In performance: Rafal Blechacz

“But no one came for Bach, Mozart or Debussy.”

Thank you, but how do you know this?

I imagine that some listeners were – or would be -- as interested in Blechacz's interpretations of the somewhat ‘scattered’ thoughts and chromatic anguish of some late middle-period Mozart, late-period Haydn, and Beethoven (of several periods starting perhaps with Op. 13, if not before), as well as the scattered thoughts and chromatic anguish of Chopin.

It would have been best if Mr. Kennicott had left his ego and patronizing attitude at home, and brushed up on what happened at the Chopin piano competitions and on the American TV since the sixties. To all the readers who were not able to hear Mr. Blechacz's performance this time, I would say let's all hope the WPAS gets a bigger hall the next time he is in Washington and a grand piano that can take Mr. Blechacz's dynamic range without recoiling like a Civil War era cannon.