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Your last recording of Chopin dates back to the 1980s. Why did you
wait so long to devote a new disc to the composer?
I have a chaotic relationship with the music of Chopin. He’s associated with my
studies at the Paris Conservatoire: I didn’t play a single note of Mozart, but an
overdoseofChopin.Itwas,sotospeak,theshowpiecerepertoryforallthestudents.
If we were able to master this music, it meant we were able to play anything. At
the time, Chopin’s music was performed very effusively. I couldn’t see myself in
that tradition. Everything was a pretext for showing off the soloist’s prowess.
Also, in early adulthood, one tends to forbid oneself from loving this music, which
seems too sentimental – especially for a man. All the more so as the image of the
composer was distorted: he was turned into a sickly, effeminate figure.
In the 1980s, I began to perform the Ballades, the Nocturnes, and the Third Sonata,
imposing a more direct, manly style of playing. But it took decades before I felt
comfortablewith Chopin. Today I’mconfident inmy approach to this repertory and
I have no qualms about my interpretative options.
16 CHOPIN_24 PRÉLUDES / SONATA No 2