[NLAdriaan]

... One performer who gives me hope, a performer who finds a great delicacy, subtlety in the music, who makes the music as elusive as a poem by Mallarmé, is Dang Thai Son, here

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Interesting story on Dang Thai Son, likely the only Vietnamese pianist to ever appear (well, not often enough) on the international stage:

https://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/a-pianist-who-is-famous-for-not-being-famous

Interesting, as Son actually won the 1980 Warsaw Chopin Concours, the one where Pogorelich was eliminated and Argerich resigned. Here you see that becoming a famous pianist not only has to do with real quality, also with marketing.

 

[Larkenfield]

Aargh. I cannot take this man's rubato... and he starts off at a hesitant glacial pace. Chopin wrote this posthumously discovered Nocturne when he was obviously young and he's being played here like an old man. I didn't care for Pletnev's Schumann either with his tempo fluctuations. It's too bad because he can sometimes be brilliant.

Brigitte Engerer's Nocturnes aren't mentioned nearly enough:

 

[Eva Yojimbo]

Arrau is my reference if I want to hear this music taken seriously. Ohlsson's very fine as well. Most do indeed tend to turn these pieces into pretty, "musical wallpaper," but I believe there's more to them then that.

 

[jegreenwood]

Just looking at Woodduck's reaction to those youtube performances, I wonder if this music isn't a victim of the recording industry -- where there's a tendency to have one or two CDs full of them. The music really is not a cycle at all, and listening to 60 minutes worth at once may not be the best way to enjoy them. They're best done in small doses.

In the early days of CDs, Philips released a single disc selection of Arrau's Chopin on its Silverline label. The sequencing really clicked for me. I am away from home for a few weeks, but I can provide the track listing when I get back. Or maybe you can find it on the net.

 

[larold]

Some of the comments already made, and some I've seen elsewhere, might seem dismissive to many people. Is the sweetness of these works, or their short length, or (dare we admit) their popularity holding them back in some of our esteems?

I can only speak for myself; a lot of Chopin's miniatures, when played in groups, seem to have a diminishing value to me. They are great when they begin but, because they are so alike, the glory wears off easily. I find this trying to listen to any group of Chopin's works -- a whole album full -- with the possible exception of the four ballades.

I would add I have the same issue trying to listen to a whole record of Bach preludes and fugues or trying to hear all Beethoven's bagatelles in one hearing.

In comparison to food I see Chopin's nocturnes as less than a side dish, something more akin to a flavoring or relish. For me a little goes a long way but more easily becomes too much.

It's probably no surprise my favorite Chopin "collection" is the score to the film The Pianist.

 

[Mandryka]

I listened to Moravec's op 48/1 today, the studio recording from the big set, the asperities in the music, the transitions, have been rather smoothed over.

 

[flamencosketches]

Whose interpretation would you recommend that keeps these "asperities" intact? I'm not familiar with enough different interpretations to make any calls there.

 

[Mandryka]

On a modern piano, you might try Vitalij Margulis in the c minor nocturne.

 

[Larkenfield]

Nice to hear Moravec's performance again! It seems to get better with repeated listenings. He has such a refined and sensitive touch, never heavyhanded. You have to wait on him a little bit but his rubato is not all over creation. He's patient and does not rush. He's not in a hurry at the beginning. Then he begins to build and add intensity. I believe this is the greatest Nocturne Chopin wrote. It starts quietly with a sense of reserve, then develops into a torrential outpouring of emotions. This is the Romantic era at its best because it's intimate and personal as if he's having an animated conversation with someone special, perhaps with Madame Sand when life was meaningful between them. It's brilliant... and by the time it's over it's as if he's completely exhausted himself emotionally.

 

[Larkenfield]

Valentina Litsitsa Op. 48/1 Nocturne performance that is perhaps slightly more emotionally straightforward than Moravec's and with a more robust touch, perhaps more tragic in feel as well:

The richness of Chopin's harmonic voicings is incredible.

 

[flamencosketches]

On a modern piano, you might try Vitalij Margulis in the c minor nocturne.

Not familiar... but s/he has a name which is eerily similar to a famous mantra from the series Game of Thrones :lol: Will definitely look up that performance.

