Jan Lisiecki

Music distilled into its purest essence: that is a prelude. Since Chopin put the genre on the map as an entity in its own right, its popularity has been unstoppable. The young Polish Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki is a rising star who shows how composers have shaped the genre in the most diverse of ways. He leads us from the father of the genre, Chopin, to Rachmaninov’s virtuoso pieces and Szymanowski’s scores drenched in melancholy. Messiaen’s ecstatic, colourful preludes and Gorecki’s curt series also make their appearance, and Bach is unmissable. We hear the latter’s masterly keyboard pieces in a new context, as preludes without a fugue. Lisiecki’s subtle playing is perfect for this succinct genre in which every nuance counts.