On our forum, a user named Piotr wrote before the concert:
I reserved my dream seats in the third row in May this year; it was hot and greenery was attacking from all sides. (..) Let me say it plainly, let me shout it: A celebration for all jazz fans!
The artist began the concert with variations on works by Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849) and Krzysztof Komeda (1931–1969), calling them “hybrids.” He played with concentration, absorbed by the music he was creating. His musical partner, as he also mentioned during the concert, was a Steinway piano. Bowing to the audience, Leszek Możdżer pointed to the Steinway, saying that the applause also belonged to this noble instrument.
The instrument sounded perfect under the fingers of virtuoso Leszek Możdżer. The artist performs on it because, among other things, the sostenuto pedal mechanism allows one note to be sustained without extending other notes (the mechanism in the piano’s middle pedal).
To obtain an unusual timbre, Leszek Możdżer prepared the sounds on the Steinway. To mute them, he used a scarf; to make them pearly or flat and short like those of a clavichord, he used a glass, forks and beads. He placed them, among other things, on the piano strings.
The musician liked the Forum hall, which he praised during the concert—an exceptional compliment and, at the same time, a positive assessment of the city’s main concert hall. He also thanked the audience for coming to the concert and thus supporting the artist.
Leszek Możdżer proved to be someone who does not lavish unnecessary praise. His comments between pieces were laconic but sharp and not without irony.
After performing his own interpretation of a work by Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994), he said that he plays the piece for politicians at various receptions to introduce an element of disorientation into their lives. Speaking about the outstanding composer, he said that he valued his approach to life. He recalled that in the 1950s Lutosławski, under the pseudonym Derwid, took on commercial work to earn enough money for a beautiful property and to create modern compositions. Możdżer called this attitude to life “Christian cunning.”
The artist ended the concert with a piece from the film “Law and Fist” (1964), directed by Edward Skórzewski and Jerzy Hoffman, with music by Krzysztof Komeda—he played Komeda and Agnieszka Osiecka’s well-known song “Before the Day Breaks.”
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)