From Paderewski Competition to Yoder Recitals - Nine Months of Music in California (Vol. 17, No. 2)

FEBRUARY: AMERICAN PADEREWSKI PIANO COMPETITION

Nine months passed since the 4th American International Paderewski Piano Competition, held in February 2026. Organized by the Paderewski Music Society at the Murphy Recital Hall in Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, the event was initiated by Prof. Wojciech Kocyan who teaches piano at Loyola Marymount and serves as Artistic Director of the Society. He is also the winner of the First Prize in a much older and larger II National Ignacy Jan Paderewski Piano Competition in Poland in 1986. 

The Los Angeles event, held every three years, showcased young international pianists aged 16 to 31 during a week of recitals that culminated with the award presentation and final concert. The 1st Prize went to South Korean pianist Seonghun Jeong who also won the Special Prize for best performance of a contemporary work. The 2nd Prize went to Wooyoung Cho (South Korea), third to Dominic Doutney (UK) and the Special Prize for the best performance of a work by Paderewski went to the youngest finalist, Pun Punyasavatsut (Thailand). In addition, the Jury awarded two Honorable Mentions: Vladimir Petrov (Mexico) and Daehyeon Jung (South Korea).

Prof. Wojciech Kocyan with two donors supporting the competition: 

Maja Trochimczyk and Lucyna Przasnyski

Seonghun Jeong  receives his First Prize, applauded by donors and Douglas Yoder, MC.

The Jury consisted of: Grammy-winning pianist, Gloria Cheng, Gramophone music critic and pianist Jed Distler, Prof. Wojciech Kocyan, Prof. Adam Wibrowski of Paris, and Prof.  Wojciech Switala of Katowice, Poland. The concert of award winners started with an introduction by Wojciech Kocyan introducing the larger-than-life figure of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a celebrated pianist, neglected composer, patriot-politician, a polyglot, and generous philanthropist with a golden heart.  All finalists received books about Paderewski - a collection of poems about him and essays (Paderewski Essays  & Poems by Maja Trochimczyk), and a set of Paderewski Plays by Kazimierz Braun. Both books were published in English by Moonrise Press in 2025, especially for this competition. 

The First Prize winner, Seonghun Jeong played one of Franz Liszt’s dramatic Legends and Carl Vine’s brilliant Piano Sonata No. 1 (1990). Unlike many classical pianists, he started his music education quite late, at the age of 14; graduating summa cum laude from Yonsei University in Korea. He won a series of nine First Prizes in various Korean piano competitions, including the Korean Liszt Association Competition,  and is currently continuing his music studies at Southern Methodist University in the U.S.  With impeccable technique and unparalleled virtuosity, Jeong captures his listeners' minds and hearts through his intensely dramatic and emotional interpretations of complex works. During the concert, I was particularly impressed with the talent of the English pianist, Dominic Doutney, who delighted the audience with the spirited and colorful rendition of Debussy.

MARCH: POLA BENKE CONDUCTS SANTA MONICA SYMPHONY

The second notable "Polish" event of  a year with music in Los Angeles was a concert of Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pola Benke, a cellist and conductor who recently became the Pricipal Conductor and the Artistic Director of the organization. Benke also serves as Assistant Conductor of the Pacific Symphony and Music Director of the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra. Born in Poland, she holds Master’s degrees in Cello Performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. In 2014 she finished her postgraduate studies with Marek Szpakiewicz at Azusa Pacific University. She previously held conducting positions with the Long Beach Symphony and Riverside Philharmonic and has participated in leading conducting programs and festivals throughout Europe and the United States, studying with distinguished conductors including Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Sian Edwards, Jonathon Heyward, Tomasz Golka (Music Director at Riverside Philharmonic), and Christopher Russell. 

With Ms. Benke's rise to the top position in Santa Monica, we now have two great Polish conductors in Southern California. Mr. Golka is also a violinist and Ms. Benke, a cellist - both have mastered the intricacies of the musical craft. 

