Bacewicz: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

Meet the acclaimed French conductor Marie Jacquot, who leads the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and Swedish soloist Peter Jablonski in Polish Grażyna Bacewicz’s late-romantic, virtuosic and dreamily imaginative piano concerto. Grażyna Bacewicz was both celebrated and uniquely successful as a female composer during her lifetime. She graduated in composition at the Warsaw Conservatory and combined her composing with life as a touring piano soloist until the mid-1950s. After that, she devoted herself exclusively to composing. She wrote the concerto for piano and orchestra from 1949 for the 100th anniversary of the death of compatriot Frédéric Chopin. With a length of around 20 minutes, the concerto is imbued with Bacewicz’s unmistakable combination of bold strokes and formal precision, with Polish folk music running like a common thread through the piece. The opening movement is based on two contrasting themes inspired by traditional Polish songs. The dialogue between the piano and the orchestra fluctuates and the movement ends with a wild cadence.