Search - Frederic Chopin, Ivan Moravec :: Chopin: Nocturnes

DRAWING DISTINCTIONS

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 06/14/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The nocturnes are a perfect fit for the image of Chopin that many of us start out with. They are slow, dreamy and inward, with exquisite touches of piano style. 19 of them are given here, the remaining two presumably being thought spurious and excluded for that reason, although we are not told. It might have been a tight squeeze to fit two more on to two discs, but it could just about have been done. The way the nocturnes are played by Ivan Morevic is likewise the kind of Chopin-playing that was held up to us in our early days as a model. In my own opinion it deserves its status as exemplary Chopin-playing, and that is not just on a box-ticking assessment, although all the right boxes are ticked. Tempi are right for instance, and rubato is applied with sensibility and good taste. The cantabile is sensitive too, and the dynamics are well judged and proportionate, restrained for the most part but not afraid of the sudden outbursts when the shades of night fall fast and abruptly. As well as all this it is impossible not to sense real and instinctive empathy with the composer.



All that ought to be enough to make this set a safe and indeed enthusiastic recommendation. To a great extent it is exactly that, but something is not letting me release a fifth star. What I think it is may be illusory, but it will not go away, and it goes to the roots of my own idea of Chopin. In part it is quite easy to define, but not in the most important part. The recordings date in the first instance from 1966, and although the sound is very good in general, it is on the fringe of being over-resonant. I expect that this is mainly down to the engineering, but I'm not 100% convinced that the player's right foot may not have a bit to do with the effect too. It is a borderline matter, the sort of impression that varies with ordinary hour by hour differences in the acoustics of the room or in the listener's own physiology with its constant minor fluctuations. The real thing that is making me withhold the fifth star is, I think, that the result of being given so much as I am given here is to make me realise that there is something more that I want.



It's a matter of the player's touch. The nocturnes are the most characteristic ur-Chopin, on one conventional view at least. They don't call for special distinctiveness in the manner of interpretation, but if they really are the heart of this ultimate stylist of the piano then they may not call for distinctiveness but they certainly call for distinction, distinction of the very highest order. In my time I have heard what I am looking for in the nocturnes, although not in any collected sets that I can recall. It is easy to recognise, and Moravec's set, for all its outstanding virtues, is just a tad short of it. How might Michelangeli, to take a very obvious case, have handled these pieces? Among today's players I wonder whether Perahia might be inclined to give them a try, because he strikes me as at least a possibility.



Hypothesis, obviously. You could probably persuade me that I am being just too fussy, but if so then too fussy I remain. For the time being, the quality of this set is in many ways outstanding, and there is no meaningful sense in which any purchaser could be said to be making the wrong choice. I for one am very pleased with my new acquisition."

Breathtakingly Lovely

Theo | Colorado, USA | 02/11/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am a classical pianist by training, and I've always thought Rubenstein was the best Chopin interpreter, has always been my personal favorite. And then I heard this. Truly, it is the most sensitive performance of the Chopin Nocturnes I have ever heard. Several reviewers here have criticized the liberal use of tempo, but I think they miss the point. This is not meant to be a strict rendition, but a true, very personal and heartfelt interpretation. It is as if he is sitting all by himself in a room, lost in reverie, forgetful of everything around him, forgetful of the audience, lost in the beauty of the music - and putting everything, his whole heart and soul, into every note, every trill, every run. I agree with one reviewer that he understands, and makes you feel, every note; and agree with another that he makes you hear parts of the music differently, more sensitively, than you've ever heard it before. And it is perfectly performed, his technique flawless, his touch one of the gentlest I've heard. It is transporting, makes me want to stop everything I'm doing and just listen, be carried away: into Chopin's world, listening not only to beautiful music, but feeling perhaps what Chopin might have felt while writing it, as if alone in a room with him, observing him at work. It is a rare pianist who can do all of that so well, and it is utterly enchanting. My hats off to this superb recording, this superb and heartfelt artist."