Held on 14 March 2026, at John Adams Middle School Performing Arts Center, the concert was entitled: "Scenes from Life: Identity" and featured young pianist Ryota Yamazaki as soloist in Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor. The evening commenced with a "identity" gesture of the conductor acknowledging her Polish background with Witold Lutosławski's Mała Suita (Little Suite) based on folk melodies. For this, Ms. Benke dressed in a colorful folk vest worn by women in villages where these melodies were originally performed.  The rendition was joyous, lively, and precise, accurately reflecting the intonations and rhythmic inflections of Polish folklore filtered through an artistic lens of one of Poland's greatest 20th century composers. 

Pola Benke with Ryota Yamazaki after the performance.

Already in the first piece, Ms. Benke's great rapport with the musicians became apparent. They simply loved making music together and their enthusiasm was easily shared by the audience, including small children allowed to sit .  The joyous mood of an international array of musicians continued in the Chopin Piano Concerto, delightfully played by the young virtuoso of Japanese background. Just like South Koreans who triumphed in the Paderewski Piano Competition discussed above, this east Asian pianist displayed a full understanding of Chopin's music, coupled with profound musicality and brilliant virtuosity. There are so many young pianists starting their careers in every decade, more and more of these talents come out of east Asia, where the respect for hard work, long hours of practice, and honoring tradition are still very much alive. I wish Ryota Yamazaki all possible success in the future!

Pola Benke with her Cello teacher, Marek Szpakiewicz

The second part of the concert presented one of the greatest classics of 19th century music, Ludwig van Beethoven — Symphony No. 1. The enthusiastic and well-prepared orchestra was attentive and responsive to every gesture of the talented conductor.  The music they created together was energetic, colorful and vibrant; thoroughly enjoyed by over 700 listeners in the audience, including a couple of toddlers who tried to climb up to dance on the stage. This is what we need to be truly happy and fulfilled - brilliant, vibrant communities filled with brilliant, vibrant music - played live on the stage, not from recordings!  

Another chance to experience such enthusiastic and exquisite music making was the concert on 19 October 2026, opening the new season dedicated to "Voices Unbound"  with a focus on individual and collective experience. On that evening, Benke conducted Marek Szpakiewicz as soloist in Dmitri Shostakovich's Cello Concerto. Alas, due to social obligation, I missed it... 

Arden in April 2026

APRIL: CHOPIN ACADEMY AT HELENA MODJESKA'S ARDEN

There are dozens of concerts played monthly in southern California, in major concert halls and ad-hoc spaces. The Helena Modjeska House and Gardens site in southern Orange County has partnered for the second time with the Chopin Academy, directed by Roza Yoder and broght young students with Chopin 's music to play under the live oaks in the "Forest of Arden" surrounding the historic property of great Polish theater star, director, producer, costume designer, artist and writer. I wrote about the April 2026 concert on this blog already. I gave all young musicians gift bags with pens, markers, notebooks, and brief biographies of Helena Modjeska published for this purpose by Moonrise Press.  The older pianists also received copies of Paderewski Essays & Poems.

https://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2026/04/poems-about-music-at-modjeska-historic.html

Mira Lei plays Chopin and Lutoslawski under live oaks in Arden.

It is such a great joy to hear youth play classical music in a site brimming with history and beauty.  The ancient live oaks, sago palms, and redwoods provided a magical background to the sounds of Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Paderewski and Liszt.  These sounds could have been heard in Arden in the 1880s when Paderewski visited his mentor and friend and played for her guests on the piano in her salon... 

George H. Wood photo of Queen of the Night, 1860, National Gallery of Art.

