(++++) COMBINED CELEBRATIONS

Idil Biret: Schwetzingen Festival 14/15 May 1999. IBA. $42.99 (4 CDs). 

     As celebratory Idil Biret releases go, this one has special provenance. Naxos’ extensive and long-running Idil Biret Archives recordings include a series of earlier performances by the Turkish pianist, a series focused on Beethoven, a group offering concertos, a solo-focused sequence, and various one-off boxed sets. This four-CD recording fits into that last category and is also a single-composer-focused release, being a celebration of Frédéric Chopin on the 150^th anniversary of his death – an occasion for which Biret performed not one but two entire Chopin programs at the Schwetzingen Festival in Germany. 

     The nature of these performances makes this a celebration as much of Biret herself as of Chopin. The first night’s works were scheduled to be played by Anatol Ugorski (1942-2023), but the Russian-born German pianist withdrew at the very last minute, and the festival organizers asked if perhaps Biret could play something suitable on May 14, 1999, in addition to what she was already scheduled to perform on May 15. Biret more than rose to the challenge: she played the exact program that Ugorski was supposed to offer, then went on the next night to do hers as originally planned. It is those two nights of Chopin performances that are offered to listeners here. 

     In 1999, Biret (born 1941) was scarcely inexperienced with Chopin: she had been the first pianist ever to record the composer’s complete works for solo piano and for piano with orchestra. Nevertheless, presenting two two-hour all-Chopin recitals on two consecutive nights was a substantial achievement by any measure. And this release shows just how well Biret handled the challenge. 

     Being above all a thoughtful performer, Biret always brought a personal quality to Chopin’s music, never allowing it to wallow in emotion or become merely maudlin. This is immediately apparent in the first half of the May 14 recital, which includes 12 Mazurkas and the Polonaise-Fantaisie. The three comparatively straightforward groups of Mazurkas, Opp. 17, 30 and 33, are often neatly individuated by Biret, who pays close attention to the works’ rhythms as well as Chopin’s use of repetition as a primary building block. The Polonaise-Fantaisie then takes listeners in a very different direction, with Biret on the one hand clarifying the polonaise-derived meter and rhythm while, on the other, focusing on the fantasia elements that give the work its overall character and primary impact. She is especially attentive, to very fine effect, to the work’s central, lyrical section. The second half of the May 14 program is wholly devoted to Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 58, plus three encores. All three Chopin piano sonatas are in minor keys – No. 1 in C minor, No. 2 in B-flat minor, and No. 3 in B minor. And his other sonata, for cello and piano, is in G minor. This consistent choice of minor tonalities for sonatas indicates something about the commonality of the works’ emotional canvases, and Biret is clearly aware of this – and of the fact that the two middle movements in this four-movement work, which are in major keys, help balance the darker and more emotive first and fourth movements. Biret’s performance is expansive – she tends toward slower tempos in most of the music on this recording, although only rarely does a section drag – and manages to convey the sonata’s emotional heft without losing sight of its elements of quietude and serenity. Her three encores complement the earlier material and are all well-presented: Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 2; Etude, Op. 25, No. 11; and Mazurka, Op. 63, No. 3. 

     Biret’s May 15 recital, the one she was originally scheduled to play at the 1999 Schwetzingen Festival, is a more-varied exploration of the musical forms in which Chopin expressed himself. Here the first part of the program includes Rondo à la mazur, Op. 5; Polonaise, Op. 71, No. 2; Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise; Waltzes, Op. 64, No. 2 and Op. 18; and Tarantella, Op. 43. The second half consists of Mazurkas, Op. 53, No. 3 and Op. 59, Nos. 1-3; Ecossaises, Op. 72; Prelude, Op. 45; and Scherzo, Op. 54. Then there are three encores, and these are particularly interesting. The first is expected in this context: Chopin’s Etude, Op. 25, No. 12. But the second is, surprisingly, the Kreisler/Rachmaninoff Liebesleid, and the third is a work by a composer whose music Biret almost never performed: it is Alkan’s Chemin de fer, which Biret manages with aplomb even though it is a bit outside her comfort zone. This is perhaps the first piece of music based on a train journey, and it is full of scurrying and imitative elements that make for a very impressive pianistic display – and in this case Biret leans wholeheartedly into the sheer virtuosity that Alkan’s piece invites a virtuoso to demonstrate. Hearing this music and the Liebesleid, two works so different from the Chopin material that dominates this recording and that was the reason for being of the 1999 Schwetzingen Festival, gives a fuller picture of Biret’s high level of skill at this point in her career and shows that, her considerable expertise with Chopin aside, she was highly adept at presenting piano works of all sorts at pretty much any time. 

     This IBA release concludes with some bonus material that has nothing to do with the Schwetzingen Festival but that further displays Biret’s approach to Chopin: the Impromptus, Opp. 29, 36, 51 and 66, recorded at a November 1984 concert in Munich. These readings, 15 years earlier than the ones from Schwetzingen, evince the same careful attention to detail, firm grasp of structure, and elegance of technique that Biret displays in the Schwetzingen material and, indeed, puts forth in practically all of the many Idil Biret Archives recordings. For fans of the Turkish pianist, lovers of Chopin, and admirers of sensitive pianism proffered with finely honed technique, this four-CD set offers plenty of enjoyment and much to celebrate.