LDV14

Having recorded the complete Debussy Préludes for La Dolce Volta in 2012, you were all the more likely to be alive to the extent to which the music of Chopin opens up new perspectives and – as Cortot underlined in a celebrated formula – heralds the innovations of musical Impressionism. In what ways did this immersion in the Debussyan universe influence or modify your approach to Chopin? It’s true that, in the Third Ballade and evenmore so in the Fourth, one does find bold strokes of harmony, experiments with sonority and resonance, a preoccupation with pedalling, and fluidity of discourse and even of the sound material. All these elements look far into the future and do tempt one to use the term Impressionist, or at any rate pre-Impressionist. It’s clear that numerous composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries drew on this source. Did that modify my approach to Chopin? I don’t know, but the experience certainly shed new light on him. That’s something I’ve noticed in concert, when I play certain pieces by Debussy or Ravel, followed by Chopin. The latter’s modernity is revealed in the light of those later works.When I started to study my Chopin programme again in preparation for this recording, many aspects of his music struckme more forcibly. The harmonies, the fluidity of the writing: how unbelievably modern it must have seemed to the public of the 1840s! You can see a direct link with what Debussy did later on, not to mention the detestation of facile effects and exaggeration that connects the two. The great harmonic freedom Chopin discovered in the course of his career was the very foundation of the attitude of Debussy, who went on to emancipate the language of music. One can add to this point a shared love of colour, of the instrument, a physical rapport with the keyboard, which is always coaxed, never treated aggressively. Of course, the pianoDebussy had at his disposal was very different from Chopin’s, but both men push to the very limits of the instrument’s potential and go as far as it’s possible to go in their use of sonority. 22 CHOPIN