MEDIA
PHOTOS
VIDEOS
REVIEWS
MICHALAK REACHES CHOPIN’S CORE
A debut album that encompasses both power and multi-layered clarity.
ON THE ALBUM Beyond we hear three composers whose music contains great seriousness but also a poetic warmth that varies depending on the interpreter. Chopin’s Polonaise-fantaisie (Op. 61 from 1846) especially offers the inward, sometimes almost broodingly lingering, but also the dramatic outbursts, the deeply poetic and brilliant passages that are so typical of Chopin’s late works.
César Franck’s Préludium, koral och fuga (1884) is a centric, very personal reworking of music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Brahms’ Six Pieces (1893) are complex character pieces, often performed with varied success, which makes them difficult to capture both in terms of their formal cohesion and their strong emotional content. Together, these works form the backbone of this album.
The young Polish-Danish pianist Filip Michalak, who studied and graduated in Sweden, performs with sensitive clarity and truly commands Chopin’s idiom with great conviction. Op. 61 is a multifaceted and event-rich work that, in order to avoid becoming just a rhapsodic sequence, requires a firm hand and solid focus.
Here Michalak excels: from the solemnly resonant opening chords to the brilliant conclusion. Franck’s work, with its internal multiplicity, is also performed with an admirable feel for its musical intensity and its often powerful climaxes. The subsequent fugue is given masterful weight.
Brahms’ often inward-looking pieces are rendered with tonal beauty and often transfigured warmth. The expressive contrasts are held together by a fine sense of structure.
Michalak’s playing here shows what characterizes a great musician: the ability to extract stylistic clarity from both strict and poetic music, while at the same time presenting highly personal interpretations that feel convincing and meaningful. A strong debut, beautifully played, with a sense of both control and passion.
— Jörgen Lundmark
MUSIC BY BRAHMS, CHOPIN AND FRANCK
Filip Michalak, piano
(Gateway Music)
The Chamber Music Festival Took Off in Style
Beethoven, Brahms
★★★★★☆
It is an ambitious, yet also a very different program that has been created for Aalborg’s 2nd Chamber Music Festival, which opened Thursday evening in Vor Frue Kirke and ends Sunday afternoon at the same venue.
The festival’s special hallmark is that it gives space to the region’s very young musicians, including students from MGK as well as a couple of new young string quartets.
A particularly special event presents Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, arranged for accordion, and there is also a children’s concert featuring Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals.
The originator and festival director of all this is the young local pianist Filip Michalak, and it was also he who appeared on the program for the opening concert, performing in a duo with Andreas Brantelid — the first time the two have played together.
It was interesting that the evening’s program consisted solely of works where the cello and piano share complete equality, and where both musicians take equal part in the solo role. No one doubted that Brantelid could meet the challenge; but it was impressive that Michalak, through his playing, managed to match the brilliant cellist and create the crucial balance in their collaboration.
Beethoven’s two cello sonatas Op. 102 sounded impressively fine in the large space of Vor Frue Kirke, with clarity in the sound and melodic lines allowed to unfold openly and freely in the beautiful acoustics. The D-major sonata was especially striking, with magical moments in the slow movement and strong energy in the fugal final movement.
But it was above all Brahms’ First Cello Sonata in E minor that will be remembered. Brantelid could share that his Stradivarius “Boni Hegar” had participated in the world premiere of this very sonata, and one immediately sensed that the instrument was “returning home” again when the beautiful opening cello theme emerged, gently supported by bright chords in the piano.
The melodic lines of the two instruments were interwoven in an impressive ensemble that made any talk of “soloist versus accompanist” irrelevant. The second movement unfolded like a light, dance-like minuet, interrupted by the trio’s shimmering flow, while Brahms acknowledged his debt to J.S. Bach in the third movement’s fugue, borrowing themes from The Art of Fugue — crowning the work with monumental grandeur.
The encore, Fauré’s beautiful chanson Après un rêve, touched the heart like a small parfait d’amour after the “calorie-rich” Brahms sonata.
Vor Frue Kirke was nearly filled to the last seat, and several of the other festival concerts are already sold out — so it’s worth hurrying!
"Filip Michalak aims to show that the piano can also delve deeply into complex moods — that we can be guided further inward and to another place within the essence of music. Something that is sometimes difficult to translate into words.
With his open and inquisitive approach to his subject, Filip Michalak demonstrates that the piano is an ideal instrument for such a journey, as it offers countless possibilities, especially for interesting chord structures and spectacular transitions between moods.
And thank you for the interesting perspective. It gives the listener an engaging point of departure and focus."