simultaneously characterizing Communism’s smothering repression of creative expression. The CPO grasped the underlying message completely in their moving performance, nuanced with eerie harmonic spectral effects that rang with illuminative acoustic clarity. Here, the orchestra captured perfectly the concert’s symbolic purpose, namely that throughout history it has often been inspired Polish musicians who have best preserved their people’s culture and heritage in the worst of traumatic, nightmarish times.
Equally challenging, albeit in a very different way, was the Szymanowski Concert Overture Op. 12, an early work that takes much of its influence from Richard Strauss, a common trait found in many young 20th- century composers.
However, Szymanowski, known primarily as a gifted pianist/ composer, also established a reputation in his early years as an important nationalist through his orchestral musical genius. The CPO put valiant effort into demonstrating these qualities in Szymanowski’s carefully crafted, supple, ever- changing score.
Also on the program was Tchaikovsky’s beloved Polonaise from Eugene Onegin, Chopin’s Prelude and Mazurka No. 2 from Les Sylphides as orchestrated by Glazunov and after intermission, Canadian- Polish composer Ryszard Wrzaskala’s tonalized nostalgia piece, Adagio from Centennial Suite.