Grazyna Bacewicz: Piano Quintet no. 2 / Equinox Festival

From Equinox Festival 2024
7 August 2024
Musikhuset København, Copenhagen, Denmark
Afonso Fesch, violin
Kumi Shimizu, violin
Minna Svedberg, viola
Joel Laakso, cello
Yannick Rafalimanana, piano
Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) was a prodigious pianist and violinist who performed her first concerto with orchestra at age 12, and became concertmaster at the Polish Radio Orchestra only nine years later. She studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, where her reputation as a composer flourished alongside her career as a soloist-on tours of Europe, she premiered most of her seven violin concertos herself. During World War II, she remained in occupied Warsaw, continuing to compose and perform at secret underground concerts.
After a devastating car accident in 1954 rendered her unable to teach or play the violin, Bacewicz refused to give into despair, joking lightly with friends who visited the hospital despite her serious injuries. She continued to compose relentlessly after recovering, and her dark, bold, and wildly dissonant Piano Quintet No. 2 came nine years after the car accident, in 1965. Though not as lyrical as her earlier works, this masterpiece comes to a brilliant culmination in the final movement, where Bacewicz’s smirking humor and life-affirming personality shines through.
Equinox is a classical music and dance festival in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Find out more at equinoxfestival.dk