JUNE: DESTROYING MAGIC IN MOZART'S MAGIC FLUTE

It does not matter who loses and who wins on the battlefield, it seems, as long as great music is played so well... and it can, if the Western civilization does not fall to its greatest enemy of terrorist Islam. But the Western civilization may also fall when it is attacked from within, when the rot inside reaches its heart. I reflected on this post-modernist cultural "rot" while enjoying the heavenly voices of soloist in the best opera of all times, W.A. Mozart's Magic Flute performed at the Music Center by Los Angeles Opera on 20 June 2026. I enjoyed it because I closed my eyes and focused on the extraordinary voices and fantastic orchestra, conducted by James Conlon in this final performance as Music Director. Miles Mykkanen was Prince Tamino, Sydney Mancasola Princess Pamina, Kyle Miller - Papageno, Aigul  Khismatullina - the coloratura Queen of the Night, and baritone Kwangchul Youn tried to reach the lowest registers of the Priest Sarastro. Incredible voices, fantastic arias and duets. So much to enjoy. Even the three priestesses, three boys, and other minor characters sung very well.  

Marcellina Sembrich Kochanska as Queen of the Night at the Metropolitan Opera, 1900

Alas, the production of the Komische Oper Berlin transformed childlike magic into monstrosities, the Queen of the Night because hideous spider, the dream of a house full of children by Papageno and Papagena - a satire of grotesque monsters, black insects crawled and blood poured from knifes across the whole huge screen.  Some, most gruesome images were cut out from the projection this time, compared to the one I saw two years ago in Warsaw, Poland. But the whole staging was thoroughly and completely disgusting. How can the sublimely, magnificently beautiful and enchanting Queen of the Night become an atrociously horrible spider? This transformation completely destroys the narrative and logic of the Magic Flute. I was so annoyed I wanted to write a complaint letter to the orchestra, similar to the one I meant to but finally did not write for Warsaw's National Opera. There, it was so gross, I felt nauseated. Why would this horror-of-a-distorted staging be taken around the world, from one theater to the next? To disgust all audiences? To convince them that this light-hearted magical piece is a dark, ominous fantasy, a distorted fruit of a sick mind? To destroy all beauty, charm and delight in the world, and replace it with ugliness, caricature, and hate? 

Casati as Queen of the Night, 1922

Bizarre! Maybe there is, indeed, a global conspiracy to destroy classical music to the applause by all the millions of Islamists who hate Western culture, Western masterpieces, and Western art? It definitely seems so, after the misadventure with the Magic Flute. How to counter it? All creators and managers of this monstrous project should - as punishment and "re-education" - have to watch the fantastic film that Ingmar Bergman made in 1975. The delighted faces of the audience, interspersed with the simple props and costumes on the stage - this is the true magic of the Magic Flute! 

JULY: LEONIDAS KAVAKOS'S STRADIVARIUS AT HOLLYWOOD BOWL

What is perfection in classical music? A Greek virtuoso violinist, Leonidas Kavakos playing a Russian concerto on an antique Italian Stradivarius violin, accompanied by American Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra under the baton of a Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård.  The program on 14 July 2026 (The Bastille Day, with fireworks in France!) paired two greatest masterpieces of the entire Western repertoire: Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92. Everyone loves the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, so I was looking forward to this interpretation under the stars, interrupted by distant police car sirens and helicopter buzz... But.... what an experience! The music was simply breathtaking, not a note out of place, nothing casually thrown off. Pure musical bliss!  

I have to admit that I did not know Kavakos before this concert, that immediately captured my attention with incredibly rich and alluring sound of the violin. Even the amplification for the thousands at the Hollywood Bowl did not spoil the effect. The sonorities were so energetic, so rich and saturated in the whole range... simply heavenly! So, I did what any modern concert-goer would do, I googled Kavakos's violin - and voila!  A bona fide Stradivarius!  No wonder this Italian violin-maker was such a legend. The vibrations of his instruments touch the very soul of the listener.  The Greek virtuoso currently plays the so-called "Willemotte" violin made in 1734 by Antonio Stradivari who was then about 90 years old.  Kavakos purchased it in 2017; he loves his Stradivarius violins and previously for eight years played another instrument, nick-named "Abergavenny" and made in 1724. The Willemotte instrument has an unique acoustic profile, with intense richness of lower registers and full saturation of overtones in the highest registers. These complex characteristics were ideal for this ideal interpretation of the ideal violin concerto. You just had to be there. The energy in the air was incredible! 

