"For me she was a revelation... Her outstanding technical equipment is just a tool she is using for her deeply-felt love for music of the masters ... I cannot recommend enough an artist of such calibre, and I do it only to provide my many faithful audiences in the world with the same joy hearing her as I felt myself." -Arthur Rubinstein

The exceptional artistry and brilliant virtuosity of Janina Fialkowska have won her an enthusiastic reception from audiences and critics worldwide. She appears regularly with the world's leading orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Minnesota and Philadelphia Orchestras, the symphony orchestras of Montreal and Toronto and most of England's major orchestras. She has won special recognition for the world premiere performance of a newly discovered Piano Concerto by Franz Liszt with the Chicago Symphony (1990).

Born in Montreal to a Canadian mother and a Polish father, Janina Fialkowska graduated from the l'école de musique Vincent-d'Indy, Montreal, and then studied privately in Paris and at New York's Juilliard School of Music. Her discography includes recitals of Liszt (CBC), concerted works by Chopin, Moszkowski, and Koprowski (CBC), virtuoso showpieces (CBC), solo piano works by Szymanowski and Chopin (Opening Day), the Paderewski Piano Concerto (Polish National Radio Orchestra/Naxos) and lieder recitals with bass-baritone Daniel Lichti (Opening Day).

She recently recorded the complete Liszt Concerti with Hans Graf and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CBC). Janina Fialkowska is the founder of "Piano Six", a group of internationally renowned Canadian pianists (Cheng, Fialkowska, Hamelin, Hewitt, LaPlante, Parker) who are committed to a ten year program that will affordably bring important recitals to specific areas of Canada where classical music performances are a rarity.

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"Transcendental - going beyond the limits of ordinary experience: abstract, obscure; visionary"

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To follow and analyze the fascinating compositional development of Franz Liszt's Transcendental études is almost like following a biography of the composer himself, for it took over 25 years and at least three published versions to produce the 1852 edition heard here. Already a celebrated child prodigy at fifteen, Liszt began work on what was to become his "l'études pour le Piano en douze exercises composés par E Liszt" in Marseilles, following a grueling recital tour of the French provinces. He had planned a series of 48 pieces to be arranged in the same sequence of keys as Bach's "Welt-Tempered Clavier". The result, obviously inspired by the études of Liszt's piano teacher Carl Czerny, was dedicated to Lydia Garella, a hunch-backed young girl with whom Liszt had become enamoured while playing duets in Marseilles.

Liszt soon became dissatisfied with this juvenile, though highly original and interesting effort, and had the edition withdrawn. In 1831 a new edition of this first version appeared, with only six of the original twelve pieces, and it was now dedicated to Czerny, as were all later editions. Three factors would overwhelmingly influence the subsequent development of these études: the intoxicating example of Paganini, the mature artistry of Chopin's études, and Liszt's own astonishing pianism and spectacular performing career. The first occurred in April 1832 in Paris when he first heard Paganini in concert.

The encounter made such an impression on him that Liszt wrote to his pupil Pierre Wolff that "For a whole fortnight my mind and my fingers have been working like two lost souls. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Byron, Hugo, Lamartine, Chatéaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them, meditate on them, devour them with fury: besides this, I practice four or five hours of exercises (thirds, sixths, octaves, tremolo repetition of notes, cadenzas, etc). Ah! Provided I don't go mad you will find in me an artist!"

Liszt's desire, of course, was to create for the keyboard the same kind of diabolical, virtuosic effects that Paganini had invented for the violin. This process began with the composition of his Paganini études in 1838 but was greatly refined by the time he produced his second version of the Transcendental études in 1839. "My piano is to me what his vessel is to the sailor, his horse to the Arab, nay even more, 'til now it has been myself, my speech, my life... In the compass of its seven octaves it includes the entire scope of the orchestra, and the ten fingers suffice for the harmony which is produced by an ensemble of a hundred players..."

And finally, Liszt was most probably the greatest virtuoso pianist of all time, and the Transcendental études are an accurate reflection of just how extraordinary a pianist he was. Liszt invented the modern piano recital and his technical command of the keyboard was, by all accounts, limitless. His feats of memory were prodigious. In 1841-42 he played 21 concerts in Berlin without repeating any repertoire. At the height of his career, between 1839 and 1847, he gave over a thousand concerts, travelling from England and Portugal in the West and as far East as the Urals in Russia and south to Turkey. All this before the invention of the. automobile, let alone jet travel.

