Ingrid Fliter has a number of EMI
Chopin discs to her name and has already recorded a critically
acclaimed CD of the Chopin concertos for Linn.
She now turns her gaze onto the Preludes. The results are full of
character and warmly textured pianism, abetted by Linn’s excellent
SACD sound in the admirable venue at Potton Hall. She is a considerable
virtuoso but never allows mechanical instincts to obstruct the communicative
spirit of her music-making.
What’s interesting is that a number of the slower Preludes are
taken a notch or two slower than one might have expected. She is an
intense and expressive player, and much is impressive but one often
also becomes aware that her use of the pedal bathes some of the Preludes
too deeply. The B minor is an example of a slower-than-usual Prelude
though it is certainly well sustained. Rather more contentious is
the degree of insistence she brings to bear. The E major, which is
again subject to too much pedal, is rather punched out. The effect
is to render its narrative too prosaic, too unambiguous. Listen to
Cortot’s 1926 set, where he brings the quicksilver light and
shade to life in a way that eludes Fliter. Similarly his playful approach
to the C sharp minor is in strong contrast to Fliter’s. Rather
than his pursuance of narrative, she seems more interested in colouristic
possibilities, the play of left and right hand against each other,
in the oppositional tugs in the music. This indeed seems a strong
component of the reading as a whole where some truly vertiginous contrasts
between adjacent Preludes are explored. This is interpretation ‘to
the max’ – try the volcanic eruption of the E flat minor
after the F sharp minor Lento to hear what I mean. There’s
no gainsaying her brilliant B flat minor where she finds a driven,
manic quality but Cortot, less obviously virtuosic, occasionally struggling
technically, manages to find beyond the notes a true sense of narrative
depiction in which the rhythmic and colouristic devices are partners,
not the driving forces of the music-making. There’s aggression
in the F minor and a rather dragged-out C minor Largo. She
explores some gorgeous treble colour in the penultimate Prelude before
a torrential conclusion to the cycle.
This is certainly a combustible, alive set of the Preludes. Technical
difficulties are overcome with assurance and the music’s extremes
– of pathos and almost-mania – are both explored. So too
are questions of left-hand patterns, often too much so, and the play
of left and right hands. Her pedalling will be contentious too. What
sometimes disappointed me is the narrative question, which I felt
was not truly pursued, or was less central to her than the more ear-titillating
matters of sonority: this and the battering she sometimes gives to
several of the preludes.
She also selected five Mazurkas and these, perhaps because less is
at stake in terms of narrative, are more pliant and even-handed examples
of her playing. Here lyricism is unforced and rhythms sway deftly
and affectionately. It’s only when one turns to an incorrigible
master of the Old School, like Ignaz Friedman, that one hears how
the invocation of a more daring rhythmic instability – in the
C sharp minor – brings the Mazurka even more deliciously to
life. Sensibly she also plays the Op.9 No.3 Nocturne as it’s
not one of the best-known, and concludes the recital with the D flat
major Nocturne, Op.27 No.2, by no means an obvious choice but in the
circumstances aptly delicate.
The booklet notes are excellent, the performances highly personalised.
Jonathan Woolf
Previous review: Roy
Westbrook
