Isabelle Faust / Ewa Kupiec BARTÓK Sonates

Bartok’s First Violin Sonata is notoriously reluctant to yield its secrets. Three expansive movements parade dissonances virtually by the bar; the total playing time is well over half an hour (38 minutes in this particular performance) and allows for absolutely no easing of intensity. The opening Allegro appassionato is a complex essay, to say the least: many have braved its pages and although most available recordings convey the scale of the movement, none is more comprehensively perceptive than this new CD by the young violinist Isabelle Faust. Harmonia Mundi count Faust among the “cream of the new generation of musicians” (this budget-price disc is one of a series devoted to Les Nouveaux Interpretes) and, on the evidence presented here, no one could rightly counter that claim. Ewa Kupiec, who will be familiar to some readers through her recordings on Koch Schwann, provides Faust with motivated support; not, perhaps, as leonine as Richter (with David Oistrakh) or Argerich (with Kremer), but always attentive to mood and detail.
Faust favours a sensual approach that draws active – and unexpected – parallels with the music of Berg. She ventures deep among the first movement’s more mysterious episodes: listen, for example, to her fragile tone projection from 6'27'' and follow it through for a couple of minutes. This is truly empathetic playing, candid, full of temperament and always focused securely on the note’s centre. The crescendoing processional that sits at the heart of the second movement (5'24'') is charged with suspense and the steely finale suggests an almost savage resolve (try the rocketing glissando ‘take-offs’ from, say, 3'48''). Faust and Kupiec visit corners and perspectives in this score that others merely gloss over, and the recording supports them all the way.
The Solo Sonata is virtually as impressive. Here Faust approaches the music from a Bachian axis: her tone is pure, her double-stopping immaculate (and never abrasive) and her sense of timing acute. She obviously relishes the score’s balance of colour and counterpoint, and her performance is distinguished by a combination of musical intuition and technical finesse (a good place to sample is 5'49'' into the first movement).
I would strongly urge you to purchase this superb disc, even if you already own recordings of both works. Still, as it’s a reviewer’s job to survey the field, I should remind you that Pauk and Jando on Naxos offer forthright performances of the two sonatas (plus Contrasts) and Menuhin is extraordinarily eloquent in the Solo Sonata. Either will do nicely, but Faust is a persuasive narrator; she and her piano partner break down barriers in the First Sonata that, for some readers, will mean the difference between approachability and continuing bafflement. Do give them a try.' (Gramophone)

Ewa Kupiec WITOLD LUTOSLAWSKI Complete Works for Piano Solo

"Pure substance“, Ewa Kupiec is praised by Fono Forum, Germany’s leading magazine for classical music. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung certifies: “Kupiec plays with a rare mixture of spirit, a faultless technique, a complete understanding of musical texture and an ability to shape music with transparency and an impressive richness of colours. Her playing is brilliant but never obtrusive, full of atmosphere and subtly virtuosic.”



Ewa Kupiec regularly performs at the world’s leading festivals but also with major orchestras, which in recent seasons have included Munich Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Danish Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Orchestre de Paris. Conductors she worked include Marin Alsop, Neeme Järvi, Ingo Metzmacher, Xian Zhang, Sakari Oramo, Semyon Bychkov, Herbert Blomstedt, Krzysztof Penderecki, Lothar Zagrosek, Gilbert Varga, Christoph Poppen, Andrey Boreyko, and Marek Janowski. Renowned Polish maestro Stanislaw Skrowaczewski has initiated and supported an exceptionally fruitful musical collaboration between the two, and as such they have performed all over the world and, released in 2003, recorded Chopin’s piano concerti  together.



2014 sees four special releases: Polish composer’s Andrzej Panufnik’s piano concerto for the complete recording of his œvre, together with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin (cpo), Grażyna Bacewicz‘ piano quintet arranged for piano and string orchestra for the Naxos label together with the Bydgoszcz Philharmonic, piano quintets by Scharwenka and Dvorak with the Armida Quartet (Solaris), and Chopin’s works for piano and cello with Johannes Moser (Hänssler).



