Tomasz Ritter, win­ner of MA Competition for Pianoforte 2024, brings us a unique pro­gramme, per­formed on a piano built in Vienna by Conrad Graf in 1833. He starts with the rel­a­tive­ly unknown but fas­ci­nat­ing Polish com­pos­er: Franciszek Lessel. Lessel uses very mod­ern tech­niques – such as sharp con­trasts, unex­pect­ed twists and vir­tu­os­i­ty – that are rem­i­nis­cent of his teacher Haydn but also of C.P.E. Bach and even Beethoven. Ritter fol­lows this with two con­trast­ing Beethoven sonatas, rich in dra­ma and ele­gance, and then con­cludes with some ear­ly Chopin works, whose clar­i­ty of tone, mechan­i­cal light­ness, colour and dynam­ic explo­sive­ness sound com­plete­ly at home on this excep­tion­al instrument.

Music by Franciszek Lessel (1780−1838), Ludwig van Beethoven (1770−1827) & Frédéric Chopin (1810−1849)