"Vivid, immediate, spontaneous, full of grace and wit.... her feel for voicing and texture is enhanced by her glowing, transparent tone”
Complete Chopin Waltzes (EMI), Classic FM Magazine
CONTENTS
CONCERT REVIEWS
Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Beethoven Festival / Bach Italian Concerto, Beethoven Piano Sonata No.18
"Fliter made a strong first impression in music of Chopin in which her nuanced, subtly hued playing proved a fine fit for the Polish composer. Sunday’s program offered the opportunity to hear Fliter in some cornerstone German repertory of Bach, Beethoven and Schumann.
Bach’s Italian Concerto offered a worthy start to the afternoon. Fliter’s skill as a Chopin player was clear in her graceful and individual approach to Bach, vigorous yet exploring an array of dynamic shading within a flexible rubato that never traversed the line to anachronism.
The Andante was a highlight, Fliter’s elegant pure tone and terraced range of hues distilling the melancholy introspection, rounded off by a whirlwind Presto finale with only slight loss of contrapuntal clarity. Not Bach playing for purists perhaps, but playing that wedded poetry and bracing energy in winning fashion.
Beethoven’s Sonata No. 18 is one of the composer’s less frequently encountered works in the genre these days, possibly do as much to its lacking a nickname, as its technical difficulty.
Fliter brought not just a sterling technique but just the right sense of quirky humor and individuality to this music. Rarely will one hear the jocular side of Beethoven put across with such spirit, the dynamic contrasts underlined , and Fliter’s light articulation bringing a vivacious Haydnesque wit to the music. Fliter was equally assured in the gamboling joie de vivre of the Scherzo, with impressive dynamic detailing taken at a headlong tempo.
She also brought out the pensive side of the songful Menuetto and the rollicking Presto was aptly con fuoco making a rousing conclusion to a first-rate Beethoven performance."
Lawrence A. Johnson, Chicago Classical Review, June 2010
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra with Edo de Waart / Mozart Piano Concerto No.23
"Fliter joined the orchestra for Mozart's Concerto No 23 in A major for Piano and Orchestra, playing with an even-handed elegance and musical vivacity. She gave gorgeous shape to the simple-yet-powerful musical statements of the piece's second movement, taking decrescendos to absolute whispers. She brought a fluid precision and a full palette of colors to the first movement, taking the piece's final movement with a fast, but never rushed tempo and an interpretation that was eloquent and elegant to the last note."
Elaine Schmidt, Journal Sentinel, January 2010
Wigmore Hall / Chopin Recital
"Fliter’s original plan was to present some 18 of Chopin’s waltzes in chronological order... By now forced by illness to scale the list down, the result was actually more interesting: the later, darker waltzes were put at the centre, and it was their mournful beauty that leached into the rest, building up to the posthumous Waltz in F sharp minor — a supremely tragic statement. And when we re-emerged from its shadows for the more familiar strains of the Minute Waltz, that mournful undertow could not be discarded. Fliter takes these jewels seriously, and they shine all the more brightly for that."
The Times, December 2009
"Fliter's approach to Chopin is on the grand scale and founded on a comprehensively excellent technique... [Her] playing of the waltzes was very special. Some of these – the A flat Op 42, or the Grande Valse Brillante Op 18 – are showpieces, managed here with superb bravura. But she was at her finest in the heartfelt, interior world of the little A and E minor examples published after Chopin's death, which were flawlessly realised."
The Guardian, December 2009
“The first half, featuring a collection of weighty, thoroughly melancholic Chopin works, was pretty staggering… It was quite paradoxical, really, her touch, both freighted with gravity and full of air; limpid and flush with sound. She conjured up the vocal jungles of a polyphonous choir then thinned herself out to a tracery whisper. Often the two ran into each other. Rapid change, the action of the exponential curve, the whip of a scorpion’s tail, lay at the heart of her music-making. As did weight. I’ve seen few pianists able to measure their touch as well as Fliter, and thus make a simple two-note final interval a textural climax, as in the Nocturne in B major, Op 9 No 3...
Her execution, delivery and commitment could not be faulted. Her next concert is not to be missed."
The Arts Desk, December 2009
"The sensationally light-fingered decorations in the D flat Nocturne played up one of the defining characteristics of this attractively ingratiating artist – the pull between form and improvisation that inflects all of her playing and which gives it – and Chopin – its sense of freshness… Within the context of the recital as a whole, the single mazurka summed up what the Fliter fuss is all about. Technically within the grasp of many a modest pianist, this Mazurka is otherwise a minefield of nuance and irregular phrasing with those curiously inert, truncated closing cadences, and is haunted by a spirit of effortful energy that can’t wait to subside into lassitude. It’s a really odd and unforgettable piece – Chopin at his most reticent and original – and searchingly, intuitively teased out by Fliter.
