One of my dreams is to present to the Vancouver audience one of the best chamber music pieces ever written, composed by Juliusz Zarebski in 1985 just before he died at age 31. Martha Argerich played this piece last year at the 'Chopin and his Europe' Festival in Warsaw. Argerich included this masterpiece in the programme of her own festival in Lugano in June. Please read below a feature article written by Adrian Thomas about this forgotten composer.

Zarebski Piano Quintet
-- by Adrian Thomas

I’m about to engage in a labour of love: writing a CD note for one of the ‘forgotten’ masterpieces of 19th-century music. The name Juliusz Zarębski (pronounced Yooliush Zarempski) is hardly known outside his native Poland, but in his time he was one of the most famous pianists in Europe. Zarębski (1854-85) was one of Liszt’s pupils and started teaching at the Conservatory in Brussels when he was in his mid-20s. But, like too many of his contemporaries, he succumbed to tuberculosis and died when he was only 31.

I am a passionate advocate of Zarębski’s Piano Quintet, which he completed shortly before he died, and it is very exciting that a new recording will be issued here later this year (I can say no more!). There have been over a handful of CD recordings already, but none has penetrated the market much beyond Poland. Yet major figures have performed it: Martha Argerich played it in Poland last year.

I remembered yesterday that I had a written a little piece on Zarębski for a Polish CD magazine, Studio, about 15 years ago. So, as a tribute to the composer, who was born on this day in 1854, and in an attempt to whet the appetite for the new CD, I’ve reproduced the article below (unaltered except for a few recording updates) and intercut it with YouTube videos of a concert performance given by the Bulgarian Quarto Quartet with Darina Vassileva on 12 April 2010. This is a committed and fervent interpretation which brings out the work’s great strength, passion and originality.

You can read the entire article here.