MARIA SZYMANOWSKA (1789-1831)

COMPLETE DANCES FOR SOLO PIANO

ALEXANDER KOSTRITSA

“Maria Szymanowska was one of the first professional virtuoso pianists of the 19th century. Her compositions typify the stile brilliant of the ear preceding Chopin. We don't know if she ever met Chopin in person, but she certainly had influence on him both as a pianist and a composer. All of her favorite genres - mazurkas, waltzes, polonaises, nocturnes, etudes - were later glorified by Chopin. All of her compositions belong to the tradition of salon music, but they all vary in depth and display different stylistic features. Mazurkas are typical dance pieces of that time - this is actually music to dance to. Polonaises are more complex - they contain sections that are lyrical, virtuosic, or dramatic. Minuets contain stylistic references to the preceding era - certain passages even remind me of Beethoven... Overall, I find this music very pleasant and refreshing.”

– Alex Kostritsa

About this Recording

Displaying exceptional musical precocity, the young pianist Maria Szymanowska proved a sensation in Warsaw’s salons, before moving to Paris where her fame spread. Greatly admired by her contemporaries, who included Beethoven, Cherubini, Field and Tomášek, she later also cast a spell over the elderly Goethe during one of her many long European tours. Before her early death, from cholera, she was employed by the Russian imperial court as First Pianist to the empress. Written for the aristocratic salons of the day, Szymanowska’s collections of dances are, for the most part, pleasing and light, yet always inventive. These beautifully written miniatures also include more challenging pieces such as the Polonaise No. 4 and the Mazurka No.17 whose darker moments foreshadow the early German Romantics.

ALEXANDER KOSTRITSA

Alexander Kostritsa was born into a musical family in Moscow and started his piano lessons at the age of six. He received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Alexander Kostritsa is a prizewinner of international piano competitions, including the Premio Rovere d’Oro (Italy, 2007, 1st prize), the Slavic Music Festival (Ukraine, 2007, laureate), and the Paul Badura-Skoda (Spain, 2010, finalist). He made his international début when he was eight years old with a concert tour to Japan. Since then he has been performing as a soloist in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, South Korea, and the United States. He has appeared with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra “The Seasons”, the Kursk University Orchestra, the Vidin Philharmonic and other orchestras. He studied with Mikhail Petukhov in Moscow and with Antonio Pompa-Baldi in Cleveland.