The L.A. Phil musicians did their best to match the soloist's excellence and, under the baton of Thomas Søndergård reached heights of perfection in their rendering of Beethoven's joyous Seventh. They filled the "Dance" symphony with such incredible profusion of sophisticated musical details without losing track of the overall dramatic form. Even the best known slow movement, often played too slowly and too heavily as a funeral march, became an etheric, inspired movement into infinity. The Symphony's interpretation by Sondergard and the orchestra was modern, sophisticated, delicate, and uplifting - with a clockwork precision of rhythms, tempi, and soaring intensity of emotion. There were no encores, what else could you say, what else could you play, what else could you add to such perfection?  

I will remember this concert as one of the musical experiences of my life. For music lovers just music, only music is enough. And no, there were no Islamists there, claiming that our beloved music is cursed,  and has to be silenced, as "haram..." 

AUGUST: TCHAIKOVSKY SPECTACULAR CIRCUS WITH FIREWORKS

On 5 August 2026, another classical music treat at the Hollywood Bowl brought an evening of Tchaikovsky's favorites, ending with the perennially entertaining 1812 overture celebrating Russian victory over French invaders through the juxtaposition of their national anthems, and gun cannonade at the end... Alas, the organizers decided that music was not enough, ballet was too Western and everything had to be upgraded to "woke" "multi-kulti" nonsense. They added low-brow circus acts to the sublime ballet music, so it was necessary to close eyes to enjoy the performance, until the grand finale, with USC Trojan Marching Band in full regalia joining the orchestra for the firework explosions! 

 

Destroying the lovely suites from the Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake by circus contortions was not enough for the blasphemous and culturally-deaf-and-blind organizers of the concert.  The theatrical circus company Troupe Vertigo performed aerial acrobatics above the orchestra and a variety of circus act, such as throwing up a square table or playing with flags and balls... It was quite distracting and annoying. But the worst of the worst travesty and full-scale attack at Tchaikovsky, his music, his Russian patriotism, was in the circus accompaniment of the Slavonic March, Marche Slave, an occasional piece written in 1876  for a charity concert raising funds for Serbian soldiers wounded by Ottoman Turks who invaded their country. The piece portrays Turkish oppression at the outset, and ends with the Russian national anthem "God Save the Tsar."  The defenders of Christian Europe against Moslem invaders just had to be ridiculed on the Hollywood Bowl stage! Instead of a parade of flags, the circus performers dressed as monkey-tamers and had the "monkey" do funny tricks on stage, so the audience would laugh instead of reflecting on the ancient and ongoing Islamic invasion of the Christian West.  The Slavonic March is hardly a masterpiece, but to attack its content in this "post-modernist" commentary with fake monkeys and monkey-tamers? Atrocious. Shame on the Hollywood Bowl! 

SEPTEMBER: RAVEL'S BOLERO AND MIRACLES OF FRENCH MUSIC

While the Russians defeated Napoleon's forces in 1812 and the Hollywood Bowl commemorates this victory in its annual firework spectacle, "my" season of three concerts at the Bowl ended on 10 September 2026, with a triumph of French music: French conductor, Philippe Jordan and French pianist, Jean-Yves Thibaudet playing French music by Saint-Saens, Debussy and Ravel. A joy for the mind and heart. The highlight of the first part of the concert, introduced by Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila, was Ravel's Piano Concerto in G. The second half brought two more masterpieces by Ravel, the grand symphonic poem La valse, and the timeless Boléro. In between, as sorbet to clean the palate, we heard Stokowsky's orchestration of Claude Debussy's Clair de lune. Sweet and refreshing, indeed.  The three Ravel masterpieces on the program all got well-deserved standing ovations from the enthusiastic audience - the orchestra was at its best, and the conductor did justice to the perfection of the music. The large screens showed various sections of the orchestra, so I could see which wind instruments played solos in the subsequent variations of the Bolero and admire the musicians' stamina and musicality.  

