Straight from Szczecin | Michał Francuz

The program for the greatest legends of the piano will be presented by a pianist from Szczecin who is currently associated with the Academy of Music in Poznań, Michał Francuz. The artist performs as a soloist and chamber musician, and among his concert projects, a particularly ambitious undertaking was the performance of all of Beethoven piano concertos in two days.

The artist will begin his virtuoso recital with Bach – Partita No.2 in C minor, BWV 826. After a series of baroque dances, we will move several centuries to the future, where the waltz reigned. "La Valse" by Maurice Ravel is a personal tribute to the form of the waltz and its most famous creator Johann Strauss II. Ravel expressed his fascination with the waltz in "Valses nobles et sentimentales" from 1911. The composition, sometimes referred to as a choreographic poem for orchestra, was originally commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev as music for a new ballet. The choreographer, after listening, stated that although it was wonderful, it was not fit for ballet – which was extremely offensive to Ravel. The composer himself referred to it as "the apotheosis of the Viennese waltz", and the vision of Vienna at the time of Frank Joseph was the inspiration for him. However, this is not a carefree vision, but rather a look at 19th-century salons from the perspective of a man who had experienced the atrocities of World War I.

In turn, the waltz from the opera "Faust" by Charles Gounod in the work of Ferenc Liszt is actually a concert summary of the most important themes of the entire opera. In addition to the famous waltz ending act I, the pianist-composer also reached for the love duet of Margaret and Faust from the second act, giving the whole a very spectacular, virtuoso character.

A completely different dimension of virtuosity and sensitivity fills the the Sonata in B-flat minor Op. 35 by Frédéric Chopin. The composition was made in 1839 in Nohant at the George Sand estate, who in his memoirs wrote about the composer's creative troubles – constant changes of ideas, constant corrections. The work of form and meaning remains a mystery to researchers – with a funeral march in the third movement and a fleeting, almost atonal finale. It wasn’t dedicated to anyone, perhaps being one of Chopin's most personal works.