Henryk Pachulski (1859-1921)
Piano Music Volume 4
Piano Sonata 1 in C minor Op.10 (1894)
Deux Pièces Op.11 (publ.1895)
Phantastische Märchen Op.12 (1896)
Deux Pièces Op.20
Quatre Préludes Op.21 (1905)
Piano Sonata 3 in D major Op.32 (publ.2024)
Jakub Tchorzewski (piano)
rec. 2024, Państwowa Szkoła Muzyczna
Reviewed from download
Acte Préalable AP0584 [79]

I have been rather taken with what I have heard of this series. Henryk Pachulski is never going to be a household name; pianists may have come across his little prélude in C minor in a collection but that is generally as far as it goes. I reviewed volume three from this collection (Acte Préalable AP0487 review) and brief biographical details can be found there. His music amply demonstrates his skill at the piano, a skill reported at his return to Warsaw in 1885 to give recitals when Jan Kleczyński wrote about his extraordinary power, a rich and varied touch, excellent finger development, octaves well-elaborated and fluent trills, clarity of playing, everything is in order and forms a very good whole.

The C minor Sonata dates from the mid-1890s when Pachulski was back in Moscow teaching and is dedicated to composer and fellow Conservatory professor Anton Arensky. Cast in three movements it is full of dramatic gestures, especially the finale. Much of the first movement is based  on the semiquaver motif that is a calling card in the first bar with a glowing, lyrical second theme. The slow movement opens simply with a rising melody over a simple accompaniment which gradually gains in intensity as a second theme of triplet arabesques is interwoven into the texture. The finale shows off the pianist’s octaves to good effect though the main impetus is a more restrained triplet motif. The first recording of this piece I heard was by Ivan Shemchuk at the 2^nd Stanisław Moniuszko International Competition of Polish Music of which extracts, including this complete sonata, can be heard on DUX records DUX1857/1858 review. Shemchuk is more impassioned than Tchorzewski but this is still a strong account. The two pieces op.11 are dedicated to a young Polish pianist Maria Badowska who had debuted in Moscow in 1892. The first, a Moment Musical, is an elegiac piece while the second, aus lichten Tagen, is a finger-twisting étude which demands melodic playing against and amongst running semiquavers and a flexible left hand technique. The eight fantastic tales date from the same period and are dedicated to the great pianist Emil von Sauer, student of Liszt and Nicholas Rubinstein and student friend of Pachulski. These short character pieces are really like a set of préludes; each one generally follows the pattern or motif stated at the outset and stays with that so there is no real sense of narrative. Not that they aren’t attractive and engaging pieces, especially the staccato seventh, a mini étude reminiscent of Rubinstein’s great C major étude, surely a piece Pachulski knew well. Then there is the lilting and nimble second piece and the Tschaikowskian third with its rising melody and answering phrases.

The booklet describes the ten variations of the first of the two pieces op.20, a theme and variations , as each being in a different key whereas there are actually only two keys through the entire piece, G major and G minor, so the main interest is actually in the varied passagework and figuration. The theme itself could easily be a hymn verse and the variations actually stick pretty close to this, adding triplets (var.2), semiquaver counterpoint (var.3), swaggering octaves (var.5) and two slower minor key variations, all very standard stuff. Its inventive enough but not hugely imaginative. The sad little Pastorale à l’antique with its echoes of Scarlatti is more attractive. The booklet describes the four préludes op.61 as pedagogical in that each have a specific technique to develop which is true to a point; certainly the second which has the double difficulty of broken double octaves dancing over the keyboard and pitting three against two between the hands, a very effective little étude. The first prélude tugs at the heartstrings at times with a melody that sings over triplet broken chords in the left hand and harmonies that are full of passionate suspensions. A smooth legato left hand is a requirement for the third whose rolling lines have to sensitively accompany a melody that becomes a contrapuntal duet while the melody of the fourth is divided between the hands amidst an oscillating chordal accompaniment.

What we have heard so far was mostly unrecorded but was at least catalogued. The final piece, the third sonata op.32 was considered lost until Polish and Russian music expert Malcolm Henbury-Ballan discovered a copy of the manuscript and passed it onto Jan Jarnicki of Actepréalable; he has now made the score available. Once again cast in three movements the first inhabits the sound world of Borodin to my ears, a richly unfolding landscape that kept bringing Kismet to mind – sorry to all the purists out there. Mid European harmonies, with faint echoes of Schumann and Mendelssohn, are kindled by the rather beautiful song without words that is the central movement. The cascading figuration and romanticism that Liapunov, Liadov and years later Bortkiewicz would make their own is the hallmark of the finale. The whole middle section is in a more lyrical mood though the accompanying figures still restlessly swirl about and though there is an octave run to finish the piece it is this more restrained mood that seems to dominate.

All the music here is an amalgam of 19^th century piano literature from Chopin onwards with hints of the music of his contemporaries such as Tchaikowsky and Arensky and for all there are two sonatas here it is easy to listen to this recital as a collection of romantic miniatures, melodically rich and idiomatically written and the warm sound here suits the music. While I have to confess that the first volume in this series still stands out for me with the inspired playing of Lubow Nawrocka Jakub Tchorzewski is a confident and gifted player and this is a worthy addition to this series. There are still several original solo works to record so presumably there will be at least one more volume and as Pachulski arranged Tchaikowsky’s Capriccio Italien and fifth and sixth symphonies for piano solo as well as making transcriptions of Moniuszko and Żeleński the potential for more volumes is there.

Rob Challinor