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PASCAL AMOYEL
Has your approach to the music of Chopin changed since your recording
of the Nocturnes nearly ten years ago?
It has evolved, but in the end not as much as all that. For the Nocturnes, Chopin
is thinking of a sort of universality, whereas with the Polonaises it’s more like the
singular seeking transcendence. Initially you have a precise form with obsessional
repetitive cells, but finally Chopin goes beyond that, as in the Polonaise op.44: he
surpasses it, goes much further than in his youthful polonaises, which were still
under the influence of earlier models. At the end of the series, the form is not at
all a framework or an aim, but a poetic resource, which flows into the force of the
language; that engages one’s interpretation, but also liberates it in a sense. I hope
all of that goes in the direction of simplicity. In concert, moments of grace occur
when you find yourself in a situation of distillation, in something that’s self-evident.
Those instants are much trickier to reproduce on disc, or else you need special
conditions, as when I recorded the Nocturnes in night sessions at the Domaine de
Chambord. Recording is a complex alchemy . . .