Press

Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier I (NIFCCD 062-063) - recording of the month (March)

Her Bach has everything going for it: pianistic resourcefulness, keen polyphonic acumen, impeccable taste and an ability to imbue each Prelude and Fugue with a distinct point of view borne out of musical considerations [...]. Any quibbles are inconsequential in face of this pianist’s heartfelt musicality, enhanced by attractively full-bodied sound and a beautifully regulated Shigeru Kawai SK EX concert grand at her disposal. Wary as I am of superlatives, I can claim without hesitation that Ewa Pobłocka’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 encompasses some of the greatest and most fulfilling Bach pianism on record. I look forward to Book 2

Link to the review

Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier I (NIFCCD 062-063)

Pobłocka’s album [...] has many impressive qualities. There is no doubt that it will occupy a unique place among the numerous recordings of this collection.

Link to the review

Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier I (NIFCCD 062-063) - special commendation

The pianist impressed me immensely when I listened to Schubert’s Impromptus, recorded still in her youth. Since then, I remember the richness of her subtle sensitivity to music, which I also find today, when listening to Bach in Pobłocka’s interpretation. She has achieved a great mastery [...]. In general, it is a person with a free soul, which fascinates us enormously.

Link to the review

Chopin: Concerto in E minor; Bach - Partita in E minor, among others (NIFCCD 054)

Pobłocka’s album can embellish every collection of a most sophisticated music lover, even the one who knows dozens of records of the Concerto in E minor. This performance is going to surprise him with elegance, fluency of interpretation, extraordinary musical logic, as well as modesty of performance. Pobłocka presents the piece as if its music were dictated to her ear by the composer [...]. Her Bach is modest and very rich in various expressive details, resulting from deliberate and meticulously executed articulation [...]. Certainly, by reproducing the said anniversary album by Ewa Pobłocka, the listeners will “follow her,” engaged by a wonderful interpretation absorbing their senses.

Link do recenzji

Mozart: Piano Concertos (CDAccord 092/93) - recording of the month

Ewa Pobłocka plays this music in the best possible way, that is to say in a completely natural manner totally devoid of sentimentality or ‘tweeness’, yet always subtle and sensitive to its inner workings. 

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/Jan05/Mozart_Poblocka.htm

Die Welt

Extraordinary things happened in the concert hall. Ewa Pobłocka proved her mastery throughout the programme. I do not hesitate to consider her one of the greatest pianists that her country delivered ever.

Hamburger Abendblatt

Her interpretation has a fascinating depth. You can just fall in love with her Brahms.

 

Westfalenpost

A prize-winner of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw allows the music to flourish. She has a sense of all moods, she lets the sounds and colours flow... she plays with a lyrical delicacy and a silvery tone reminiscent of Wilhelm Kempff.

Ruch Muzyczny

If we were to add noise and cracks to the recording of Ewa Pobłocka’s recital, imitating an old record, one could think that it is one of the most outstanding pianists of the past of Slavic origin that is playing – perhaps Cherkassky or Koczalski...

Norske Argus

Her interpretation of the second Piano Concerto by Chopin was magnificent.

Wiener Zeitung

Ewa Pobłocka made a great impression, capturing the audience with her impeccable, energetic, virtuoso performance, plenty of poetry at the same time.

Bonner Kulturleben

Very Polish also at the keyboard, which in the case of the Concerto in E minor meant no sugar coating of cantilena and a cheerful, fresh character of the Chopin phrase. Transparent lines and a clear rhythm were an asset of her playing. The fact that she understands his compatriot has already been confirmed - Chopin - by renowned prizes. It has also been proved by staggering applause of the audience.

Ohtuleht

Her interpretation of Bach’s works was extraordinary. We have not heard such a good piano recital in Tallinn for a long time.

 

Ruch Muzyczny

Beethoven - Piano Concerto in C major; Ewa Pobłocka, WOSPR, Henryk Czyż

We are dealing here with a congenial interpretation: Ewa Pobłocka and Henryk Czyż with the currently best symphony orchestra in Poland give a splendid portrait of young Beethoven with all the important features of his style. I think that Ewa Pobłocka has – not so often again in soloists performers – a gift of deeply empathising with a composer’s personality and extracting from it the most significant for the interpretation: the essence of the individual style. This is how young Beethoven could have been playing.

 

Ruch Muzyczny

This complexity of seemingly simple and in fact so mysterious Chopin’s Nocturnes is perfectly understood and ideally communicated to us by Ewa Pobłocka. In her recording, these romantic pieces revealed themselves to me anew in their extraordinary charm.

 

The Studio Magazine

Panufnik’s piano concerto is exactly like this and this is how, most 'classically', it is performed by Ewa Pobłocka and the London Symphony Orchestra. Pobłocka is delightful, she plays perfectly every beat of her part and works flawlessly with the orchestra. She reveals an extraordinary virtuoso talent, but she can also transit smoothly to lyrical fragments...

 

Witold Lutosławski on performance of his Piano Concerto (1990)

She is phenomenal, this is a great interpretation of my piece... she gave it a very specific kind of its own life. I am very happy that we will be playing together outside Poland...

 

Jan Weber

You can rarely hear such an original and beautiful performance of Bach by a Polish pianist. The text is conveyed perfectly – flexibly, transparently, clearly; great polyphonic voice-leading, restraint in tempo and emotion [...]. Listening to the pianist’s playing, I had an impression that... she was completely lost in Bach. Joy emanated from her face and the fingers, obedient to the thoughts, executed every detail with perfect precision, allowing the piano to sound with the most beautiful colours...

 

Marian Wallek-Walewski

Perfect mastery of a most delicate piano, tunefulness of cantilena, freedom of wide phrasing marks put Pobłocka among the outstanding interpreters of Chopin. There is no hint of sugar coating in her playing, no easy emotional gestures. Her technique reaches to the high registers of the art of sound shaping.

 

Jan Popis

Interpretations of Ewa Pobłocka, always balanced and thought-out, are characterised by a very special, noble and unobtrusive kind of emotionalism.