Ewa Kupiec is closely connected to the music of Chopin and other Polish composers. For his 200th birthday she offered three different Chopin recital programs. Next to standard works, her concerto repertoire includes works by Loewe or Veress. For Sony, she has recorded Władysław Szpilman’s music, known from the movie „The Pianist“.



In 2012 she played an especially striking juxtaposition of the Paganini variations both by Rachmaninov and Lutosławski, together with the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra. A dramaturgically wonderful incidence not only because he gave new luster to the classical concert solo, but also because these are two of Ewa Kupiec’ typical showpieces among which – next to Chopin’s work – Richard Strauss early masterpiece Burleske can be found.



Equally interesting are Ewa Kupiec’s solo and chamber music programs, for example with cellist Johannes Moser or the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet. In 2013, which marks Witold Lutosławski’s 100th birthday, she dedicates a special recital program to him – she worked with him when a young pianist. She will also perform his piano concerto in 2013, together with the German Philharmonic Orchestra Rhineland-Palatinate.



Ewa Kupiec is recognised as one of Europe’s most dedicated interpreters of contemporary music. Her Berlin Konzerthaus performance in 2005 of Schnittke’s First Piano Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra was the first performance of this work since 1964 and was released by Phoenix in 2008, together with other Schnittke works for piano and orchestra. Her recital and chamber music programs often include contemporary works, and different composers have dedicated pieces to her.



Among Ewa Kupiec‘ numerous recordings are works by Grażyna Bacewicz, Lutosławski, Szymanowsky (ECHO Klassik 1997) and Paderewski. 2007 Haenssler released her recording of Janacek‘s solo works and in 2008 Phoenix published Schnittke’s piano concerti with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. 2010 saw the release of Żal, with solo works by Chopin and Schubert, and in 2011, in cooperation with Deutschlandfunk, she published a CD with solo works by Kodály and Enescu (Solaris). 2012 saw the release of Chopin’s piano concertos and Nocturnes selection on the Australian ABC label, and 2013 the premiere recording of Lutosławski’s works for piano solo (Sony).



Ewa Kupiec studied in Katowice, at the Chopin Academy in Warsaw and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and in 1992 she won the ARD Music Competition (category duo piano/cello). From autumn 2011, she will be a professor for piano at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.

Isabelle Faust / Ewa Kupiec JANÁCEK Sonate pour violon et piano - LUTOSLAWSKI Partita - SZYMANOWSKI Mythes

Here's a really terrific recital, both enterprising and intelligent, that winds up being much more than the sum of its very considerable parts. Isabelle Faust and Ewa Kupiec play Janácek's quirky Violin Sonata with uninhibited passion, making no attempt to smooth over the music's rough edges but at the same time (as in the gorgeous second-movement Ballada) offering playing of bewitching beauty and fantasy. Kupiec in this respect proves herself a more than worthy partner to her gifted colleague. For example, her approach to La Fontaine d'Aréthuse, the first of Szymanowski's Mythes, points the music's rhythms with unusual care. No impressionistic fog here! The result, when combined with Faust's exquisitely poised tracery in her upper register, must be the most characterful interpretation of this music since the celebrated Danczowska/Zimerman version on DG, and it couldn't be more different--sharply focused and precise where the DG offers dreamy washes of sound.
The two Lutoslawski pieces--the brief, eruptive Subito and the Partita--find a natural home in this highly individual company of composers and performers. Partita is best known in its orchestral guise, but there's a very good case to be made for hearing it as originally written for violin and piano, particularly when played as here. Kupiec's notably keen attention to harmonic detail provides a much firmer launching pad than does the orchestral version for the violin's evocative, often microtonal explorations. Curiously, although you might think this harder edge makes the music more difficult listening, it's actually easier to hear both its neo-Baroque patterning and beautifully shaped melodic contours, particularly when phrased with the sensitivity Faust routinely displays (witness the poignant Largo central section). Perfectly balanced recorded sound completes as fine a chamber music recital as anyone could hope for. Stunning! (David Hurwitz)