The recital by Polish cellist Krzysztof Michalski, a prize-winner at this year’s Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium, and Sarah Zajtmann will open with Fryderyk Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise in C major, Op. 3.
The composer began writing this early work in the brillant style during a summer stay in Antonin in 1829, perhaps inspired by making music with Prince Antoni Radziwiłł as cellist, and completed it a year later in Warsaw, when he added the opening introduction.
The artist will then perform Nadia Boulanger’s Three Pieces for cello and piano from 1914, followed by Robert Schumann’s only work for cello and piano, Five Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102, from 1849.
Nadia Boulanger composed mainly in her youth, but, convinced that her talent was modest in comparison with that of her younger sister, the composer Lili Boulanger, she gave up writing music and devoted herself to teaching. She became one of the most highly regarded and influential music teachers, to whom many leading musicians and composers of the 20th century made a ‘pilgrimage’, including a considerable number of Polish composers. Within Nadia Boulanger’s small body of work, the Three Pieces remain a composition that reveals her subtle melodic invention and sophisticated approach to sound.
Robert Schumann dedicated Op. 102 to the cellist Andreas Grabau. The five miniatures, each with its own distinct character, are arranged in a kaleidoscopic sequence of contrasting moods and tempos. Despite the allusion in the work’s title, the composer did not draw directly on folk songs, but instead imitated the style of folk music, achieving this primarily through his original rhythmic inventiveness.
The recital will conclude with one of the most popular sonatas of the Romantic era – César Franck’s Sonata in A major for violin and piano, composed in 1886, in Jules Delsart’s arrangement for cello and piano.
