War Poems: Szymanowski, Chopin, Narodytska, Shostakovich, Liakhovych in Bloomington, MN

With excellent sound from Menuhin Hall evoking the age when a piano recital involved close communion between artist and audience, this 2024 release by pianist
Maria Narodytska
has a good deal of power. She calls her album
War Poems
, and indeed, one of the great patriotic warhorses of classical music,
Chopin
's
Polonaise in A major, Op. 40, No. 1
, is on the program. However, even there,
Narodytska
prioritizes a certain inward passion over keyboard heroics. The program actually takes a while to crank up, opening with
Karol Szymanowski
Masques, Op. 34
; these are competently performed but, aside from their 1915 date, have little of wartime about them. Yet things improve rapidly from there on out. After the
comes a compact piece,
After
, by
herself, composed in late 2023 and serving as a little introduction to the remarkable excerpts from the
24 Postludes for piano ("War Notebook")
of another contemporary Ukrainian composer/pianist,
Artem Liakhovych
. These are Romantic pieces that quote
and
Bach
and seem ripped from the headlines.
concludes with an obviously deeply felt rendition of
Shostakovich
Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61
, of 1943, a work written in memory of a friend of the composer who had been killed in the war, alternating between bitterness and a quiet memorial sentiment. This is a powerful piano recital that addresses today's world directly. ~ James Manheim