July 21, 2023
hrs 19.00

FESTUM IUVENTUTIS – YOUNG FESTIVAL

Viet Trung Nguyen, piano 

Karol Kurpiński: Polonaise in D minor 
Ignacy Jan Paderewski: Minuet in G major op. 14 No. 1
Ignacy Jan Paderewski: Sarabande in B minor, Op. 14 No. 2
Ignacy Jan Paderewski: Melody in G flat major op. 16 No. 2

***pause***

Fryderyk Chopin: Mazurkas op. 17  
Mieczysław Karłowicz: Waltz in G major
Fryderyk Chopin: Ballade in F minor op. 52
Fryderyk Chopin: Sonata in B flat minor op. 35

Trung Viet Nguyen

Vietnamese pianist born on 30 September 1996 in Ha Noi who has lived in Poland since childhood. He is currently pursuing postgraduate studies with Professor Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń at the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. His recent achievements include winning the 17th National Piano Festival “Chopinowskie Interpretacje Młodych” in Konin-Żychlin (2021), 5th prize at the Fryderyk Chopin National Competition in Warsaw (2020), Grand Prix at the International Chamber Music Competition in Vietnam (2019) and 3rd prize at the Karlovac International Piano Competition in Croatia (2019). In 2021, he took part in the 18th Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. He has given concerts in Europe: Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and Poland, as well as in the United States, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam. During the Expo 2020 World Expo in Dubai, he gave a series of recitals as part of the NIFC concerts in the Polish Pavilion. As a soloist, he has performed with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra, the Hanoi Symphonic Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra in Warsaw, the Polish Radio Orchestra and the Lublin Philharmonic Orchestra, under such conductors as Le Phi Phi, Honna Tetsuji, Łukasz Borowicz, Marek Pijarowski, Wojciech Rodek and Jacek Rogala. The pianist also performs chamber music, collaborating with, among others, the Ulysses Quartet, the Arod Quartet and the Arso Quintet. His past performances include appearances at the Artur Rubinstein Festival in Łódź (2019), the Frost Chopin Piano Festival in Miami (2018, 2019), Chopin concerts in Żelazowa Wola, the Fryderyk Chopin Museum and the Royal Łazienki Park. He has taken part in numerous masterclasses given by, among others: Tatiana Shebanova, Dang Thai Son, Kevin Kenner, Dmitri Alexeev or Andrzej Jasinski.

At the time when Chopin began his creative path, tying it to the piano, this instrument was eventually dominated by keyboard performance, overshadowing the harpsichord and clavichord. And although some musicians convince us that the keyboard compositions by Józef Elsner and Karol Kurpiński, written in the 1820s and 1820s, sound well on the harpsichord, no one doubts that they were intended for the piano – an instrument which allowed the virtuosos who played it (already at the end of the 18th century they were called pianists) to shade the dynamics, achieve expressive nuances and develop a hitherto unparalleled technical proficiency. Kurpiński's pianism still represents the style of late Baroque playing. Against this background, Chopin's early works, e.g. the mazurkas, present themselves as eminently innovative in terms of pianistic ideas. In his mature compositions (sonatas in B flat minor and B minor, ballades), Chopin gave evidence of his almost unlimited imagination as regards the shaping of texture in conjunction with experimental harmonics. Chopin's path was followed by many composers of piano music from the second half of the 19th century: Liszt, Henselt, and Anton Rubinstein. Echoes of Rubinstein's music, popular at the end of the 19th century, can be heard in the youthful works of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, such as Sarabande from Op. 14, clearly imitating the salon type of archaic stylisation introduced by Rubinstein, or the sentimental Melody from Op. 16 for violin and piano. In the case of Mieczysław Karłowicz's Waltz in G major, it is difficult to speak of a conscious continuation of the achievements of the great piano masters, as it is a youthful composition, in fact a child's composition – written before he went to study composition in Berlin. We know that in his mature oeuvre Karłowicz never returned to the piano genre – the type of intimate expression associated with this instrument did not suit him, he much preferred the orchestra.

Magdalena Dziadek