A Supernova Up Close

Ingrid Fliter plays Chopin
EMI Classics 5099951489953

• Piano Sonata No. 4, Op. 58
  
• Ballade No. 4, Op. 52
  
• Barcarolle Op. 60
• 4 Waltzes
• 3 Mazurkas
• 2 Preludes
• Impromptu in c sharp minor, Op. posth. (later the Op. 66 Fantaisia-Impromptu)
  

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There is, for the piano as for many other instruments which are formally studied, a standard repertoire which an artist is expected to assimilate in order to be considered a master of their craft. With classical music, most all of this repertoire dates back from 100-300+ years, at least for most popular concert instruments--piano, violin, organ, string ensemble, etc. For pianists, probably first on that list is the Pole Frederic Chopin (1810-1849). Along with Beethoven, Chopin is considered the greatest composer for the piano, first on a list which contains Ravel and Rachmaninov and Liszt and (though he wasn't technically a piano composer) Bach. In part, Chopin probably owes his place on the list to the correspondence of his lifetime to the maturation of the piano mechanically. The early versions of the pianoforte which Bach experienced (and treated as a curiosity) were a world away from a modern piano, and even Beethoven was playing an instrument still very much under development. Chopin, on the other hand, wrote his pieces for a very close approximation to the modern Steinway.

Like Bach, Chopin wrote pieces of wide-ranging technical sophistication, pieces which are manageable for the aspiring pianist, and also great works with passages of diabolical difficulty. But emotionally Chopin is a pure Romantic, a composer with a miraculous gift for melody and urbane expression. Not surprisingly, many pianists have established themselves by way of Chopin's works, people like Vladimir Ashkenazy and Artur Rubenstein and Garrick Ohlsson and Martha Argerich.

Now here's another: the Argentine Ingrid Fliter (b. 1973). A specialist in the works of Chopin, Ms. Fliter studied in Freiburg and Rome and Imola and has won or placed highly in a number of piano competitions.

To my ear, Ms. Fliter plays these pieces to perfection. In that mysterious world where abstract music makes for powerful communication, she seems to have lit upon exactly the right forum for her sensibilities. Her tempi and phrasing are exactly correct, and she has exactly the sense of drama and the commanding technique to make these pieces absolutely compelling. From the frenetic whimsy of the waltzes to the gravity of the b minor Sonata and the absolute drama of the Fourth Ballade (one of my very favorite pieces in any genre), she dances and muscles her way around the keyboard in thrilling fashion, creating a whole sonic landscape which the engineers at EMI Classics have captured perfectly.

As I've said before in other contexts, if these performances don't work for you, then you're simply never going to respond to this music, period. She is that good.

Here's a sample from YouTube:

Two Discs from Minnesota

Slavic Holiday: Legends from Ancient Czechoslovakia and Poland

Fire of the Soul: Choral Virtuosity in 17th-Century Russia & Poland

Both releases are on Rose Records, and are available on iTunes or from the Rose Ensemble's website or from Amazon.com.

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I've enthused a good deal in these pages about London and its miraculous concentration of choral talent. There must be some critical mass beyond which a thing becomes self-sustaining, with the numbers of ensembles and the audience for them and the schools producing the new talent and the recording companies interested in them all following in symbiotic lockstep. Whatever the reason, there is an amazing concentration of talent in this one place.

But as I was reminded with the Kansas City Chorale / Phoenix Bach Choir recordings on Chandos, proximity can account for only so much. Musical talent is a distinctly human quality, not a geographic one, and there are talented people everywhere (something about which I'm reminded with organists; there are great organists everywhere of whom no one ever heard).

The Rose Ensemble hails from my home town of St. Paul, Minnesota, and specializes in early music from diverse sources. I lived in Minneapolis / St. Paul for 20 years, but I moved from the place about the same time as Artistic Director Jordan Sramek formed the group in 1996. Many of the group are instrumentalists as well as singers, and most seem to have some Minnesota connection, either family or education.

It strikes me that one of the advantages of hailing from a place without deep roots in original music is that one is free to delve into a wider range of styles without confounding anyone's expectations. These two discs feature Slavic composers, spanning from the 11th Century up to a present-day composition commissioned by the Rose Ensemble. The first of these discs, Slavic Holiday, concentrates on very early works from Poland and Czechoslovakia, and the earliest pieces especially are monodic, or feature very essential harmonies. Composition dates range from the 11th to the 17th Centuries. The other disc, Fire of the Soul, concentrates (apart from the contemporary Khvoshchinskiy piece) on the work of three composers: Poles Mikolaj Zielenski (ca.1550- post 1616) and Andrzej Rohaczewski (c. 1600s), and the Russian Vasily Titov (c.1650-ca.1715). Though not quite wearing the misty aura of despair which characterizes so much Russian music, the Titov does have a certain minor mode gravity about it; but the Polish pieces sound more Italian than Russian. I read a review snippet that compared some of this writing to Claudio Monteverdi, and that seems a good stab. I often play a little game with the radio of trying to figure out what I'm listening to before the announcer gives it away, and I would not have guessed Poland with these pieces. The disc finishes with the commissioned work--Rejoice, O Virgin Mary--by Russian Sergey Khvoshchinskiy (b. 1957). This piece is more layered and modern, though you could mistake it for something older if you weren't paying attention. It reminds me a bit of his countryman Gretchaninov, and it sounds identifiably Russian.

Overall, these are much more solid performances than I would have expected--world-class, actually. Pitch is generally excellent, and the male voices especially achieve a wonderful unity. There are one or two moments where the choir's pitch is not absolutely in lock step, but I'm admittedly being awfully fussy to even mention it. These two discs make us a splendid introduction to unknown repertoire (to me, anyway), and I see that the group has quite a number of recordings available. I shall sample some of the others soon.