OCTOBER: SOLO RECITALS BY DOMINIK YODER

In July, September, and October 2026, I went indoors to the lovely piano recitals at the musical home of Roza and Douglas Yoder. Their middle son, Dominik Yoder is now getting ready to compete in a variety of competitions, mastering the repertoire, and performing it repeatedly, so that his technique and interpretation reach the highest levels. Some of his concerts featured a selection from Chopin's Nocturnes and Etudes. Others included excerpts from Chopin or Beethoven piano sonatas. The most frequently heard grand finale or encore was virtuosic, and full of colorful details Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody, No. 2. 

On 11 October 2026, Yoder played the whole set of Rachmaninoff's Etude Tablaeux, Op. 39, preceded by Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 53, "Waldstein." The Sonata's extraordinary interpretation left no room for improvement; delighting the audience with the pianist's impeccable technique coupled with profound musicality. The last movement, especially, was beautifully structured, so the large-scale form could easily be perceived. After hearing the complete set of nine Etudes Tableaux, I still cannot say that I like this dense, chaotic, chromatic, and intensely dramatic music. Yoder's temperament is well suited to these complicated and virtuosic pieces, with their dark, brooding moods, and triumphant echoes of the ringing of church bells. The audience in a musical salon was seated within 5 meters away from the piano, and they were bathed in one rolling sound wave after another.  

L to R: Kacper and Dominik Yoder

Born in Los Angeles, Dominik was only two when he started learning the piano with his mother Roza Kostrzewska-Yoder. He studied piano privately and soon started giving concerts and participating in competitions. In 2025, he won first prize at Beverly Hills National Audition; 1st prize, New York Concert Guild Competition; 2nd prize, International Chopin Competition (Hartford); and 4th prize, Fujairah International Piano Competition. In 2018, he won Gold medal at Kosciuszko Foundation Young Pianists Competition (Washington, D.C.) and Grand prize at Redlands Competition. He also received over a dozen local, regional, and state competition first prizes, and the Outstanding Pole Award from the Consulate General of Poland in Los Angeles (2022). He gave concerts in Poland, Puerto Rico, Germany and across the U.S. More information: dominikyoder.com.

Dominik Yoder's talent, paired with hard work and dedication will take him to new heights, year after year. The middle son of three, he has created a unique musical path for himself. 

On Hypnotic Modernism of Maciej Grzybowski (Vol. 3, No. 7)

How can you tell if a pianist is good enough to be worth the effort of driving on our congested freeways to attend his concert on a Friday night, if you have never heard his name before? Hard to tell… perhaps, you should believe what others say about him.  You certainly should watch for the name of Maciej Grzybowski, an extraordinary Polish pianist, who recently visited Los Angeles upon the invitation of the Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club. On May 11, 2011, he performed a solo piano recital at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica.  From there, he went on to play for the Polish Arts and Culture Club of San Diego and then to appear in a recital in Montreal, Canada. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have to state that as the President of the Modjeska Club I personally invited him to L.A., while his tour was sponsored by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute of Poland and supported by the Polish Consulate in Los Angeles). 

The specially crafted Santa Monica program included music by Polish composers (Paweł Mykietyn, Witold Lutosławski, Paweł Szymański, and Fryderyk Chopin) juxtaposed with Western classics – Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel. Some of the best music of the world, played by one of the best pianists you can ever hear…

Born in 1968 and educated in Warsaw, Maciej Grzybowski is the winner of the First Prize and the Special Prize at the 20th Century Music Competition for Young Performers in Warsaw (1992). He made numerous phonographic, radio and television recordings as a soloist and chamber musician and collaborated with Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by such conductors as Jan Krenz, Witold Lutosławski and Krzysztof Penderecki. From 1996 to 2000 Grzybowski was a co-director of the "NONSTROM presents" concert cycle in Warsaw. He took part in numerous music festivals in Poland, such as the Warsaw Autumn, Musica Polonica Nova, Witold Lutosławski Forum, Warsaw Musical Encounters, and the Polish Radio Music Festival. He also performed at the Biennial of Contemporary Music in Zagreb, Hofkonzerte im Podewil, Berlin and festivals in Lvov, Kiev, and Odessa (Ukraine). In March 2005, Grzybowski’s recital at the Mozart Hall in Bologna was recognized as the greatest music event of the 2000s. After Grzybowski’s U.S. debut in New York, in August 2006 EMI Classics released his second solo CD with works by Paweł Szymański (b. 1954). He also appeared in three concerts at the critically acclaimed Festival of Paweł Szymański's Music in Warsaw. In February 2008, Grzybowski premiered a Piano Concerto by an unjustly forgotten composer, Andrzej Czajkowski (Andre Tchaikovsky).

