Chopin: Mazurkas, Op.6 – Op.41 (Fialkowska)

Perhaps a bit surprisingly for those not too familiar with them, Chopin’s Mazurkas show him at the absolute height of his genius, and in all moods: baleful, anxious, sarcastic, lyrical, triumphant, forgiving, anguished, placid. They’re some of his most harmonically, rhythmically, and texturally advanced music, and have a pretty justified reputation as being very difficult to perform effectively despite the fact that on a purely technical level they’re not that challenging. Interpretively however, the Mazurkas are a puzzling blend of innocence and incredible musical sophistication, and it’s very hard to convey their often-heady, sometimes-Delphic, always-rapt musicality. You’ve got in the Mazurkas tonal ambiguity (17.4 is the supreme example of this), rhythmic displacement (6.3), striking harmonies (7.1’s middle section, 17.4 again, 41.1, the Renaissance-like Notre Temps and the modal middle of 68.3), works ending on the bare dominant or the wrong key (7.5, 24.4, 30.2), very daring modulations (33.4, 41.2+3, 68.4, which goes from Fm to A like nothing’s happened), works which expand into almost Ballade-like proportions (56.3, 59.1), and, especially in the later works, an increasing amount of counterpoint (50.3, 51.1, 63.3, which ends with a canon!).

Fialkowska’s performance of the Mazurkas is one of the very best available – textures are always translucent, there’s a lot of rubato without any affectation (Fialkowska’s rhythmic suppleness is nearly unmatched in Chopin), and phases are shaped perfectly. In the more reserved or mysterious Mazurkas you’d think that Fialkowska’s preference for honesty and directness wouldn’t work quite as well, but the outcome is interpretations that are, if anything, even more austere and moving, full of rich strangeness (see 68.4, for example).

00:00 – Op.6 No.1 in F#m
02:44 – Op.6 No.2 in C#m
05:33 – Op.6 No.3 in E
07:27 – Op.6 No.4 in Ebm
08:09 – Op.7 No.1 in Bb
10:35 – Op.7 No.2 in Am
14:24 – Op.7 No.3 in Fm
17:25 – Op.7 No.4 in Ab
18:36 – Op.7 No.5 in C
19:13 – Op.17 No.1 in Bb
21:47 – Op.17 No.2 in Em
23:50 – Op.17 No.3 in Ab
28:38 – Op.17 No.4 in Am
33:30 – Op.24 No.1 in Gm
36:27 – Op.24 No.2 in C
38:47 – Op.24 No.3 in Ab
41:18 – Op.24 No.4 in Bbm
46:00 – Op.30 No.1 in Cm
47:47 – Op.30 No.2 in Bm
49:23 – Op.30 No.3 in Db
52:28 – Op.30 No.4 in C#m
56:45 – Op.33 No.1 in G#m
58:33 – Op.33 No.2 in D
1:01:10 – Op.33 No.3 in C
1:03:30 – Op.33 No.4 in Bm
1:09:19 – Op.41 No.1 in C#m
1:12:45 – Op.41 No.2 in Em
1:15:17 – Op.41 No.3 in B
1:16:34 – Op.41 No.4 in Ab

[Continued at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uh4iHowUj4]

Видео Chopin: Mazurkas, Op.6 – Op.41 (Fialkowska) канала Ashish Xiangyi Kumar