Chopin: Complete Mazurkas Vol. 1 – Tatiana Larionova

Chopin’s “Mazurkas” are a standalone within the Romantic piano literature thanks to a number of factors, such as the presence of echoes of the Polish country music, a mood between nostalgia and remorse (“żal” in Polish), together with a compositional mastery which is perfectly attuned to short forms like the aphorism and the poem. Written between ca. 1814 and the composer’s death year, they received, during his entire lifetime, his deepest inspiration as a Polish musician, becoming a kind of poetic journal of his exile; in no other genre was Chopin so prolific (fifty-seven pieces overall) and full of ideas. After the trauma of the failed Polish insurrection (1831), the first six Mazurkas were published in 1833 in Paris, the city which had welcomed the exiles and listened with participation to the voice of their art (both musical, and, in the case of A. Mickiewicz, literary). Berlioz acutely wrote that Chopin’s performances were interwoven “with a thousand tempo nuances whose secret is known to him only and for which no notation exists. There are incredible details in his Mazurkas, and he found how to make them doubly interesting, by performing them with an extreme degree of sweetness, with a superb piano in which the hammers barely touch the strings”.

TATIANA LARIONOVA: Born in 1979 in Primorskij Krai (URSS) Tatiana Larionova began studying the piano at the age of five. In 1991, she entered the Central Music School in Moscow, where she studied under Professor Yuri Slesarev. After graduating in 1997 with highest rating, Tatiana attended the Moscow State Conservatory where she studied until 2004 under Professor Victor Merzhanov, taking, again with best votes, her doctorate. In 2005 she got a full-scholarship of the International Center for Music, Park University, Missouri where she studied with Professor Stanislav Ioudenitch and attended masterclasses of D. Bashkirov and Fou Ts’ong. Tatiana Larionova is top prize winner of several international piano competitions, including: Web Concert Hall International Competition (USA, 2007); first prize Domenico Cimarosa International Piano Prize (Italy, 2009), first prize, “Palma d’oro” International Piano Competition (Italy, 2010). Tatiana participated in International Piano Festivals, including “Bodensee-Festival” (Germany) and the International European Piano Forum (Berlin, 2001), and she is artist is residence of Col Legno Festival, Lucca, and Tiroler Festspiele Erl. She has performed recitals and concerts in the most important halls in Europe (Russia, Byelorussia, Germany, Poland, France, Austria, Suisse and Italy) and US. In 2001, Tatiana made her orchestral debut performing Mozart Piano Concerto # 23 in the Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the orchestra of the conservatory conducted by A. Kaluzhnyi with incredible success of public and critic. After this date she performed with many orchestras around the globe. In 2009, Tatiana recorded her debut CD/DVD for Limen Music featuring works by Haydn, Liszt and Rachmaninov and in 2015, Schuncke Piano Music CD for Brilliant Classics. Since 2008 she is playing regularly in duo with Davide Cabassi, and together they are artistic directors of the festival “Primavera di Baggio” in Milan. In 2009, Tatiana won “Milano Donna” prize. This award is dedicated to the women who with their professional activity represents the name of this city in the world.