Masecki and Chopin

Although Marcin Masecki is primarily a jazz pianist, improviser and composer, in his oeuvre we will also find an album with works by Fryderyk Chopin — with nocturnes. With it, the artist proved that he is not afraid of uncompromising reinterpretations of the works of the Polish romantic. In NFM, together with Lutosławski Quartet, this time they will present Preludes op. 28. The catalogue of both a graduate of the famous Berklee College of Music and a Wrocław band allows you to count on an unconventional, sincere approach. What will the performers surprise us with this time?

Taking Chopin's music to the workshop, Marcin Masecki returns to his roots. As a child, he studied it under the guidance of his grandmother, Halina Masecka, the director of the music school. Although studies abroad and the ubiquity of the national composer in Polish culture initially pushed the young pianist to explore other regions, he never forgot about the genius of Żelazowa Wola. Over the years, he built an identity at the junction of styles: although he reached for classical works, such as Bach or Beethoven, he also performed jazz and alternative music, as well as wrote works for films. He has collaborated with various artists such as Capella Cracoviensis, Pink Freud, Wojciech Waglewski, Jan Emil Młynarski, Tomasz Stańko and Michał Urbaniak. In addition to the album with the Nocturnes, he entered into a dialogue with the Chopin tradition, among other things entrusting the recording of his own polonaises to a ten-piece brass orchestra in 2013.

Considered most often as a series of Fryderyk Chopin's Preludes, it is the quintessence of his style and a reflection of the emotional swing that the artist experienced after being diagnosed with tuberculosis. He completed this exceptionally varied collection during his stay with George Sand in Mallorca at the turn of 1838 and 1839. It consists of twenty-four short pieces — almost half of them are under a minute. They are composed in all the tones of the quintet wheel. This treatment was a direct reference to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. The individual miniatures differ drastically from each other in pace, dynamics and expression: from extreme despair to ecstatic delight. As a whole, they constitute a microcosm of human experience, which in NFM Marcin Masecki and Lutosławski Quartet will show in their interpretation.