Search - Frederic Chopin, Idil Biret :: Chopin: Piano Sonatas

Idel Biret Plays the Chopin Piano Sonatas

Robin Friedman | Washington, D.C. United States | 09/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"From 1990 -- 1992,The Turkish pianist Idel Biret recorded Chopin's complete works for piano for Naxos. In 1995, her Chopin cycle received the Grande Prixe du Disque Chopin award. Biret was a student of Alfred Corot and Wilhelm Kempff and began studying Chopin in earnest under the latter in 1958. I continue to fall in love with her recordings of Chopin. They are expressive and yet restrained showing full control of rhythm, tempo, and dynamics. Biret does not engage in showboating or in empty dynamics. Biret's recordings, available at a budget price, will serve as an excellent introduction to Chopin for the new listener.



This CD includes all three of Chopin's sonatas for solo piano. The first sonata, in C minor, opus 4, is a student work and was posthumously published. It is rarely performed and with good reason. There are some lovely themes in the first two movements of the work, but the appeal of this CD lies in Chopin's subsequent two masterpieces.



Chopin's sonatas are, for me, wayward romatic works that do not conform to the patterns of form and balance of the sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. But it is difficult not to be overwhelmed by them. Robert Schumann aptly described the sonata no. 2 in B flat minor, opus 35, as consisting of four of Chopin's "wildest children". The centerpiece of this sonata is the famous funeral march, which Chopin composed in 1837. He wrote the rest of the sonata around it in 1839. Biret plays this music with great solemnity but with a sense of movement and freedom. She maintains the character of the music when she reaches the reflective middle section of the music. In the opening movement of the sonata, Biret captures the depth of the grave introduction followed by a passionate, seething "agitatio" full of tension. The scherzo continues the turbulence and passion of the opening movement. Chopin described the famous finale to this sonata in deprecating terms as "the LH and RH gossiping in unison after the march." The finale is an amazing movement with furious, swirling athematic runs over the entire length of the keyboard bringing the sonata to an unforgettable close.



There are intriguing parallels to be drawn between Chopin's B-flat minor sonata and earlier works by Beethoven and Mozart. Beethoven's sonata in A flat major opus 26 includes as its climax a famous funeral march as its third movement, as does Chopin's. The Beethoven sonata too consists of four seemingly disparate movements, another parallel with the Chopin, none of which are in sonata form. Beethoven's opus 26 sonata, in turn, was influenced by Mozart's sonata in A major, K. 331 (with the "Turkish March" finale) because they both begins with a theme and a series of slow variations. I find it valuable to consider these three great works as a series.



Chopin's sonata no 3 in B minor opus 58 dates from 1844, late in his life. The climax of this sonata lies in its final movement, "Presto non tanto" which begins with a series of angry chords and proceeds with a passionate, flowing theme with runs and filigree up and down the keyboard. This is an electrifying movement, and Biret captures its character without rushing. I also was moved repeatedly by her playing of the lengthy third movement of the B minor, which consists of a flowing extended singing theme which owes a great deal to Chopin's interest in opera. The first movement of this work, "Allegro maestoso" consists of a great deal of contrasting material. It includes a declamatory opening theme which sets the stage for the movement even though Chopin gives the lyrical, melodic second theme substantially more attention as the movement progresses. The second movement of the sonata is a scherzo, much lighter in tone than its counterpart in opus, 35, with rushing outer sections and a Brahmsian, glowing middle section.



This CD is an Ideal introduction to Chopin and to two of the great romantic piano sonatas.



Robin Friedman"

Worth Its Weight in Gold

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 06/12/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As I am anything but a Chopin expert, just a short note on this CD to say how much I enjoyed listening to it. Turkish pianist Idil Biret has recorded fifteen award-winning Chopin CDs for Naxos; I only have two of them at the moment, and the ?Piano Sonatas? are definitely superb, with some excellent playing (Biret was a pupil of Cortot) being unusually well-captured at the van Geest studios in Heidelberg in September 1988. The three sonatas are quite disparate, with the first being a youthful work from the time before Chopin left Poland; the second contains the famous ?funeral march? and has some desperately difficult passages; the third originated some five years before Chopin?s untimely death and represents his maturest output. This budget CD could, in my opinion, have happily been offered at a higher price and would still have been worth its weight in gold."

The Chopin Sonatas NOT to Have

C. Pontus T. | SE/Asia | 09/27/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Only one star? Yes, again Biret's Chopin does not warrant more than but the one star. As so often, her playing distracts rather than attracts the listener as to the masterful inventiveness of these Sonatas.



It is often claimed that the First Sonata is no masterpiece. In relation to what the teenage Chopin was to create a few years later, that is quite true--at least Biret is in no way able to provide any counterevidence. Nonetheless, turning to Ohlsson's reference version, one realises how much pleasure there is embedded in the seemingly somewhat puerile notes.



Neither the Second nor Third Sonatas fare much better. Probably, the rhapsodic first movement of the Second Sonata is least ill-suited to Biret's erratic pianism. Conversely, the trio sections of the second and third movements almost lose all their shape and structure in Biret's hands. The excellent Bösendorfer instrument is, as always in Naxos's Tonstudio van Geest, captured almost without any beauty or warmth but rather with that unpleasant metallic edginess.



For a complete Chopin Sonatas disc, there is only one near-perfect version--Ohlsson (Garrick Ohlsson - The Complete Chopin Piano Works Vol. 1 ~ Sonatas), with a reference First."