LDV14

Would you agree that another common feature of Chopin and Debussy is the fact that each note possesses an expressive role, that nothing is ever mere ‘filling’? Absolutely: there isn’t a note toomany, a lapse of taste, at anymoment. Everything has a function, everything is always very organic, very natural in Chopin. Even the dissonances blend into the discourse, they have their raison d’être as such; they’re clearly presented, but they never shock the ear. While we’re on the subject of works by Chopin that look forward to Debussy, what an extraordinary composition the Prelude op.45 is – and what an underestimated masterpiece! Yes, it’s certainly a very unfairly neglected work; I find it fabulously rich. One might compare the Prelude op.45 to an experimental laboratory. Chopin gives one the impression he wrote it for himself. He dares to fill it with incessant modulations, while there’s little or no melody; what you have are resonances starting at the bottom of the keyboard and developing in arpeggios with, at their topmost point, a scrap of melody, just three notes . . . It’s harmonic chemistry: Chopin is trying out new ideas, having fun; you can almost picture him marvelling at the modulations he has created. Doors seem to open one after the other, doors that lead to later achievements. It’s interesting to note that, chronologically, the genesis of the Prelude op.45 comes between the Second and Third Ballades, and that’s where I’ve chosen to place it in the sequence of works on this disc. 23 PHILIPPE BIANCONI