This solitary Mazurka also rather showed up the wisdom of Fliter devoting the second half of her recital to eleven of Chopin’s Waltzes, currently at the centre of her repertoire on the back of her new recording for EMI of seventeen of them.... There was wonderful playing… Individually they showed off Fliter’s musicianship at its considerable best – the varied types of touch that draw such an impressive range of colour, a control of phrasing showing a deep understanding of Chopin bel canto style, and a magical blend of deliberation and fantasy that is at the heart of the best rubato playing, and of course, a dazzling but practical virtuosity."
Classical Source, December 2009
Royal Scottish National Orchestra & Thomas Søndergård / Beethoven Piano Concerto No.1
“Whilst never over-stepping the conventions of classical style, Fliter brought a deliciously zany sense of playfulness to the finale (in the manner of Friedrich Gulda) which had us hanging on every note as she toyed with the main theme, keeping it perpetually airborne. Elsewhere she made much of the becalmed episode at the heart of the first movement and the central Largo had a cantabile quality reminiscent of the best bel canto. Technically secure enough to indulge the occasional flight of fantasy, as with her compatriot Martha Argerich, there is frequently a sense of unpredictability, of living at the edge… the sheer relish and élan which she and the orchestra brought to the work. As an encore Fliter played Chopin’s ‘Minute’ Waltz with delicious whimsy”.
Douglas Cooksey, ClassicalSource.com, November 2009
“ARGENTINE pianist Ingrid Fliter has what could only be described as the magic touch. The stream of intricate fingerwork that characterises Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 1 was not only precise in her hands, it wasalso meaningful.
“Paying attention to the articulation of each note, the virtuosic phrases of Fliter's opening Allegro were as emotionally charged as the gentle Largo that followed it. And although it was her unanticipated accents and playful embellishments that made the performance what it was, she took care to maintain a sharp focus on its lyrical core. The result was an interpretation that married a clean and precise technique with sensitivity and warmth of character”
Carla Whalen, The Scotsman, November 2009
“Ingrid Fliter’s exuberantly deft-fingered account of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto – with Chopin’s Minute Waltz, full of marvellous rhythmic undercurrents, as encore – formed the perfect prelude. This young Argentinian is clearly going places. Watch for her again.”
Conrad Wilson, The Herald Scotland, November 2009
Cleveland Orchestra & David Zinman / Blossom Festival
“Ingrid Fliter… took an already passionate score - in this case, the Schumann Piano Concerto - to intense new heights. …Fliter struck sensitive balances, blending smoothly with her peers and adding dark undercurrents to filigree. Once alone, though, Fliter popped clearly into the foreground with definitive statements and poignant phrasing in the Intermezzo. Her gifts were such that, in the final Allegro, one forgot the music's virtuoso demands and instead got caught up in a long rallying of the spirit.”
Cleveland.com, August 2009
Wigmore Hall BBC Lunchtime with Radio 3 / Schumann and Chopin
“Ingrid Fliter is the sort of pianist who thrives on the passion of the moment…what was unflinchingly realised was the unbridled emotion of the piece, whether in the fierce melancholy of an expressive interlude or the furious stamp of a frenzied march. And Fliter’s unusual decision to interpolate two of Schumann’s discarded, early variations at the close of the piece — after its official, massive climax — proved a revelation; the preceding pomp suddenly undercut in music of fragile, lonely desolation. And, just as Fliter likes it, the magic of the moment won out… One more Chopin waltz (the Op 64 in C-sharp minor) confirmed the Argentinian’s arrestingly bold - yet never unbalanced - way with the Polish composer.”
The Times, May 2009
Pacific Symphony Orchestra with Arild Remmereit / Schumann Concerto
“Ingrid Fliter … is quite a talent, with taste and sensitivity to burn, but also the technical command to put them across. She made the piano, a percussion instrument after all, into a lyrical one, with a smooth, flawless, curving line. At the same time, her attacks were crisp and her voicing clear; rarely has this work seemed so contrapuntal.
Wonderful collaborator, she switched effortlessly from background to foreground. Her solos became like rapturous asides, poetic comments, on the main progress of the work. Her every phrase was weighted and beautifully formed and decisively delivered. One only wished to hear her in an encore.”
The Orange County Register, November 2008
Recital at Cheltenham Festival / Schubert and Chopin
“Her scintillating recital of Schubert and Chopin, given before a capacity audience … confirmed both the winning personality she communicates on the platform and also the poetic sensibility that lies at the heart of her playing.
She can be bold in stressing the drama of a piece, as in sections of the first of Schubert’s Four Impromptus D899, just as she can bring a restrained and limpid quality to the scales.
Hers is Schubert with a firm backbone, fleshed out and flecked with deeply expressive touches. Taking her cue from the very word impromptu, she brought spontaneity to this music, with a strong narrative undercurrent that traced the inflections and emotional impulses beneath the surface.
