In fact there are four voices: the texture is very rich. It’s a fantastic piece – the middle section one thinks of as having two voices. I realized it was not the piece I thought it was. Then I discovered in the Chopin book that Chopin liked to play the opening so it could hardly be heard. Liszt hated the piece – “the Governess scherzo” he called it – and I remember some friends of my mother trying to play it. I had a wrong interpretation in my head which dates back to my childhood. So what discoveries did biret make while preparing for these recordings? “The discovery was the Second Scherzo, even though it’s so well known. A Liszt forte is different from a Chopin forte – Chopin is less but the intensity is the same. But the power you need in these is not the same power as in Liszt. Having said that, there is a lot of violence in Chopin’s music: look at Polonaise No.4 in C minor and the bitterness and anger in the Second Polonaise, the impassioned outbursts at the end of the Barcarolle and Polonaise-Fantasie (both late works reflecting his psychological state at the time). Liszt has other shades, it’s more orchestral Chopin is totally the bel canto, the sound, the beauty. An equivalent touch in Liszt’s music would be his “Feux follets” whereas in Chopin it comes quite often. Again, in that same piece you have to play very lightly on the surface of the keys. There are fioritura passages in Chopin – the Fourth Scherzo for instance – which are like a ribbon that you throw into the air and watch it fall down. But, from him it was acceptable apparently. The dedicatee of the Third Scherzo banged away all the time.
What is different about playing Chopin as opposed to say Liszt or Brahms? “Chopin always asked for the perfect legato and never a thick sound. Chopin had specially formed hands which made it easy for him and it exists in two versions, one in which you keep the middle voice. “No, I can take a tenth so there are no problems, though there are certain etudes which are not easy. Noticing her small hands, I wondered if she had encountered technical difficulties with any of the pieces. She has lived with these works for a long time, but they are just part of her unusually large repertoire (including nearly 100 concertos). I was in awe of him, he had such an incredible personality and he was very severe”.īiret began her Chopin project at the end of 1990 and finished it in May 1992. I was very young and he was very old when I went to study with Cortot. He went to Cortot for advice when he had some Chopin to record. (Wilhelm Kempff had already displayed a long-term interest in her musical development and, for good measure, she took composition lessons from Nadia Boulanger.) “Kempff admired Cortot and considered him one of the most important pianists of our century. She left with three first prizes at the age of 15. It was with Alfred Cortot, undoubtedly one of the great Chopin interpreters of history, that Biret studied after graduating from the Paris Conservatoire. Then I realized the way I had dreamed of hearing Chopin was the way Cortot played it – a beautiful sound, never a harsh sound, always a singing tone – and then when I heard Ignaz Friedman on records, I understood Chopin”. “I never heard it played by pianists in the way I thought it should be played. It’s against the spirit”.Īs a budding prodigy in Ankara, Biret was not fond of Chopin. It’s impossible to play his music the same way twice. It’s terrible – and I know I’ll go on discovering new things.” But it’s a process Biret is sure Chopin himself would have condoned, a view confirmed by her reading of a fascinating book by Jean Jacques Eigeldinger (Chopin, Pianist and Teacher Cambridge university Press) which draws on eye and ear-witness accounts of those who heard Chopin play and who studied his compositions with him. The thought doesn’t make her entirely happy because her understanding of the music is constantly evolving: “You record and then a year later you discover something else. Since the cycle is for budget label Naxos and since Naxos is currently the third highest volume seller of discs worldwide, many people’s first taste of Chopin will be Biret’s. Now in her early 50s, the diminutive Turkish pianist has recently released the last disc in a complete cycle of Chopin’s solo piano music.
#Liszt opinion on chopin scherzo 2 how to#
At the time she did not know how to read music she was, after all, only three years old. The first piece of Chopin Idil Biret ever played (the Waltz in A minor, Op.34 no.2), she played by ear. Who’s inspiring the superlatives – Ashkenazy, Pogorelich, Pollini? No: Idil Biret. With world-class playing it’s remarkable. Any complete set of Chopin’s works on CD is important. Her complete set of Chopin’s piano music on Naxos isn’t just an amazing bargain at £5 a disc – it’s also world-class.
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