Prokofiev Works For Violin And Piano

Following the successful release of the Grieg Violin Sonatas, Franziska Pietsch and her piano partner Detlev Eisinger now present music by Sergei Prokofiev on the audite label. His works reflect facets of her own biography to a significant degree. As an emerging talent in the GDR, Franziska Pietsch enjoyed special state support; her musical training was thus initially shaped by the Eastern European school, bringing Prokofiev's music close to her heart. His two Violin Sonatas appear as two contrasting poles within his oeuvre - her life has also moved between extremes. The state support led to early success in the GDR. However, her father's escape to the West in 1984 was followed by two years of reprisals by the regime, intensively shaping Franziska Pietsch's understanding of music: deprived of any possibility of playing concerts or taking lessons, her chosen path towards hope - against desperation, refusal, fear and despotism - led inwards.

The lyrical element is the essence of Prokofiev's nature, whether it be that of the man or of his music and it is deliberately that he chooses to turn it to derision, to make it grotesque, to disfigure it. Through all the distortions, dilations, sudden stops and about-faces that the composer subjects them to, his themes and harmonies remain essentially lyrical.

The violin sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev were written during the tumultuous years of 1938-1946. Prokofiev’s musical language in both sonatas was already fully developed.

Born in Jelenia Gura, Sulamita Slubowska started playing the violin at the age of six under the direction of Ludmila Solowiewicz. Graduate of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice in the class of Prof. Szymon Krzeszowiec, in which she has been working as an assistant professor since 2020. Graduate of the NOSPR Academy. She has trained her skills under the guidance of outstanding artists, such as Pierre Amoyal, Gidon Kremer, Pinchas Zukerman, Roland Baldini, Bartlomiej Niziol and Maria Szwajger-Kulakowska. Moreover, she has been appreciated many times at national and international com- petitions, win-ning, among others, first place at International 'Young Paganini' Violin Competition in Legnica, first place at National Stanislaw Serwaczynski Competition of Young Violinists in Lublin, third place in the Michal SpisakNational Music Competition in Dabrowa Gornicza. On this release, she presents a program of works by Bacewicz, Prokofiev, and Part.