The second, 1839 version of the études reflect Liszt's amazing digital skill and extroverted, unabashed virtuosity. Of this new version, with its terrifying technical complexities, Schmnann wrote that they were "studies in 'Sturm und Drand', for at the most, ten or twelve players in the world" and Berlioz wrote that "Regrettably, one cannot hope to hear music of this kind often. Liszt created it for himself, and no-one else would flatter himself that he could approach being able to perform it."

Liszt himself must have realized this because, for the final version, published in 1851, and following his retirement from the concert stage, he reduced some of the monstrous difficulties. Although still fiendishly difficult, the études became slightly more accessible, relatively speaking. It is to be assumed that Liszt wanted these pieces to live on and be performed after his death, hence this final version.

Etude 1: "Preludio" in C major: The shortest of the études, it is indeed a prelude and a warm-up to the next eleven blockbusters.

Etude 2: in A minor: The "fate" motif appears relentlessly throughout this étude, which is also characterized by interlocking chords and octaves, leaping over the keyboard at vertiginous speeds.

Etude 3: "Paysage" in F major. Peaceful, pastoral and tranquil, the Paysage (landscape) provides a nice breather between its more formidable neighbours.

Etude 4: "Mazeppa" in D minor. In Victor Hugo's poem, Mazeppa, a Polish nobleman, was condemned to death and bound to the back of a wild horse which was then whipped and set free to gallop wildly and (presumably) kill off the poor victim. Instead, he survived to become a Cossack chief in the Ukraine: 'Il tombe enfin!...et se releve roi' Liszt quotes from the poem at the end of this étude. His obsession with the poem led to his composition not only of the various piano étude versions, but also an orchestral version, a two-piano version and a piano four-hand version. In the étude for solo piano, the theme appears six times, each time with a different mood and technical difficulty, twice separated by an imposing octave passage and ending triumphantly with, crushing D-Major chords.

Etude 5: "Feux Follets" (will o' the wisps) in B flat major. This is the most enchanting and sophisticated of the études. Its delicate filigree and harmonic refinement influenced subsequent études by, among others, Saint-Saens, Moszkowski and Rachmaninov. Its two and one-half page passage of double note figures near the beginning remains one of the most technically challenging passages in the piano repertoire.

Etude 6: "Vision", in G minor. After the Mendelssohn-like joy and insouciance of Feux Follets, Liszt creates an atmosphere of death and ghostly spectres with the use of chords and arpeggios and the quotation of "Dies Irae", the chant of the dead, in this very dark vision.

Etude 7: "Eroica", in E flat major. This étude did not develop from the 1827 version, but rather from one of Liszt's earliest works, an opera potpourri on themes of Rossini and Spontini. After the flashy opening comes a rather ironic, tongue-in-cheek passage which builds continuously, climaxing in an impressive double-octave passage. This in turn is cut off abruptly by a combination of the opening, heroic bombast, and the subtle cynicism of the second motive.

Etude 8: "Wilde Jagd" (Wild Hunt), in c minor is a wild ride for both pianist and the audience, who are swept along in its tumultuous wake. This is the epitome of the romantic étude, with its wonderful virtuoso writing, furiously loud interlocking chords and octave passages, strange rhythmic hemiolas and a lush passionate melody

Etude 9: "Ricordanza" in A flat major. For a long time, at the beginning of the 1900's, one of the favourite and most frequently performed of the études, this composition is little changed since the original 1827 edition, with just a new introduction and a few minor alterations. It has a delicate, salon-like charm.

Etude 10: in F minor. This very beautiful and impassioned étude contains some stunningly original modulations and chromaticism. It is also interesting to note that the opening, recurring melodic figure bears a striking resemblance to Chopin's F minor ~tude opus 10, which Liszt frequently performed. However, Liszt's first version of 'his' F minor was written before he heard the Chopin étude and already contains the blueprint for his own final version. Perhaps Liszt's development of his early F minor étude into the final masterpiece was influenced by Chopin's example.

Etude 11: "Harmonies du soir" in D flat major; another mostly tranquil respite from all the surrounding pyrotechnics. It has a gentle, nocturne-like fiavour and two contrasting but extremely sensual melodies, the second of these developing into a full-blown Lisztian "cri de coeur' just before the pianissimo ending. The harmonies in the quasi-impressionistic opening passage are unusual and extremely evocative: one can see why the young Claude Debussy was so inspired by this music.

Etude 12: "Chasse-neige" in Bb minor, is perhaps the most innovative of the études in terms of pianistic sonorities and colours. It is meant to give the illusion of whirlwinds of snow and this is achieved with daring chromaticisms and challenging tremolos appearing throughout in all forms and dynamics. A hauntingly bleak melody is heard piercing through these amazing effects. This étude is a true forerunner of impressionism.

-Janina Fialkowska

 

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