It is great to be able to hear Andrzej just a month before he will compete in the Chopin Olympics in Warsaw. I have heard him play many times over the past few years and have heard all of these pieces from his hands too. It was just last summer that I heard an Andrzej reborn as all the anxiety of having to prove himself on the competition circuit had left him and a new maturity had allowed his unique talent to flower and flourish as the joy of recreation had overcome any idea of having to prove himself.
I have heard all of these works over the years from Andrzej, from the ecstatic outpouring of the Nocturne op 55 to the mellow imposing beauty of the Polonaise Fantaisie op 61 with Andrzej’s wonderful way of painting the sounds at the beginning like an artist before his canvas, where sounds and visual beauty live in close harmony. The radiance and luminosity of the Mazurkas op 59 and the imposing energy of the Scherzo in B flat minor with the poignant beauty of the central episode that gradually bursts into scintillating brilliance .Exceptionally today there was a short interval before Andrzej played the B minor Sonata . When Andrzej returned he was like a man possessed. One of the miracles of live performance is as Gilels said, like fresh food as opposed to the processed food of recordings . An audience can stimulate a real artist into embarking on a voyage of discovery where even he is taken to places he had never imagined before . Today was just such a case with the opening of the Sonata played with searing authority and dynamic drive . An architectural shape and a timelessness where even the second subject was sung with strength and delicacy. A development episode that was of imposing aristocratic authority . A scherzo of such perfect legato that was like streams of undulating sounds reaching a central episode that was played with deeply felt poignancy . The imposing introduction to the slow movement was even linked to the final chords of the scherzo as the ravishing bel canto was allowed to breathe with delicacy and ravishing beauty, but also a sense of direction and shape that was quite extraordinary . A final movement played with authority and breathtaking mastery as it built with aristocratic control to the final explosion of scintillating brilliance .Even the encore of the waltz in E flat was played with the charm and ‘joie de vivre’ of a pianist from another age . The Golden Age to which Andrzej on this showing today is a true heir.
Andrzej Wiercinski was born in Warsaw in 1995 and graduated with Distinction from Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice and in 2020 received a post graduate diploma in piano at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg under the supervision of Professor Pavel Gililov. In June 2024 he graduated from the Royal College of Music in London where he studied with Professor Norma Fisher for the Artist Diploma. In earlier years he was a recipient of the Krystian Zimerman, Yamaha Foundation Scholarships and the F. Wybranczyk Artistic Scholarship of the Sinfonia Varsovia Foundation. He has collaborated with KAWAI and Japan Arts, which invited him to Asia on several tours. Andrzej has won first prize in numerous national and international piano competitions including at the Saint-Priest International Competition in France (2019), First International Music Competition in Vienna (2019), Masters’ Neapolitan Piano Competition (Naples 2018), International Chopin Competition “Golden Ring” in Slovenia (2014), International Chopin Competition in Budapest (2014), and the Polish International Chopin Competition (2015). He has also been a significant prize winner at other prestigious piano competitions, such as the American Ignacy Jan Paderewski International Piano Competition (Los Angeles 2022); Hong Kong International Piano Competition (2019); International Piano Competition in Tbilisi (2017); International Competition “Halina Czerny-Stefanska” in Memoriam (Poznan 2014). Andrzej was a semi-finalist in the International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw (2021).
In recent years Andrzej has given recitals in most European countries as well as in Brazil, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, and the USA. In January 2022 he performed in Dubai, where he gave 23 Chopin piano recitals during the EXPO. In 2015 Andrzej accompanied the President of Poland, Bronislaw Komorowski, on his visit to Japan and performed a Chopin recital in Tokyo in the presence of Princess Masako Owada.
In the United Kingdom Andrzej has played in Hatchlands Park in the Cobbe Collection Series of piano recitals on historic pianos, for the Chopin Society on the UK and at the Polish Cultural Centre (POSK), as well as in many live streamed recitals at St. Mary’s Perivale.
Andrzej has performed piano concertos with several major orchestras. They include Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto in the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw with the Sinfonia Iuventus in 2022, and Chopin’s F minor Piano Concerto in Darmstadt with the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck Orchestra in 2023.In 2016 the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute released Andrzej’s first CD of solo works by Chopin, Schumann, and Scarlatti. In 2025 he will be recording a further solo CD.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 