After the 2004 release of Grzybowski’s first solo CD, Dialog, juxtaposing works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Alban Berg, Pawel Mykietyn, Arnold Schönberg and Pawel Szymanski, (Universal Music Polska), critics raved:
·       “His interpretations of Bach, Berg, Schönberg, Szymański and Mykietyn show the touch of genius! There are certainly none today to equal his readings of Bach! (...) How refreshing and exciting it is to be in the presence of such great art of interpretation, akin to a genius!”   (Bohdan Pociej).
·       “The performance of Berg’s youthful Sonata and Schönberg’s Sechs kleine Klavierstücke could easily stand alongside the recordings of Gould or Pollini.”  (Marcin Gmys).

These exorbitant expressions of praise were seconded by attendees of the Santa Monica recital including composer Walter Arlen, the founder of the music department at Loyola Marymount University and for 30 years the most influential music critic of the Los Angeles Times. After the concert, he stated, “this was the best pianist I have ever heard in my life.” His praise was seconded by another listener, Howard Myers: “Maciej is a phenomenon, a marvel, a miracle, a special kind of genius.” The belief in Grzybowski’s exceptional talent is shared by the Director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Paweł Potoroczyn: “He is more than just a talented pianist – he is both a virtuoso of the highest order and a great musical personality.  The resultant unique combination is that of an uncommon musical genius that fully justifies comparing him with such masters as Glenn Gould or Maurizio Pollini.”

While admitting to a personal bias towards someone who has dedicated years of his life to the music of Paweł Szymański, one of the greatest Polish composers who ever lived (as it will become apparent in 50 years, when the dust settles and musical diamonds will be found in the sea of ashes), I had no doubt that by bringing Maciej Grzybowski to California, I offered our audiences a special treat.  His recital exceeded even my already sky-high expectations. First the program: arranged in two distinct parts, pairing composers of different generations in a surprising dialogue of musical ideas.

The youngest of the composers featured by Grzybowski was Paweł Mykietyn (b. 1971), his colleague and co-founder of the Nonstrom Ensemble where he has played the clarinet. In an entry on the Polish Music Information Center’s website affiliated with the Polish Composers’ Union, Mykietyn’s style is described in the following way:  “The composer ostentatiously applies the major-minor harmonies, introducing tonal fragments interspersed with harmonically free sections. He also makes use of traditional melodic structures, transforming them in his own individual manner. Mykietyn could be described as a model postmodernist, deriving his inspiration as well as material from all the available sources without any inferiority complex.” These words could well be applied to the virtuosic and wistful Four Preludes (1992) that opened the program with their contrasting moods, textures and tempi.



Grzybowski with Howard Myers and Prof. Walter Arlen.

Grzybowski followed the postmodernist Mykietyn with Twelve Folk Melodies by the dean of Polish composers of the 20th century, Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994). Commissioned by PWM in 1945, and elevating folklore to the realm of high art (in a preview of the official ideology of „socialist realism“ of 1948) these little gems show how unimportant is the ideology or context for a great compositional talent. The popular melodies of Hej, od Krakowa jadę [Hey, I come from Cracow], Na jabłoni jabłko wisi [An apple hangs on the apple tree], or Gaik [The grove] were set to music in a sophisticated harmonic style, reminiscent of Bèla Bartók.