 

[Eva Yojimbo]

Valentina Litsitsa Op. 48/1 Nocturne performance that is perhaps slightly more emotionally straightforward than Moravec's and with a more robust touch, perhaps more tragic in feel as well:

Wow, never knew watching a pair of hands could be so hypnotic! That would be beautiful without the sound! I'm a pretty big fan of Lisitsa as a pianist, but I like her better in fiery, virtuosic showpieces more than slower, more poetic pieces. Not a bad performance by any means, but it wouldn't make my short-list.

 

[Mandryka]

Not familiar... but s/he has a name which is eerily similar to a famous mantra from the series Game of Thrones :lol: Will definitely look up that performance.

Here

 

[flamencosketches]

I found and listened to that very video not long after I had made that comment. Looks like this pianist's recordings are not so easy to find (out of print?), so it was lucky finding that on Youtube.

I can see what you mean. In this recording, the pianist does seem to highlight the dissonances somewhat compared to Moravec's. I still prefer Moravec's ultra-light touch, and don't find that it saps a great deal of depth from the work, just presents it in a different light. Though of course my preferences are known to change, and there is a time and place for both styles.

 

[Mandryka]

Yes, I mean I just wanted to have a shot at stating what’s going on in Moravec’s vision of that nocturne, and indeed in Margulis’s.

I started to think about it because someone here, maybe on this thread, posted to say that they thought the nocturnes suffered because of their sweetness. When I read it I said to myself that that sounds wrong, that in fact the nocturnes potentially contain some turbulent sounding music, and that it’s just that there’s a tradition to iron out this turbulence, for better or for worse.

Margulis studied with Cortot, I don’t know if the nocturnes CD is still in print. Cortot’s nocturnes recordings are also rather turbulent at times, well worth hearing, but if I remember correctly no op 48/1.

Others who present a radically different vision from Moravec in the C minor nocturne are Sofronitsky and Gilles.

 

[flamencosketches]

Interesting! My overall favorites in Chopin would have to be Rubinstein on one hand, and then on the other, Cortot himself and his student Samson François. I haven't heard Cortot or Francois play (all of) the Nocturnes, which are far from my favorites among Chopin's works, but I can only imagine both are great.

By the same token, I'm not sure Moravec's light touch would be so applicable to the Preludes, Etudes, or Polonaises.

 

[Mandryka]

Interesting! My overall favorites in Chopin would have to be Rubinstein on one hand, and then on the other, Cortot himself and his student Samson François. I haven't heard Cortot or Francois play (all of) the Nocturnes, which are far from my favorites among Chopin's works, but I can only imagine both are great.

By the same token, I'm not sure Moravec's light touch would be so applicable to the Preludes, Etudes, or Polonaises.

The second recording of the preludes that Moravec made is rather successful I think.

 

[flamencosketches]

I'm not familiar with either recording, but being a fan of his I'm sure I will get around to it eventually. It took me until the past couple weeks to give his Nocturnes a shot. As far as the Preludes, I think Cortot's recordings from 1926 will be hard to top, and I also will always have a soft spot for Argerich, whose CD of the 24 Preludes was the first Chopin I think I ever heard (intentionally, anyway).

 

[Mandryka]

Here's one worth hearing, a glimpse into what could be done with the music, though clearly the performance leaves a lot to be desired. For all its imperfections if this was the only op 48/1 I had, I'd be satisfied.

 

[ccar]

Margulis studied with Cortot, I don't know if the nocturnes CD is still in print.

I don't know of any association with Cortot but Vitalij Margulis certainly deserves to be much more widely known. He was born in Chakrov (Ukraine) in 1928 and studied first with his father and then at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Samarij Sawshinskij, where he also became a piano teacher in 1958. In 1974 he immigrated to Germany and was professor at Freiburg Musikhochschule until 1994, when he moved to Los Angeles as piano professor at the California University, until he died in 2011. He left us a few memorable recordings (particularly with Chopin, Scriabin, Bach and Beethoven) that can easily testify his musical genius. I believe you just need to try Chopin's op. 48 no.1 or the opening of the sonata no.2 to recognize Vitalij Margulis as one of the greatest interpreters of all time.