The programme, with Chopin, Weinberg and Prokofiev, includes a suite by Szpilman, Holocaust survivor and main character of ˋThe Pianistˊ.

 

The pianist Yulianna Avdeeva performs Resiliencia this Tuesday (14th) at 7:30 p.m. in the Chamber Hall of the Auditorio de Tenerife Adán Martín. The programme includes works that are marked by the instability of the times in which their composers lived, including Władysław Szpilman (1911-2000), Holocaust survivor and main character in Roman Polanski's film The Pianist (2002). Szpilman's son gave Avdeeva the score of the suite, which was thought to be lost and can now be heard in the Auditorio.

In addition to Szpilman's work The Life of Machines, Avdeeva will perform the Piano Sonata No. 4 by Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996), who fled to Poland in 1939 after his family was murdered by the Nazi regime; Piano Sonata n. 8 by Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953), who after living in the United States and Paris, returned to the Soviet Union in 1936 suffering a hardened political environment, and Polonaise-Fantasie by Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), exiled in France after the failure of the Polish revolution of 1830.

The title of this programme, which is also the title of one of Avdeeva's CDs, refers to the resilience of these composers and their works, which means their ability to overcome traumatic circumstances such as death, war or accidents. At the heart of this album is Szpilman, the Polish Jew who survived the Second World War thanks to the power of his music. Inspired by the unique opportunity to play the piano in Szpilman's home, this CD project helped Avdeeva face the challenges of our time.

Wladyslaw Szpilman's son, Andrzej Szpilman, not only gave Avdeeva the scores for the piano suite The Life of Machines (1933), but also for 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 autograph of the Suite was considered lost, and, according to Andrzej, his father was not able to restore the 1st and the 2nd movements after his traumatic experiences during the Holocaust and World War II. It was not until 2000 that the personal copy of the 1934 suite was returned to Szpilman's son.

In his Suite, the pianist reflects on industrialization with a sense of humour by musically assigning human adjectives to the machines. It gives us a glimpse of what Szpilman might have composed if he hadn't experienced the atrocities of the World War.

Yulianna Avdeeva earned international recognition at the 2010 Chopin Competition, winning First Place with a "detailed way of playing" that "matched Chopin's own", according to The Telegraph. Among her many orchestral collaborators are the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel, the Baltimore Symphony with Marin Alsop, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra with Kent Nagano, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Vasily Petrenko, and the London Philharmonic with Vladimir Jurowski.

She has given public performances in the world's most prestigious concert halls, and she is also a regular guest at the Chopin festivals and the La Roque-d'Anthéron International Piano Festival. After recording the Chopin concerts with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Frans Brüggen (2013), Avdeeva released three solo albums, including works by Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Prokofiev. Her chamber music recordings of Mieczyslaw Weinberg with Gidon Kremer have been released by ECM Records (2017), as well as Deutsche Grammophon (2019).

The tickets can be purchased at a single price of €15 on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office, or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Check the special discounts for the audience under 30 years of age, students, unemployed, and large families.