Dominika Mak at the Matthiesen Gallery – Young Artists Concert Series ‘Dreaming of Utopia with playing of refined finesse’

ChristopherAxworthyMusicCommentary
Patrick Matthiesen presenting Dominika Mak in his gallery in Mayfair. He had heard her practicing and was so overwhelmed he invited her to give a public recital.

Dominika Mak playing in the beautiful Matthiesen Gallery in an evening of refined elegance with playing of ethereal beauty surrounded by wonderful paintings in a room that one would be more lightly to find in a castle in the Loire than in the centre of London.


Playing of exquisite good taste and beauty allowed us to close a door for a moment on this upside down world where a power game of quantity over quality is fast arriving at an autodestruct stage of no return!
Haydn B minor Sonata brought to life with sounds that rarely are heard these days from pianos that are geared up to project to the masses.
As Paul Lewis exhorted a young pianist in his masterclass yesterday :’ draw the public in to you there is no need to project …….Schubert is a Genius …..trust him!’

Paul Lewis at the Guildhall on a wondrous voyage of discovery to find the heart and soul of Schubert


Not Schubert for Dominika Mak but Haydn of exquisite refined beauty but also dynamic drive and passion .Chopin the third and fourth Ballades where she had a wondrous story to share with streams of golden sounds that just flowed from her elegant fingers with a simplicity and aristocratic nobility that is hidden within the soul of the Polish people.


A genial idea to link the sound world of mazurkas by Chopin and Szymanowski with the ethereal water nymph Ondine creating an atmosphere of magic and ravishing beauty.
This had now created the atmosphere for Chopin’s Nocturne in D flat that floated on an ethereal wave of whispered sounds .Playing as if in a trance with an improvised beauty sharing Chopin’s deepest thoughts with us as we listened with baited breath transported to a far better world than we could ever envisage. A power game playing outside these exquisite confines, where the autodestruct button gets ever nearer in a world where greedy quantity takes precedence over refined quality.

Haydn’s B minor sonata n 47 was played as if the ink were still fresh on the page! A sense of discovery with a kaleidoscope of colours where every note had a meaning and an important place in a chain of ravishing sounds.There was a crystalline clarity of velvet beauty from an artist who listens to herself and loves the sounds that pour with such ease from her well oiled fingers.A minuet and trio of poignant beauty and extraordinary eloquence with playing of exquisite delicacy.This was not porcelain doll beauty but playing that had drive and contrast too as was shown in the Finale. A Presto of extraordinary ‘jeux perlé’ brilliance with a refined palette of sounds and breathtaking fearless energy. A performance of a work I have heard many times but today it was as though I was hearing it for the first time such was her power of communication allowing Haydn’s genial invention to speak for itself with simplicity, fantasy and mastery.
I had heard Dominika just a few weeks ago at a celebration of Chopin at the POSK in London. It does not necessarily follow that because Chopin is a much loved National Hero that he is revealed only to Polish pianists.Fou Ts’ong was awarded the mazurka prize at one of the first Chopin Competitions after the war much to everyone’s suprise. As he explained the soul to be found in Chopin is the same that is in Chinese poetry – you see the soul has no boundaries!
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/10/20/posk-chopin-festival-2004-mak-dubiel-pawlak-swigut-a-feast-of-music-and-full-immersion-with-lady-rose-cholmondeley-and-prof-john-rink/
Some Polish pianists can love Chopin too much and exaggerate the deep rooted nostalgia that Chopin nurtured always for his homeland. Chopin at 18 left his homeland never to return again and became the refined aristocratic composer who spent most of his life in the privileged circles of Paris high society. Dominika is Polish but she also understands the refined aristocratic composer where sentiment is hidden deep within the notes and not just superficially on the surface.It was Artur Rubinstein ( he too an exile from an early age) who broke away from a tradition where sentiment had become sentimentality and deeply rooted nostalgia became heart on sleeve showmanship for pianists who would also talk to the public whilst they played to let them know how clever they were! Dominika’s playing that I heard at POSK revealed an artist not only of refined sensibility but a musician of aristocratic authority with playing that was flexible but always as Chopin said with roots firmly planted in the ground but with the branches free to sway in the wind.
Six Preludes from his set of 24 ( Chopin never played them as a set or intended them to be played together ) immediately showed Dominika’s remarkable sense of balance, where in the 13th the melody was allowed to sing sustained by a continuous flow of harmonic beauty that was allowed to emerge at poignant moments.The 14th ,just one page, usually played like a battle cry was here the same wind over the graves of his later Funeral March Sonata where Chopin’s originality had Schumann declaring that it was more ‘like a mockery than any music’. Dominika played it like a living amalgam of sounds rising and falling with unusual poetic beauty. She brought a radiance to the ‘Raindrop’ prelude that was of great beauty but also strength with the sombre whispered left hand of the central episode creating the terrible weather in Valdemossa where Chopin had eloped with George Sand, taking refuge from the vulgar peasants and dreadful weather in the cell of a Monastery high in the hills on Majorca.The 16th is a ‘tour de force’ for any pianist but in Dominika’s hands became a frantic swirl of sounds played fearlessly and almost spotlessly! There was deep rooted nostalgia to the 17th with a timeless outpouring of melody of searing beauty.The deep A flats at the end creating a magic carpet on which the melody was heard more and more in the distance.The cadenza prelude of the 18th was played with extraordinary musicianship where the melody and accompaniment were played with unexpected and refreshing originality.
The 3rd and Fourth Ballades were played as tone poems of extraordinary originality.The pastoral beauty of the third contrasting with the poignant beauty and majesty of the fourth , long considered the pinnacle of the Romantic piano repertoire together with the Liszt Sonata and the Schumann Fantasy .If the climax of both could have had more incisive bite and weight Dominika convinced us that first and foremost these were two visions of beauty where even the extraordinary technical demands made especially in the codas was only a poetic means of expression that grew out of the story that was being told.

