Twenty Mazurkas, Op 50
Valse romantique
Four Polish Dances
Two Mazurkas, Op 62

The Mazurka is a traditional Polish dance in three-time with an often erratic-seeming emphasis on the second beat. It was Chopin who made of it the vehicle for some of his most intimately ruminative and also laconic utterances; he took this dance idiom even further into a world of human expression than he did with his waltzes and thereby set a tradition that yields these ravishingly elusive masterpieces that gently exude all Szymanowski’s most subtle chromatic surprises and delights. They seem to encapsulate all we think of as Polish in sensibility as well as universal glimpses of irony and melancholy, energy and exuberance often enough all in the gruff elegance of one piece!

10 DE RÉPERTOIRE

'Hamelin is an astonishing virtuoso, yet this music demonstrates that the French-Canadian pianist is much more than a purveyor of keyboard fireworks. His immediate advocacy of the mazurkas, the Valse Romantique and Four Polish Dances should win more friends for this unjustly neglected byway of 20th-century piano repertoire' (The Sunday Times)

'Marc-André Hamelin is a near-ideal advocate of this repertoire; alive to every nuance in these scores' (BBC Music Magazine)

'Such elusive music requires a pianist of rare sensitivity and dexterity and in Marc-André Hamelin Szymanowski has been granted a true champion. A marvel of stylistic inwardness and pianistic refinement, his performances capture the Mazurkas’ alternating whimsy and rigour to perfection' (Gramophone)

'Their highly original, sensual harmonies and sophisticated writing demand a refined pianist of imagination to make a persuasive case. Hamelin gets inside each miniature to do just that, and in beautifully recorded sound' (Classic FM Magazine)

'Hamlin does, I think, set a new benchmark … A very notable disc. If you don’t already know this great music, I strongly urge you to buy it' (International Record Review)

'Marc-André Hamelin defines the character of each piece vividly, readily tuning into their dark soulfulness' (The Evening Standard)

'perfect territory for Marc-André Hamelin’s stylish and evocative playing' (The Independent)

'Marc-André Hamelin plays them with fantasy and rhythmic snap' (The Irish Times)

'on ne pouvait s’attendre a plus agréable surprise que ce programme présentant les dernieres ovres pour piano du compositeur polonaise Karol Szymanowski' (Répertoire, France)

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Recording details: August 2002; Henry Wood Hall, London, United Kingdom; Produced by Andrew Keener; Engineered by Simon Eadon; Release date: June 2003;