Imogen Cooper’s Chopin
Polonaise
No. 7 in A flat major, Op. 61 'Polonaise-fantaisie'
Two
Nocturnes Op. 62
Fantasia
in F minor, Op. 49
Ballade
No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52
Nocturne
No. 8 in D flat major, Op. 27 No. 2
Ballade
No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23
Nocturne
No. 16 in E flat major, Op. 55 No. 2
Berceuse in D flat major, Op. 57
Imogen Cooper, piano
Chandos CD CHAN 10902
This
disc represents Imogen Cooper’s first recorded foray into the music of Chopin.
She is, of course, best known for her probing and often intense explorations of
Schubert and Schumann. Somewhat disarmingly the liner notes contain a few
paragraphs from the performer entitled ‘Why Chopin, why now?’ There she speaks
of her “persistent feeling that Chopin is old-fashioned, difficult to program in
this age of fabulous, exotic, and novel mixtures.” She goes on to ask
(rhetorically): “Does this explain the feeling that a fresh personal discovery
entails a considerable effort, an effort to delete the long accumulated data
and reach for the suffering (and not always sympathetic, let us be honest) man
and poet? To look at his language anew and not take a single note for granted?”
Cooper
certainly casts a fresh eye. Her playing is refreshingly free of the clichés of
Chopin interpretation, but the mention of suffering is telling. Cooper’s Chopin
is unrelentingly melancholy. For many of us Chopin’s genius lies in his
extraordinary versatility. He could write for the salon, for the dance floor,
or for the confessional – sometimes for all three in the same piece. Cooper’s
selection of pieces are all overwhelmingly introspective. There are no
mazurkas, waltzes, or polonaises (the Polonaise-fantaise is really more of a
fantaisie than a polonaise). The weight of the recital is taken by the first
and fourth ballades and a selection of rather dark nocturnes. Each of the
pieces played is an undisputed masterpiece, but the cumulative effect is to
make Chopin sound rather one-dimensional.
Anybody
who cares about Chopin will want to listen to this recording. Cooper is too
important a pianist to miss, and her interpretations are certainly powerful. I
suspect, though, that many will feel, as I did, that there is something missing
here. Even in his darkest moments Chopin had a graceful lightness of touch. Imogen
Cooper plumbs the depths, but leaves behind some of the most important things
that are on the surface.
