Auditorio de Tenerife ofrece, dentro de su Ciclo de Cámara, este recital de piano.

FIGHT THE DARKNESS WITH CREATIVITY

Szpilman: Mazurek (1942) and the Suite „The Life of the Machines“ (1933)

Andrzej, Władysław Szpilman’s son, was the one who gave me the scores of the Piano Suite „The Life of the Machines“(1933)

and Mazurek (1942). Together with his Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (1940) and „Waltz in the olden style“ (1937)

they are the only extant pieces Szpilman composed before or during World War II.

The Suite dates from the year 1933 and consists of three movements:

I. —

II. “Machine at rest”

III. Toccatina

The autograph of the Suite was considered lost, and according to Władysław Szpilman’s son, Andrzej, his father was not able to restore the 1st and the 2nd movements after his traumatic experiences during Holocaust and World War II. So it is a great luck that the personal copy of the Suite, dating from 1934, was found and given back to Andrzej Szpilman in 2000.

In his Suite “The Life of the Machines” Szpilman reflects on the industrialization with a sense of humor by musically assigning human adjectives to the machines but also by giving its movements titles like „Machine at rest“. It gives us

a glimpse of what Szpilman might have composed if he hadn’t experienced the atrocities of the World War.

DIGNIFIED ACCEPTANCE OF FATE

Weinberg: Piano Sonata No. 4 (1955)

It was Gidon Kremer who introduced me to Mieczysław Weinberg’s music, whose music we performed and recorded together. From my first glance at the scores I was amazed by the deep expression of this music — a fascination that has not left me since. Weinberg’s tragic personal experience

left a clear mark on his music: In 1939 he escaped Poland alone after his parents

and sister were murdered by the Nazi regime. He continued his studies in Minsk until 1943 when — thanks to Shostakovich’s support — he was able to move to Moscow where he stayed until his death in 1996. Weinberg composed his Piano Sonata No. 4 in 1955 after another tragic period in his life: His father in law, famous actor and theatre director Solomon Mikhoels, was assassinated in 1948 and on Stalin’s order Weinberg was also persecuted and arrested in 1953. It was essentially Stalin’s death

which saved his life. The Fourth Piano Sonata expresses multifarious states of the soul: Fear, despair and resignation appear hand in hand with hope and warmth. In the end it feels like he meets his fate with dignified acceptance.

RISE ABOVE THE TURMOIL

Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 8 Op. 84 (1939-44)

After living in the United States and

Paris Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union in 1936 and had to adapt to the rules of cultural life there. The political atmosphere was becoming more taut with the beginning of repressions in 1937. The arrest and murder of Vsevolod Meyerhold, a theatre director and friend of Prokofiev’s, shocked and scared him to the highest degree. He perceived his personal situation as unstable and the harbinger of war aggrieved him a lot. In 1939 he started

to work on three piano sonatas — No. 6, 7 and 8 —, which are known as his „War Sonatas“ today. These works were created in the same period of time but could not be more different: The bridge connecting them consists of various expressions of fight and survival. Sonata No. 8, finished and premiered in 1944 by Emil Gilels, is the largest and most ambiguous of the three. Its dreamy, almost surreal mood in the first movement interrupted by violent, painful episodes is a reflection of the fragile world he was facing. An allegedly safe world suddenly turns out to be dangerous but within this piece Prokofiev musically rises above the turmoil to overcome this dark time.