YULIANNA AVDEEVA
Resilience: Music by Szpilman, Shostakovich, Weinberg, ProkofievPentatone PTC 5187 073
★★★★
Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, a fierce critic of the war in Ukraine, presents works by four composers who used music to express personal resilience against collective horrors. The opening pieces are by Władisław Szpilman, whose memoir of life during the Holocaust became the basis of the film . As a Jew he was forbidden to play Chopin: this knowledge gives his melancholy little piece ‘Mazurek’ (1942), a work very much in the style of the composer, a heartrending poignancy. His amusing suite (1933) is in a more
