CD with Sofya Gulyak's recitals, issued to celebrate the jubilee of 1000 Liszt Evenings - Towarzystwo Ferenca Liszta we Wrocławiu
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CD with Sofya Gulyak's recitals, issued to celebrate the jubilee of 1000 Liszt Evenings

CD with Sofya Gulyak's recitals, issued to celebrate the jubilee of 1000 Liszt Evenings

Sofya Gulyak is the most spectacular example of professional development of a young distinguishing artistic personality among the 333 pianists - soloists of our concerts. Currently, the artist is believed to be one of the world's most outstanding female pianists.

Therefore, we turned to Ms Gulyak with the request to have the live recordings of her two last recitals in Poland on the album the F. Liszt Society intended to release on the occasion of the concert activity jubilee (1000 Liszt Evenings in nearly 100 concerts venues).

In the recorded pieces, the pianists presented great richness of interpretation based on her own - very convincing - understanding of a particular composition and her wonderful, impeccable piano technique.

Her interpretation of Bach's-Buson's Chaconne, which is the first piece on the album, is a combination of wisdom, peace, discipline of musical thinking and the abilities to move the listeners' imagination to the areas of timeless beauty.

A completely different areas of sound beauty and musical thinking are presented in the recording of Liszt's Consolations; especially in the exceptionally enchanting interpretation of Consolation no. 2 in E major.

This search and presentation of beauty and finding joy in playing, in my opinion, best characterizes the piano art of Sofya Gulyak.

The artist, having an extremely broad repertoire, willingly undertakes interpreting of rarely performed works and is able to present them in a very interesting way (eg. track 2 on the CD: Variations on J.S. Bach's Cantata “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” and Mass in B minor).

In Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2, she presented a peculiar cadence of her own authorship.

Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition were performed in such a brilliant way that one could joke that Mussorgsky had composed this well-known series especially for Gulyak; he just was not aware of it.

The pianist proposed performance of the whole in a very fast tempo and with virtually no intervals between pieces, emphasizing with great intense the great diversity and richness of narrations in Mussorgsy.

For instance, The Gnome is performed in a very eloquent and resplendent manner;  The Old Castle is told through a stunningly beautiful serenade; Cattle – very expressive in a contrast to Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks – a playful diverse twittering – affirmation of life and excellent fun.

In The Market at Limoges we can hear and almost see an argument of peddlers at the market, just to immerse a moment later in the shocking, as if the transcendental interpretation of The Catacombs.

Reviewing (or just commenting) Sofya Gulyak's performance of the Pictures at an Exhibition is by nature partial and imperfect, as it is commonly known that you cannot give music by words – you just have to listen to it and live it. Therefore, all I can do is to encourage to it with full confidence.

Juliusz Adamowski.