Glowing reviews for Alexandra Dariescu with Warsaw Philharmonic and Krzysztof Urbański
Five performances of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in Birmingham, Bristol, London, Nottingham and Hull revealed Alexandra’s poetry, elegance and command of the core repertoire. Encores with orchestral colleagues in music by Clara Schumann made the large-scale concerts wonderfully intimate.
“simply unforgettable…extraordinary stillness and refinement…a performance of remarkable poise, refinement and emotional economy..impressive crystalline clarity, a Bach-like purity of tone and line and naturalness”
Seen and Heard International
The altitudinous Alexandra Dariescu confirmed herself a consummate artist in Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.2, the unquestionable centrepiece of the evening: a performance of remarkable poise, refinement and emotional economy. From her first entry, Dariescu played with impressive crystalline clarity, a Bach-like purity of tone and line and naturalness: nothing was mannered or exaggerated, nothing underlined for rhetorical effect, yet every phrase emerged with unforced immediacy, allowing Chopin’s writing to speak with disarming directness and fragile poetic radiance.
The opening Maestoso unfolded with luminous poise, the piano’s opening figurations projected lucidly above a finely balanced orchestral foundation, the orchestral texture remaining transparent and weightless throughout. Dariescu shaped the long lines with effortless control, while Urbański and the Warsaw Philharmonic responded with finely judged sensitivity, never obscuring the solo line.
The celebrated Larghetto was simply unforgettable. Its opening pages were played with extraordinary stillness and refinement. Dariescu sustained the long melodic spans with such control that the music seemed to breathe without effort. The stillness she achieved here created an almost suspended sense of time, the natural purity of her sound intensifying the emotional impact without recourse to exaggeration.
By contrast, the finale danced with buoyant physicality, its passagework thrown off with effortless ease, yet was at once earthbound and airborne.
The audience responded with evident exuberance, followed by an encore of the Romanze from Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.7, performed in its intimate original guise as a duet for piano and solo cello. Alexandra Dariescu was joined by the Warsaw Philharmonic’s principal cellist, Aleksandra Ohar-Sprawka, and together the two women formed an ideally balanced partnership, closely matched in tone, colour and expressive restraint.
The cello’s warm, vocal line and the piano’s finely shaded clarity intertwined seamlessly, creating a single, unified musical perspective. Phrasing was carefully attuned throughout, with an instinctive sense of shared pacing and dynamic nuance, the exchange unfolding as a true chamber dialogue. At its conclusion, they embraced, beaming, amid appreciative applause from the packed Cadogan Hall audience.
Reviewsgate ★★★★★
Alexandra Dariescu has this music in her blood. She wasn’t afraid of the limelight yet also relished the opportunity to duet with orchestral players. More than anything beauty of sound is a must in Chopin, as is agile virtuosity – and she certainly had plenty of both, especially in the gorgeous slow movement when the soloist launches into sublime flights of fantasy while the orchestra offers a glowing backcloth of sound.
As an encore she joined forces with the orchestra’s leader, Krzysztof Bakowski, for the first of Clara Schumann’s charmingly tuneful Romances for violin and piano.
Full review: https://www.reviewsgate.co.uk/all-reviews/warsaw-philharmonic
