HOMMAGE À CHOPIN
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Jonathan Plowright (pn)
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HYPERION 67803 (79:40)
BALAKIREV
Impromptu on the Themes of Two Preludes by Chopin.
BENDEL
Hommage à Chopin.
GRIEG
Study.
NAPRAVNIK
Notturno (La Réminiscence de Chopin).
TCHAIKOVSKY
Un poco di Chopin.
HONEGGER
Souvenir de Chopin.
BERKELEY
3 Mazurkas.
VILLA-LOBOS
Hommage à Chopin.
MOMPOU
Variations on a Theme by Chopin.
GODARD
Hommage à Chopin.
GODOWSKY
Profil (Chopin).
LESCHETIZKY
Hommage à Chopin
It turns out that the ruminations of other composers, however sincere, on Chopin can be disconcerting. We hear a thumping version of the C-Minor Prelude as rewritten by Busoni followed by a wandering rumination that reminds us that Chopin always knew when to stop. The disc opens with Balakirev, who evidently liked to improvise on Chopin preludes and was persuaded by a friend to write some of those improvisations down. The result is odd; one hears Chopin and then, as if the pianist got tired of practicing the stuff, we hear wild improvisations leading up to a triple
forte
passage that is evidently marked
delirando.
On the other hand, Franz Bendel’s homage is a stately piece that might have been composed by the master himself, whereas Tchaikovsky’s, though written quickly “for want of money,” is a delightfully upbeat mazurka. The longer works, all of which are played beautifully by Jonathan Plowright, include the three mazurkas by Lennox Berkeley; Villa-Lobos’s wonderful, and wonderfully virtuosic, tribute; and the Mompou, which the composer also recorded, as did Jordi Maso for Naxos. The pianist could have made other choices, including Rachmaninoff’s
Variations on a Theme by Chopin.
But this mixture of genuinely obscure and slightly less obscure pieces is particularly pleasing, as well as nicely recorded and exquisitely played.
Michael Ullman
