The star of this evening at the National Forum of Music will be Ewa Pobłocka – one of the most expressive figures of Polish pianism, prize-winner of the 10th edition of the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.
 
Highly acclaimed by international critics and audiences, Ewa Pobłocka belongs to the most significant figures of the Polish music scene today. She began learning to play the piano at the age of five and made her debut as a thirteen-year-old, appearing in a duo with her mother, the renowned singer Zofia Janukowicz-Pobłocka. The developing career of the young pianist was accompanied by further education. Ewa Pobłocka completed her musical studies with a diploma with distinction, soon becoming one of the most famous graduates of the State Superior School of Music in Gdańsk (currently the S. Moniuszko Academy of Music). Pobłocka’s career was influenced by notable successes in prestigious piano competitions. Today, the artist herself sits on the jurys of numerous musical events. She is also a valued teacher running the piano class at the F. Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz and shares her experience during numerous master classes (including Canada, Japan, China or Norway). Diverse discography and rich concert activities prove Pobłocka is an artist with extremely broad repertoire. The pianist has repeatedly proved herself to be an excellent interpreter of both the music of bygone eras and contemporary works. Polish music occupies a special place in her activity. She has made several premieres and premiere recordings of works by Polish contemporary composers: Andrzej Panufnik, Witold Lutosławski, Paweł Szymański, and Paweł Mykietyn.
 
This time Ewa Pobłocka will perform compositions contained in the first volume of the famous Das Wohltemperierte Klavier by Johann Sebastian Bach. The work belongs to a large, two-part cycle of preludes and fugues. Each part contains 24 pairs of works composed in successive major and minor keys arranged in a chromatic series, from C major to B minor. The time span between composing the first and the second volume is as much as 22 years. The first one was composed in 1722, as indicated by a note made on Bach's autograph entitled Wohltemperierts Klavier. In the case of the date of completion of the second volume, we must believe a word pf a certain Schwencker: he copied the later lost manuscript of twenty-four new preludes and fugues. The whole work was supposed to be a teaching material for educating young musicians, and especially more advanced students of music. This assumption worked well because to this day these pieces accompany pianists at various levels of education. The works contained in the collection show how masterfully Bach commanded counterpoint, the extremely difficult art of composing complicated polyphonic works, demanding mathematical precision. The works from the cycle have effectively become great exercises in counterpoint only for pianists, but also for composers.