Łukasz Kwiatkowski - "Chopin, Miładowski - known & unknown Romantics" album - CD Review, 19^th of January 2023

If Frédéric Chopin is considered one of the most popular 19^th century composers, with compositions that are still successful to this day, Florian Stanisław Miładowski's compositions, his contemporary, have been almost completely forgotten. They are being brought up again to public attention by pianist Łukasz Kwiatkowski, the first to ever record piano pieces belonging to this compositor who lived between 1819 and 1889, as well as works by Frédéric Chopin.

Compositor Florian StanisławMiładowskiwas born on the 4^th of May 1819 in Minsk, in a Polish family of musicians. A prolific compositor, teacher, pianist and conductor, Miładowskitravelled to various European capitals in order to extend his career. He studied in Berlin and Vienna, became a teacher in Vilnius and then spent his last years in France, where he passed away in 1889 in the city of Bordeaux. His works include a great number of pieces for chamber ensembles, sacred pieces, operettas and piano opuses defined by their free rhythm, harmonic simplicity, agogic and melodic fantasy. Unfortunately, the vast majority of his compositions have been forgotten, but there is still a growing interest for Florian Miładowski'smusic nowadays, especially in Poland. Pianist Łukasz Kwiatkowski's album is even more valuable, precisely because it manages to bring once again to people's attention this compositor's incredibly lyrical music.

Pianist Łukasz Kwiatkowski was born in 1981 in Łódź, Poland and studied in his hometown at the "Henryk Wieniawski" Music School and at the Grazyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz University of Music, where he later on became a teacher and a director of the Institute of piano, organ, religious music, harpsichord and old instruments. Łukasz Kwiatkowski has received numerous awards and has a prolific concert career. He has also released CDs with works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ferruccio Busoni and Leopold Godowsky and, in 2020, received a scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Culture for carrying out the project "Chopin, Miładowski - known & unknown Romantics". As part of this approach, he has recorded his latest album, released on the 9^th of December at the "DUX Records" record label, also included in the project "Disks of the Year 2023" carried out by Radio România Muzical.

Pianist Łukasz Kwiatkowski recorded the pieces at the end of 2020 and in the summer of 2021 at the concert hall of Grazyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz University of Music in Łódź.