Imogen Cooper’s Chopin

Composed by Frédéric Chopin

Chandos Records / CHAN 10902 / Concert Hall, Snape Maltings, Suffolk

Recorded May 2016

The experience and emotional wisdom that complement her prodigious virtuosity has brought her to re-explore this often-played repertoire. As she explains: ‘Chopin is surely one of the most intriguing composers we know. Fabulous writing for the piano, a complex and rich harmonic world, melody, garlands of sensuous and quicksilver sound, passion – and of course the perfect vehicle for showing off pianism. For all these reasons, but above all for the last, we go through a crash course in our student years, his huge body of work keeping us constant company and teaching us the ropes as we take our first steps in becoming a pianist. The challenge comes in adult years when, as in all repertoire, we need to rethink, and to find solutions that probably eluded us earlier.’

‘... It is a well-chosen and contrasted programme, opening, courageously enough, with one of the composer’s most elusive works, the late Polonaise-fantaisie. In the quieter lyrical passages she finds a rare poignancy that I fine most affecting ...’

Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone, July 2016

'The programme is a very personal selection of Nocturnes, Ballades and substantial 'Fantasie' works: Chopin at his most inward and serious. Atmospheres are intense, intimate, turbulent and dreamlike by turns; and Cooper injects every note with strength of personality…[her] sense of authority becomes vast in the Polonaise-Fantasie and Ballades, yet is always tempered with tenderness in the tone quality and wisdom in structural understanding. The Nocturnes are pure-hearted and subtly coloured; and to conclude, the Berceuse is five minutes of hushed, filigree meditation.'

Jessica Duchen, BBC Music Magazine, September 2016