COMPOSERS: Chopin
LABELS: Athene; Quartz
ALBUM TITLE: Chopin
WORKS: Complete Nocturnes
PERFORMER: Bernard d'Ascoli (piano)Llyr Williams (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 23201; 2040
If one polarizes different approaches
to performing Chopin’s Nocturnes,
with Artur Rubinstein’s elegance as
one ideal and the intense dramatic
undercurrents of Maria João Pires as
another, Bernard d’Ascoli’s approach
sits firmly at Pires’s end of the
spectrum. His are deeply probing,
exploratory, at times unsettling
performances, yet they undoubtedly
carry an underlying authority and
conviction that is persuasive even
– perhaps especially – when they
challenge preconceived notions.
D’Ascoli prefers a full-bodied gutsy
sonority to a more obvious caressing
beauty, and his approach can be
dangerously brusque or volatile. In
some Nocturnes – the famous E flat
major, Op. 9 No. 2, for example,
which is hardly ‘espressivo’ or ‘dolce’
– he shuns surface seductiveness
and tonal nuance, yet he retains an
imperious sense of line and his direct
style of playing is compelling.
Overall, d’Ascoli’s bold playing is
better suited to the more complex,
later Nocturnes (his limited range
of pianissimo is an issue in some of
the earlier ones) and Chopin’s two
Op. 48 Nocturnes in particular
are outstanding. D’Ascoli’s
rubato – often intense, sometimes
counterintuitive – lies at the heart
of his music-making, and makes his
Chopin alive and self-renewing.
I wish I could be as enthusiastic
about Llyr Williams’s first
commercial disc, also of Chopin.
The first impression is the spongy
recorded sound – deriving, less
successfully, from the same venue
as d’Ascoli’s Nocturnes. But more
seriously, the final impression
is that Williams offers little
characterisation or imaginative
flair in this repertoire. No. 4 of
the Preludes is lyrically stiff, No. 8
marred by emergency pedalling,
and the virtuoso No. 16 little more
than a dutiful run-through. I was
also less than convinced by some of
his interpretative decisions. Why
the heavy rit at the end of No. 14?
Why so reticent with the glorious
tolling A flats at the end of No. 17?
Turn to either Pires or Sokolov, and
you hear a totally different level of
musicianship and pianistic class. And
I’m afraid Williams was ill-advised to
record Chopin’s F minor Ballade, one
of his most demanding and elusive
masterpieces. A unusually sedate Second Scherzo rounds off a disc that
comes as a let-down given Williams’s
growing reputation. One can only
assume this disc doesn’t show him at
his best, and I hope future projects
will reveal the full scope of his
potential. Tim Parry