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Rafał Blechacz plays Chopin mazurkas
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Rafał Blechacz’s 2005 winning performance of Chopin Concerto No 1
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Rafał Blechacz plays Chopin Concerto No 2
Ariver runs through Rafal Blechacz’s hometown of Nakło nad Notecią – the river Noteć – and Chopin is the river running through the pianist’s career. He lives on the outskirts of that town, close to his family, in a house he recently bought with the profits of that career, which was launched at the age of 20 by winning the 2005 International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.
Deutsche Grammophon snapped him up without delay, and Blechacz has gone on to record a clutch of albums for the label, including the music of Bach, Mozart, Debussy and Szymanowski, but always returning to Chopin. Hardly less than his elder compatriot Krystian Zimerman (the two men are on friendly terms), Blechacz has become known as the authentic voice of a composer whose popularity has never waned and yet whose world feels ever more remote, not unlike the subversive wit and manners of his novelistic contemporary Jane Austen.
To begin with, the pressure to represent Chopin on the world stage seemed to weigh heavily
