Album guide
Chopin / Jagodziński: Sonata b-moll
- Composer
- Chopin
- Released
- 2009
- Label
- Agora
- Forces
- Piano, Trio
- Personnel
- Andrzej Jagodziński, Adam Cegielski, Czesław Bartkowski
Jagodziński had been reworking Chopin with this trio since the 1990s, but this album was a new kind of experiment: a jazz transformation of the whole four-movement Sonata rather than a handful of borrowed themes.
The trio also links the movements with new transitions: a two-minute rising double-bass solo carries the Scherzo into the Funeral March, and a one-minute drum interlude launches the Finale.
Hear both
The classical side contains only the source pieces used on the album, in album order. The jazz side presents the complete album whenever a dependable copy can be embedded.
The classical player uses a complete Sonata performance followed by the Nocturne, preserving the album’s source-work order.
You can still browse the complete track listing below.
No Spotify edition is available. You can still browse the complete track listing below.
Source works
The album’s complete track listing, with each classical source identified and original compositions marked plainly.
- Grave – Doppio movimentoPiano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35: I
- ScherzoPiano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35: II
- Marche funèbrePiano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35: III
- Finale: PrestoPiano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35: IV
- Nocturne in F minor, Op. 55 No. 1Nocturne in F minor, Op. 55 No. 1
The review
Chopin’s Sonata, rebuilt in jazz
This incredible album was my introduction to the whole ‘Chopin stream in Polish jazz’ genre... a deep dive I thoroughly recommend. It opened up a whole world of Polish jazz musicians from traditional classical backgrounds, all reverently breathing fresh life into works by their beloved national hero!
Out of all the jazzed-up classical albums I’ve ever heard, this is the most remarkable in terms of keeping the satisfying classical architectural structure of a long-form work such as Chopin’s Second Piano Sonata, while at the same time significantly transforming the material into jazz. This is not just some superficial jazzy noodling around catchy riffs from the classical original – and as much as I love the genre of jazzed-up classical music, I can understand how this can be a very valid criticism of most of it... No, every single time I listen to this, I’m blown away by how the trio perfectly balances all the intricate aspects of Chopin’s Sonata with the style and improvisatory character of the jazz world. This is art at the highest level – and it also swings and grooves!
To take such an ambitious classical work and attempt to turn it into jazz is so audacious, especially when this was released in 2009. I can’t think of many other albums that have attempted the same, apart from the obvious exception of Jacques Loussier’s Goldberg Variations – but I’d argue that variation form gives you a much simpler route into jazz: each variation already offers a new, relatively self-contained starting point. A four-movement sonata is far less forgiving, and Jagodziński never loses the thread.
The liner notes show just how serious Jagodziński was about preserving the sonata’s architecture... He points out that Witold Lutosławski once called the Sonata b-moll “a sculpture hewn in rock”. He argues that when jazzing up classical music, the original and the improvisation ought to occupy one coherent space – if you’re going to improvise on a theme you should do it in the language the theme is written in. In other words, he makes sure that everything he plays belongs to one consistent style instead of playing the classical sections straight and then switching into a completely different jazz language. He then gives an example: in Jacques Loussier’s well-known Bach arrangements, he says, you get the Bach original and then an improvisation that has nothing in common with Bach’s language. Ouch, this is quite amusing because it’s a direct dig at one of my favourite records, which just happens to be the album I reviewed immediately before this one! And I’m not sure I really agree that this is a failing of Loussier’s album... But it’s this kind of dedication that Jagodziński has to his craft that explains why this entire jazz Chopin Sonata hangs together so well.
The only frustration is how to find this album – despite going gold in Poland, it’s been out of print and difficult to hear for a long time. So, if you want to hear the whole thing, I’ll merely observe that a certain Russian BitTorrent website may prove useful... which is where I first came across this absolute gem.
But some of their other excellent albums are easier to find, either in print or on Spotify, and I encourage you to browse the catalogue here at JazzedUpClassical.com to check them out – even if they don’t quite reach the dizzying heights achieved here!
Reviewed by Bob Rose ·