Chopin Week: the Etudes

By Ivan Hewett Published: 2:01PM GMT twenty-six February 2010

THE PIANO was Chopins executive low-pitched impulse - not only the receptive to advice of it but the feel of it. He desired sure keys, such as B major, only since they feel great underneath the hand. Often the an enjoyably formidable earthy manoeuvre, similar to a fast "thumb under" or alternately stretching and constrictive the hand, that forms the germinating thought of his music.

So the not startling that early in life, even prior to hed left Warsaw, Chopin began a set of pieces that explored the low-pitched possibilities of all these assorted "manoeuvres", one by one. The thought wasnt essentially his invention. Earlier composers such as Clementi and Cramer had created tudes, and Chopin obviously learnt from them.

Chopin 2010, Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, examination Chopin Week: the Mazurkas Chopin Week: the Preludes Chopin Week: the Ballades Chopin Week: the sonatas Other TV Highlights: Monday sixteen Mar

But his own pieces are on a opposite turn of ambition. Take the unequivocally initial tude from the initial set, Opus 10, in splendid C major. For the pianist the a make a difference of fast alternate the matching right-hand on all sides up by an octave, by stretching and afterwards constrictive the thumb. For the listener this settlement disappears in pristine glittery sonority, and a stately maturation peace suggestive of the important C vital Prelude that starts Bachs 48 Preludes and Fugues (this relate was certainly deliberate).

Each tude achieves the same enchanting outcome of branch a technical plea in to pristine music. The accumulation of receptive to advice and hardness Chopin conjures opposite the dual sets of Études (Op 10 and 25) unequivocally beggars belief. There are pieces with finger-twisting interweaving of lines, there are amazingly pointed layers of arpeggiated patterns where a symphonic line has to be teased out of the receptive to advice (but not as well much), there are studies in staccato, in legato, in ornamentation. Everywhere the dividing lines in in between line and peace and colour are subtly blurred, in a approach that looks brazen to Debussy.

Vladimir Ashkenazys 1975 recording dismayed everybody by the perfect brilliance, and the still startling now. Alfred Cortots recordings, done in in between 1933 and 1949, were undertaken in an additional epoch that valued technical soundness less than personality. Louis Lorties 1986 recording on Chandos is some-more contemplative in tinge than Ashkenazys, but only as technically impeccable.

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Louise Lortie

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