Plushmusic reveals Lortie’s dramatic approach to Chopin
Fryderyk Chopin, born 1810, never had the physical strength to become a recitalist in the modern sense of the word. Liszt and the younger Beethoven were quite happy playing for two or three hours at a time before a knowledgeable and critical audience. Chopin’s health was so frail, he was constantly having to deny rumours of his own death. Needless to say, he had to find some other way to be extraordinary: he become inimitable.
Louis Lortie is performing all Chopin’s études at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall next Monday, and Plushmusic’s film of the same programme is being released directly after the concert. In conversation with Ivan Hewett, Lortie discussed the musical motives behind the youthful works of a man who, even in his teens, was reinventing piano technique.
The études were an innovation waiting to happen, of course: ‘The whole idea of the etude developed from the fact that the piano we know today was a relatively new invention, and more and more of the bourgeoisie were learning to play the instrument. Besides,’ Lortie adds, with a grin, ‘it was a good way for composers to earn a bit of money. Of course Chopin, being Chopin, was developing his artistic personality at the same time.
‘Chopin is an artist in an all-embracing sense. He’s one of the few genuine colourists in music. With his particular combination of immediacy and vulnerability he can be very elusive, and he’s an exceptionally difficult composer to record. He gets you to sing in the bel canto manner, inspired by the operas of Bellini, but his love of Bach’s and Mozart’s counterpoint means you have always to be aware of the possibilities for polyphony. And all that’s before you consider his harmonic explorations, which pull his music into the era of high Romanticism.’
If this is beginning to sound like the musical equivalent of the chicken tikka pizza – and it is – well, that’s why colour metaphors and architectural metaphors – so carelessly used elsewhere – are pretty much vital in any discussion of Chopin’s art. To these, Lortie adds an organising principle of his own: dramaturgy. ‘Playing the études in concert, I’ve developed any number of possible dramatic lines between the pieces, to the point where I now find it poetically unsatisfying to play individual études.’ The approach carries one obvious risk: ‘With Chopin, as soon as you become too extrovert you find yourself outside his style.’
Best show, not tell: Louis Lortie’s website has some magnificent video examples of his ‘dramaturgy’. These films also give us a glimpse into the other sides of Lortie’s career, most especially as a teacher. (He’s much in demand at Italy’s renowned piano institute at Imola.) ‘I learn a great deal from teaching students. For instance, I’ve found that the current approach to Chopin is becoming maybe more percussive, less obviously bel canto. Students are on a voyage of discovery, finding out what motivates them, but as we get older we can start to get very set in our ways. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we are the ones who always know better,’ Lortie sighs. ‘We need to learn to accept that the new generation can discover as many truths as we did.’
Louis Lortie plays the complete Chopin études at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Monday, 23 November 2009.
Following the concert, Plushmusic releases Louis Lortie’s Aldeburgh recital in HD video and audio, along with a video interview of Louis Lortie in conversation with Ivan Hewett of the Telegraph.
