Frédéric Chopin - The Nocturnes | Maria João Pires Recital
Frédéric François Chopin - The
Nocturnes |
Maria João Pires, piano. "
Chopin is a
Poet.
It’s very inner
Music and very deep,"
Pires has said. "Chopin is the deep Poet of Music."
The Nocturnes | Chopin
Night Music: "Of the tenderness, the charm, the awe and mystery which are to be found in the Nocturnes
... Oh, those Nocturnes!
Tones of infinite sadness! There is Music in them which fathoms the depths, which plunges us into the immensity; emotional force that rends our hearts;
Horrible despair, bordering on the overwhelming immanence of death itsel;
Divine ecstasy interrupted by a wail of sorrow, and again by a soft caress. And all is so sincere; the sincerity of one whose heart bleeds; whose soul is overflowing with tenderness!"
George Mathias, student of Chopin
00:00:00 I.
Chopin Nocturnes London Recital in
2010.
Chopin's 200th birthday
Nocturne No.1 in
B-flat minor, Op.9, No.1
Nocturne No.2 in
E-flat major, Op.9,
No.2
Nocturne
No.3 in
B major, Op.9, No.3
Nocturne
No.4 in
F major, Op.15, No.1
Nocturne
No.5 in
F-sharp major, Op.15, No.2
Nocturne
No.6 in
G minor, Op.15, No.3
Nocturne
No.7 in
C-sharp minor, Op.27, No.1
Nocturne No.8 in
D-flat major, Op.27, No.2
Nocturne No.17 in B major, Op.
62, No.1
Nocturne No.18 in
E major, Op.62, No.2
Nocturne
No.19 in
E minor, Op.72, No.1
Nocturne No.20 in C-sharp minor, Op. posthume
Nocturne No.11 in G minor, Op.37, No.1 (
Encore)
Late Night Prom,
Royal Albert Hall, London, 2010
.
01:08:13 II. Chopin Nocturnes
Poland Recital in 2014
Nocturne No.1 in B-flat minor, Op.9, No.1
Nocturne No.2 in E-flat major, Op.9, No.2
Nocturne No.3 in B major, Op.9, No.3
Nocturne No.7 in C-sharp minor, Op.27, No.1
Nocturne No.8 in D-flat major, Op.27, No.2
Nocturne No.14 in
F-sharp minor, Op.48, No.2
Nocturne No.20 in C-sharp minor, Op. posthume
Poland Recital,
Warsaw, 2014.
"
The Royal Albert Hall is a wonderful and inspiring place to be, but acoustically it can very strange.
Loud sounds bounce around that vast space like balls on a pin-ball machine. Yet for quiet music it can be magical.
The sounds go straight from source to ear, so they have a lovely miniaturised clarity like the distant figures in a Van Eyck painting. That unexpected intimacy accounts for some of the intensity of
Maria Joao Pires’s recital of Chopin Nocturnes on Wednesday. But it would have counted for nothing without her special poetry. She’s a tiny, almost bird-like figure, and she seemed even smaller in that huge space, which was packed with more people than
I’ve ever seen for a late-night Prom. It must be daunting for a pianist, but Pires seemed perfectly at ease, as if she was playing for a few friends at home. That gives her performances an air of total sincerity
. [...] Pires wants to get at the poetic heart of the music, and here she did that time after time. The word Nocturne implies something dreamy and indistinct, but Pires’ performances reminded us that the expressive range of
Chopin’s pieces is much bigger than that. There was the total rapt stillness of the early
Bb minor Nocturne, uncannily clear, like a moonlit landscape. There was the fascinating uncertainty of the
G major Nocturne Op. 15, which she poised so perfectly on the cusp between hesitancy and impetuous ardour. The late Nocturne in E major suddenly becomes stormy at its mid-point, but Pires managed to project this while suggesting it was only a momentary flurry – maybe only a dream – while the night-time stillness was still continuing, somewhere beyond our hearing. That is artistry of a very special order."
The Telegraph 2010
"The evening turned out to be a special one for piano fans. The
Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires made a rare appearance with a generous selection of
Chopin's nocturnes as the late-night event.
Received wisdom suggests the
Albert Hall is too big for such music, but in this case the sonic unpredictability of the venue conspired with the pianist herself to refute it. Pires's playing was unostentatious but commanding, controlled yet free-flying in its sensitivity to the fluidity of Chopin's lines, and in its responsiveness to the scope of pieces still sometimes marked down as delicate miniatures."
The Guardian 2010
“I can’t think of a pianist with a more ideal command of Chopin’s style. Pires trips through the roulades with filigree dexterity, but her tone is so thoughtful, serious and weighty that they arrive with immense emotional profundity.”
The Times, London, June
2007
MARIA JOÃO PIRES born in
Lisbon on 23 July
1944 and played her first recital aged five. She studied composition and music theory at the Lisbon
Conservatory, followed by further studies in
Munich and
Hanover, Germany. She made her London debut in
1986 at the
Queen Elizabeth Hall.
From
Portugal,
with Love