All in all, her playing is dynamically varied and of great richness with its many colors. On a good-sounding Bösendorfer, the power of the left hand and the contrasts thus achieved are also particularly striking, so that the listener’s interest is kept alive by truly exciting interpretations.
On this CD we hear a set of Polonaises in very polished but at the same time very spontaneously rhetorical interpretations. Only three are by Frédéric Chopin. Oginski’s Polonaise is the earliest piece, and textbook author Jakub Puchalski calls it ‘pre-Chopinesque.’ Worth mentioning are the Polonaise by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, one of the composer’s early works, and the Polonaise Triomphale by Jozef Wieniawski, brother of the famous violinist.
Julia Kociuban phrases with a certain freedom, but without exaggeration; she plays cantabile without becoming sentimental. The pianist undoubtedly has a good sense of articulation, she knows how to create dramatic intensity and counter it with release, and she knows how to put the forms, which she masters very well, into perspective. All in all, her playing is dynamically varied and of great richness with its many colors. On a good-sounding Bösendorfer, the power of the left hand and the contrasts thus achieved are also particularly striking, so that the listener’s interest is kept alive by truly exciting interpretations.