Tchobanov

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It is not often that one hears in a single evening the two piano concertos Chopin completed at twenty, before his final farewell to Poland, and in reverse order to their numbering. Early works only in appearance, because the expressive reasons and the forms that sustain them are already perfectly finished, on a model far from Beethoven. In 1830, in fact, Beethoven’s five concertos were still half unknown in Warsaw, while those of Hummel, Kalkbrenner (dedicatee of the First Concerto) and above all Field, «father» of the nocturne, were familiar. The orchestra’s role does not yet carry the weight and impetus it would take on in the mature Romantic concerto, to the point that in certain passages the instrumental fabric seems an imperceptible veil. Nonetheless, Chopin’s pianism rises to heights where poetry and virtuosity urge each other on, not without the contribution of folk reminiscences. In the composer’s memory the First Concerto would always hold a privileged place: it was his last public appearance before leaving Poland in 1830.

Having left Poland, which he would never see again, Chopin chose his Second Concerto for his Paris début in 1832. It is no surprise that he staked his calling card on this work, given the persuasive force of the central Larghetto, where an intimate, delicate songfulness alternates dreaming passages, broken by a central episode charged with tension, with agitated tremolos in the strings and dramatic interventions from the winds. An intense monologue of the soul, which deeply struck Schumann and Liszt, who recognised in Chopin a new voice able to fuse virtuosity and introspection. Officially dedicated to Countess Delphine Potocka, the Concerto is in truth bound up with memories of Konstancja Gładkowska, a singing student who had made a great impression on the composer in his early years in Warsaw.
Orchestra of Teatro Comunale di Bologna