Bolzano Festival Bozen 2026 - Arcadi Volodos – Piano Recital

Arcadi Volodos is one of the most extraordinary artistic personalities in the world of piano today. He deliberately avoids any virtuosic formula, approaching the instrument not as a means of self-display but as a medium for deep musical introspection. His interpretations are defined by sonic imagination, extraordinary subtlety of nuance and a rare capacity for inner listening while playing.

The evening opens with Franz Schubert's Sonata in G major D 894, a work of great contemplative breadth and lyrical intimacy. Schubert's seemingly simple yet expansive music calls for inner tension, patient breath and a sensitivity to the unspoken – qualities that are central to Volodos's artistic identity.

The Mazurkas and Prelude op. 45 by Fryderyk Chopin draw the listener into a more intimate and poetically fragmented sound world, where dance-like elements meet deep melancholy and a refined art of rubato.

The recital closes with Chopin's Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, a work of dramatic power and formal radicalism. Moving between existential weight and fleeting motion, Volodos brings an interpretation that prizes inner truth over outward effect.

Programme:

Franz Schubert – Sonata in G major, D. 894, op. 78

Fryderyk Chopin – Mazurka in B minor, op. 33 no. 4 (Mesto)
Fryderyk Chopin – Mazurka in E minor, op. 41 no. 2 (Andantino)
Fryderyk Chopin – Mazurka in F minor, op. 63 no. 2 (Lento)
Fryderyk Chopin – Prelude in C-sharp minor, op. 45
Fryderyk Chopin – Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, op. 35

Piano: Arcadi Volodos