Hyuk Lee & Hyo Lee — recital for two pianos

A pianist sitting at the piano can fill the concert hall with sound in a completely satisfactory way. Combining two such instruments, however, is more than just doubling the sound volume. We will find out when the NFM hosts Hyuk and Hyo Lee from South Korea — participants of the last Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. During the joint recital, the brothers will present works by Arthur Benjamin, Maurice Ravel and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Korean artists speak Polish and currently live in Warsaw. The eldest of the brothers, Hyuk, received a distinction as a finalist at the Chopin Competition in 2021. Recently, both reached the third stage of the struggle. At NFM, no pianist should be missing from a meeting with performers of this caliber, playing in a piano duet! This evening we will hear in their performance light, serene and subtle Caribbean Works by Arthur Benjamin, an Australian-British composer active in the first half of the 20th century. This is followed by Ravel's seductive, pianistically snarky “choreographic poem” entitled La Valse, which was supposed to evoke the vision of a ball at the Vienna Imperial Court in the middle of the 19th century. Although the author himself created a transcription of this music for two pianos, the Korean instrumentalists developed it again — to what effect?

The evening will culminate — no mistake — with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, arranged by Ferenc Liszt. The romantic piano virtuoso arranged salon versions of all nine masterpieces of the classic. However, these were solo pieces — only the last one appeared in the form for two instruments. Undoubtedly, this composition required a truly orchestral splendor of sound, although the chamber (in the sense of joint musicality) status of the work thus achieved seems equally important.