Chopin: Mazurkas, Volume 1 (Streaming Review)

by Ryan Ross

Ingrid Fliter, piano. LINN CKD780 

 

I’ll lay some cards on the table: I like only small dashes of rubato in Chopin’s music, or indeed in any music. One reads various stories about what Chopin himself preferred, and about what others heard when they listened to him play the piano. The consensus seems to be that he did not stray, or at least did not advocate straying, too far from strict tempo in the bass while sometimes rhythmically altering the right-hand melody for expressive effect, particularly at the ends of phrases. So, while he was perhaps a touch more liberal about rubato compared to myself, I’m guessing he was decidedly more conservative than Ingrid Fliter is in this release. For what we have here is a love letter to rubato. And if you don’t love rubato as much as Fliter apparently does, you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Chopin may not have composed his mazurkas to be danced to, but they are dances nonetheless. Moreover, they are dances in triple meter with the signature rhythmic stress on the second and sometimes third beat after a dotted-rhythm opening beat. This distinctive profile can bear some rubato, but too much obscures its character and disrupts what should be a delicate balance. In my estimation, the best performers of Chopin’s mazurkas apply only a little rubato and instead rely on dynamic shading, tone color, and the intrinsically ethnic flavor of the music for optimal results. These pieces welcome a light interpretive touch; Fliter’s is anything but light. She rather capriciously applies rhythmic alteration at any given point, sometimes in consistent patterns but often not. So, for instance, while Fliter lingers on all of Op. 7, No. 1’s quarter-note B-flat trills for noticeably longer than written, she alters the triplet rhythm in the opening melodic phrase of Op. 7, No. 2 to sound like an inverted mordent while correctly playing other triplets throughout the piece. Or hear how the rubato applied at the beginning of Op. 24, No. 3 ruins the effect of dotted versus straight rhythms in the melody, because the straight rhythm gets comparatively rushed over and therefore obscured. Or listen to the performance of Op. 50, No. 1, where in the second section melody Fliter plays the eighth note/sixteenth rest/sixteenth note rhythm as written the first time, but on repeat plays it straight.

 

Sometimes Fliter fudges more than the rhythms, and not always clearly in service of rubato. Maybe the worst example comes in Op. 6, No. 1, where she repeats (rather than holds) the tied A pitches spanning the second and third full measures. On other occasions Fliter simply ignores dynamic markings. In the second section of Op. 6, No. 3, for instance, she plays the first measure at fortissimo but introduces the following pianissimo dynamic one measure sooner than written, completely altering the indicated effect. In Op. 6/1 (again), the written dynamics are not always followed in the middle section. In WN 14 (which is actually Op. 68, No. 2 but not indicated as such on the track) she under-observes the crescendo at the poco piu mosso, blowing a dynamic differentiation that we should hear properly.

My chief impression here is that Fliter is not much of a musical thinker. She relies on whims and feelings to guide her more than she does meticulous attention to detail. Actually, I think this approach is intentional. These performances sound like someone trying hard to eke out interpretive territory. But while she ostensibly wants to make this repertoire her own, it merely sounds labored and undisciplined in her hands.

 

Which is unfortunate. Because despite all this Fliter is clearly quite talented. Once in a while, some great moments emerge. The sotto voce sounds she elicits in Op. 7, Nos. 1 and 3 are very nice. And truth be told, while excessive rubato yet afflicts most of the Opp. 50 and 59 mazurkas included, the seasoned introversion that marks some of these later pieces seems to elicit from her a modicum of needed restraint, allowing better playing to intermittently shine through

 

But we’re talking a whole lot of chaff surrounding relatively little wheat. On the whole, I’m not looking forward to the subsequent mazurka installments from Ms. Fliter. My best recommendation: go ahead and give this first entry a listen if you’re curious. Just don’t expect it to rival the Rubinstein or other celebrated Chopin mazurka performances in your affections. At least, not if you’re free from addiction to rubato.