Under Grzybowski’s fingers, these charming miniatures sparkled with a caleidoscope of colors and rhythms. The pianist brought out the complexity of inner voices in seemingly simple pieces and endowed folk melodies with an aura of nostalgia and drama.  In a stroke of genius, Grzybowski followed the folk arrangements with an entirely hypnotic and modernist reading of Drei Intermezzi, Op. 117 by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). A standard in every music theory textbook on Schenkerian analysis, Drei Intermezzi could be heard as small interludes only in comparison with Brahms’s majestic symphonies.  Composed in 1892, the intermezzi (No. 1 in E-flat major, No. 2 in B-flat minor and No. 3 in C-sharp minor) transverse cosmic landscapes of feeling evoked in Rainer Maria Rilke’s timeless poem, An Die Musik.

Yet it was the piece that followed, Two Etudes by Paweł Szymański(1954), written in 1986 and available on two Grzybowski CDs, that elicited the greatest enthusiasm of the audience.  It is a work of genius, unparalleled in music in its hypnotic effect on the listeners. The Etudes, played without a break, contrast the slow emergence of music in the first etude with the titanic flows of sound in the second.  The piece arises from silence in what appears to be a series of random, repeated notes and chords, but there is nothing random in Szymański’s music, everything is carefully constructed.  Sometimes called a “neo-Baroque” composer (due to his frequent inspirations with the music of that period, and talent for creating complex polyphony), Szymański refers to his style as “sur-conventionalism” and thus describes his main approach: “The modern artist, and this includes composers, finds himself tossed within two extremes. If he chooses to renounce the tradition altogether, there is the danger of falling into the trap of blah-blah; if he follows the tradition too closely, he may prove trivial. This is the paradox of practicing art in modern times. What is the way out? However, there are many methods to stay out of eclecticism despite playing games with tradition. An important method for me is to violate the rules of the traditional language and to create a new context using the elements of that language." Thus, Szymanski draws from traditional tonal and harmonic language by playing with the conventions of musical styles and with the listeners’ expectations. This game of cat-and-mouse was apparent in the stretching and constricting of time in the two Etudes. The irregularity of recurring chords and notes piqued the listeners’ interest and intensified their expectations. Thus, the music grew and expanded in scope in the first Etude, to reach monumental proportions and then dissolve in massive complexities of the second.

The second half of the recital started with a series of unusual readings of Fryderyk Chopin’s four mazurkas (in A Minor, Op. 7, No. 2; E Minor, Op. 41, No. 1; F Major, Op. Posth. 68, No. 3; G-sharp Minor, Op. 33, No. 1). The originality of the pianist’s interpretations rendered these well-known gems of the repertoire almost unrecognizable.  More angular and modernist than usual were also three Preludes from the second volume of impressionistic masterpieces by Claude Debussy (1862-1918): II  ...  Feuilles mortes, VI  ... „General Lavine” eccentric; VII ... La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune.  These terraces were lighted less by effervescent moonlight than by the brilliant focused light of Grzybowski’s intellect.  Again, they were so different from what I was used to hearing that I would need to hear these preludes again, to render an opinion. Yet, the rest of the audience was hypnotized into a complete silence and immobility: no slow, tortuous opening of candy wrappers at this recital! 

Grzybowski with the Modjeska Club Board

The finale was indeed “grand” -  a monumental rendering of Valses nobles et sentimentales by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). In 1906, Ravel started his “waltz” project, culminating with the 1919 publication of the orchestral suite, La Valse. Inspired by the noble and sentimental waltzes by the Viennese Franz Schubert, Ravel published a suite of eight pieces for piano in 1911 and followed them with orchestral versions a year later. The waltzes are not separated into distinct “noble” and “sentimental” sections; it is up to the listener to decide what is what.  The pieces, in contrasting tempi, span the whole expressive trajectory for which the words are too limited to give the music full justice.  An unusual selection to close a solo recital, the suite ended in a slow tranquil dissolution into silence. 

After a well-deserved standing ovation, the pianist relented and added a melancholy and thoroughly modern version of a Scarlatti’s sonata as an encore to the evening’s inspired and inspiring program.  One thing is certain: the name recognition problem mentioned at the beginning should be resolved, once for all, in the case of Maciej Grzybowski: just go to every concert of his, and if you cannot go, buy his CDs.