LDV14

PHILIPPE BIANCONI 17 THE MODERNITY OF CHOPIN How has your relationship with the music of Chopin developed? Philippe BIANCONI : When I was a child, my first contact with Chopin came through Dinu Lipatti’s recording of the waltzes. Whatever the merits of those pieces – and in some cases they are very considerable – they provided me with a rather limited vision of the composer’s world. At the Nice Conservatoire I heard more advanced students than myself playing other works of his. When I was about ten or eleven, hearing the ballades had a tremendous impact on me. All of a sudden I discovered the epic side of Chopin, sustained by a grandiose inspiration; the passion expressed in these works represented something extraordinary for me. In fact I began learning the ballades with the Fourth, followed by the First, the Third, and the Second. In parallel with this I was also working on the Scherzos, the Barcarolle, the Fantasy, and so on. My teacher in Nice, Mme Delbert-Février, was very influential in my approach to Chopin. Her teaching emphasised quality of sound, of phrasing; she set great store by a sober style but at the same time she was a very ardent person. She was superficially reserved but conveyed great passion in the music and in her teaching. I think that was particularly appropriate for tackling Chopin; there was at once sobriety of style, refusal of all ostentation, and an intensity of feeling that corresponded to the true nature of the composer. The ballades have accompanied me from the start of my life as a concert pianist. I’ve seldom played all four in the same concert, but very often just one or else a pair of them, alongwith other pieces by Chopin.