The Mazurkas op 59 I had heard from Dominika’s hands a few week ago and was overwhelmed by her understanding and recreation of miniature tone poems that Schumann described as ‘canons covered in flowers’. Today she repeated that miracle and added another that were three of the four Mazurkas written for Artur Rubinstein by his friend Szymanowski.
Written in 1925 they have the same dance rhythm as Chopin but a musical language that owes more to Stravinsky with its strange intoxicating harmonies. Rubinstein used to play them as a brief window opener in his all Chopin recitals.It was this refreshing purity and clarity that added another dimension to Ravel’s water nymph,Ondine,who flutters in and out of the ravishing waves of the first of the suite ‘Gaspard de la Nuit’.It was in the climax of ‘Ondine’ that suddenly Dominika showed us her technical mastery as she threw herself with fearless abandon in a work that Ravel wanted to put virtuosi pianists to the test as Balakirev had done with his Islamey.
It was after this final ‘tour de force’ that Dominika chose to play one of Chopin’s most beautiful bel canto creations.The Nocturne in D flat was played with barely whispered sounds of great daring and freedom.Her innate musicianship allowed her to steer her way through this sublime music with unusual freedom but also with an architectural vision that was totally convincing.
L’aula Gaber and Mary Orr with Dominika Mak and Patrick Matthiesen.
Christopher Elton always present to hear his students in public together with Tom Zalmanov and Dominika both students at the Royal Academy of Music https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/05/16/tom-zalmanov-at-steinway-hall-for-the-keyboard-trust/
Tom will be playing at the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday at 1.00pm in the RAM Piano Series which recently saw Emanuil Ivanov give an incredible performance of Rzewski .Prof Elton of course was there too !
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/10/09/emanuil-ivanov-sensational-performance-at-the-wigmore-hall-of-rzewski-the-people-united-will-never-be-defeated-a-staggering-performance-of-total-mastery-and-musical-communication/
Sir Norman Rosenthal who will be hosting his 80th birthday concert for friends in the Gallery on Friday thanks to the generosity of Patrick Matthiesen His protégé Samson Tsoy will play late Beethoven and Aksel Rykkvin with Zany Denver will perform lieder by Beethoven and Schubert including Normans Gesang of 1825
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/07/19/review-of-samson-tsoy-the-trilogy-at-fidelio/
Victor Braojos and Paul Mnatsakanov two extraordinary young artists playing regularly in London. Victor a fellow of the Guildhall and Paul in his final year as post graduate at the RCM.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/05/24/paul-mnatsakanov-graduation-recitals-at-the-royal-college-music/
Victor Braojos a protégée of the indomitable Mary Orr of the Young Artists Concert Series
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2024/10/17/victor-braojos-at-imperial-college-the-voice-of-spain-with-loveauthority-and-passion/
Superb aspiring young musicians all supporting each others recitals as did Barenboim,Du Pre,Fou Ts’ong,Andre Tchaikowsky,Nelson Freire,Martha Argerich ,Perleman, Zuckerman in the 60’s when life was slower and jet setting careers were not yet the norm.
The extraordinary Christopher Elton a fellow student of Gordon Green and now in his 80’s but still with an undiminished passion for music that takes him to International Piano Juries as well as helping the students that flock to his studio at the RAM

Dominika Mak Refined music making of intelligence and clarity

POSK Chopin Festival 2004 Mak – Dubiel-Pawlak- Swigut A feast of music and full immersion with Lady Rose Cholmondeley and Prof John Rink

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