Chopin Year 2000 SvD Swedish News

A tasteful and soulful performance opens the Chopin year

Polish pianist Ewa Kupiec replaced an ill Horacio Gutiérrez, with Chopin’s first piano concerto. This was by no means a bad exchange, sense she has already recorded a remarkable CD of both concerti, and previously performed Chopin’s 2nd here in the ‘Konserthuset’ to a full house on the edge of their seats.

The music flowed from Ewa Kupiec’s fingertips, as she tours Europe with both concerti in a chamber version together with the Prazak Quartet. And she played here with refined bravura and a pregnant sound in the passionate virtuoso sections, contrasting a warm, delicate, introverted performance in the lyrical passages.

In the Melancholic Romance in E minor, the concerto’s 2nd movement:…Mrs. Kupiec highlighted the final ‘Krakowian dance’ accentuating the lively, rustic folk dance character on the music.

A great success, this speedy replacement. The extra number, almost obligatory, was a very beautifully played posthumous Chopin Nocturn in C# minor. All together the concert left us with a taste for more – maybe a solo evening with Chopin and the Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz – something to look forward to.