The Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter has an endearingly modest stage-presence, no “look-at-me” posturings to distract us from the formidable gifts and integrity she brings to her playing.
Her all-Chopin recital on Saturday came a mere couple of days after Stephen Hough’s equally devoted account of all four Ballades by this little poet laureate of the keyboar, and gripped a packed Town Hall audience.
Any reservations about the quality of the instrument were quickly dispelled by Fliter’s warmly-pedalled tone filling the hall for the D-flat major Nocturne, her lovely singing line enshrining the most delicate filigree. Similar qualities were brought to the E minor Scherzo, both rippling and thunderous, before poignantly austere accounts of the C sharp minor Mazurka and the posthumous A minor Waltz. Fliter characterised the F minor Ballade sympathetically, a lulling pulse underlying narrative flights of fancy, and building a cumulative persuasiveness.
Then came the marathon, all 24 Preludes, in which Chopin explores such a range of styles and textures (in the footsteps of his beloved Bach). So many of these miniatures are forward-looking with their crunching discords and laconic utterances, and so many are virtuosic despite themselves. Chopin was never one for display, and Fliter did amazing things with the concluding D minor, suppressing its spectacle without ever losing sight of its elan.
