This newly curated 2CD set features the best performances of mazurkas from the Polish Radio Awards archives of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw during the years 19272015. Polish Radio has broadcast the Chopin Competition from the very beginning but in 1927 the transmissions were not yet recorded. Polish Radio, which had only come on air two years earlier (1925), joined in the promotion of the competition idea, which was the subject of many emotive debates and polemics in Polish cultural life at the time.
The public broadcaster decided to fund a regular prize for the best performance of mazurkas. That was the first distinction of its kind at the Competition. The others were established in later years: for polonaise (1960, Fryderyk Chopin Society), for concerto (1980, Warsaw Philharmonic) and for sonata (2010,Krystian Zimerman).
Although Polish Radio, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute and the State Archives are not in possession of any official document establishing the prize, from 1927 it became an enduring part of the history of the Warsaw competition.
Not by chance was the mazurka chosen. A form often referred to as the quintessence of Polishness, it demands a familiarity with and feel for Polish national dances as Artur Rubinstein put itof what comes between the second and third beats. In simple terms, it is the art of distinguishing the mazurka from the waltz.
Chopin himself, when asked why he played a work in triple time as if it had four beats in the bar, replied provocatively that it was out of an attachment to the national tradition. That did not settle the matter.
Featuring 'The Radio Fifteen', the performers are:
1927: Henryk Sztompka
1932: Alexandre Uninsky
1937: Yakov Zak
1949: Halina Czerny-Stefanska
1955: Fou Tsong
1960: Irina Zaritskaya
1965: Martha Argerich
1970: Garrick Ohlsson
1975: Krystian Zimerman
1980: Dang Thai Son, Ewa Poblocka
1985: Marc Laforet
2005: Rafal Blechacz
2010: Daniil Trifonov
2015: Kate Liu