As is so often the case, much can be learnt about a musician from the encores and here the famous Minute Waltz with which Fliter ended had subtlety, freshness and no hint of simply pandering to popularity. Indeed she brought to it the same degree of insight and imagination, poise, delicacy and spectrum of colour that distinguished the whole of her Chopin group, with the F minor Ballade as a magical example of the way she can be in control and yet sounds so free to play as the spirit moves her.”
The Daily Telegraph, July 2008
BBC Symphony Orchestra with Juri Belohlávek / Chopin Piano Concerto No.2
“For the young Argentinean pianist Ingrid Fliter, Chopin is a serious business. And just moments into her dynamic performance of the Piano Concerto No. 2 I had stopped missing the indisposed Piotr Anderszewski (originally down for Symanowski’s Sinfonia Concertante) and was hooked.
Yes, there was a rich sweetness to Fliter’s playing – you cannot have Chopin without sugar, not least in the luscious larghetto – but plenty of fibre and muscle as well. Not for nothing has Fliter been compared to her great compatriot Matha Argerich: there’s a similar vitality, an engaging restlessness that imbued some of Chopin’s most dreamy sub-plots with enough snappiness and tang to keep us on our toes.”
The Times, May 2008
Dallas Symphony Orchestra with Arild Remmereit / Chopin F minor Concerto
“How adequately to praise Thursday’s performance of the Chopin F minor Piano Concerto, with Argentinean pianist Ingrid Fliter?
With no apparent effort, and certainly no pounding, Ms Fliter filled the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center with an enormous sound, but she also savoured the other end of the dynamic spectrum. Phrases were deliciously stretched and contracted in the slow movement, but even in the quicker music she found ways to set rhythms springing and swinging without throwing off the orchestra."
The Dallas Morning News, February 2008
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra with Roberto Abbado / Chopin Concerto No.2
“Fliter did it all, in a performance full of fire and tenderness. Her command of the keyboard is profound – so much so, in fact, that a listener has to pay careful attention to remember just how challenging Chopin’s writing really is.
There’s a deceptively casual air about Fliter’s playing, a sense that too much emphasis on the finger-busting demands would misplace what’s most important about this music. Instead, she focuses on textural transparency – helped along by the spidery lightness of her touch – and the interplay between melody and ornamentation.
For all the virtuosity of the opening movement, its most fascinating aspect was Fliter’s gift for adorning simple melody with webs of piano filigree, and in the slow movement – where Chopin’s most songful writing comes to the fore – that effect was only redoubled. By the time Fliter burst into the finale, her listeners were ready for some untrammeled rhythmic vitality, and together with the orchestra, she provided that in spades.”
The Chronicle, October 2007
Cleveland Orchestra with Roberto Minczuk / Chopin Concerto No.2
“Between German Monuments came Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, to which Fliter applied a spectrum of nuances. The 2006 winner of the Gilmore Artist Award possesses the fluency and tonal gold the piece demands. She brought vibrant temperament to Chopin’s moody writing and played the second movement’s poetic utterances as if they were sent from heaven.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 2007
Recital at Aspen Music Festival / Beethoven and Chopin
“Fliter proved a willful interpreter. She has an opinion about the music, about every turn, every phrase, every tone color, every rhythmic gesture, and it’s almost as if she can’t wait to express it. And she has the technique and intellect to pull it off. Every time a phrase repeated, she gave it a different inflection so it felt fresh, giving the music shape and texture. It made for an exhilarating evening of pianism, especially in Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in D major. She brought a playful touch to the proceedings, favoring quick tempos, pauses that felt improvised, executing scales with real flair.”
Aspen Times, August 2007
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RECORDING REVIEWS
Chopin Complete Waltzes (EMI Classics)
“Chopin’s waltzes often appear to be relegated to second division behind the ballades and sonatas. Ingrid Fliter’s adorable recording should help put that right. Vivid, immediate, spontaneous, full of grace and wit, it presents the whole gamut of Chopin’s emotional variety. She plays no phrase the same way twice, and her feel for voicing and texture is enhanced by her glowing, transparent tone.”
Editor’s Choice, five stars, Classic FM Magazine, December 2009
“Fresh from her first EMI disc, a glowingly lyrical Chopin recital which included a smattering of waltzes, Ingrid Fliter has now recorded the complete waltzes, repertoire for which she has a special flair and affinity. Once again her playing magically combines a personalised poetic impulse with an exhilaratingly choreographed virtuosity.
Fliter revels in the proliferation of faster pieces, whisking them off the page and giving their sparkling passagework both refinement and shape. She is dazzling and imaginative in the brilliante waltzes, Op.18 and Op.34 Nos 1 and 3, yet she is equally attuned to the more reflective pieces. Try the A minor Op.34 No. 2, where the melody is gorgeously shaped and the rubato and tonal nuance perfectly judged. Or hear the way she ghosts in the opening of the B minor Op.69 No. 2 and the F minor Op. 70 No.2, before increasing her tonal resilience. And her poise and radiance in the in the rarely heard posthumous E flat major makes one wonder whether Fliter knows Michelangli’s live recording.
Such revelations abound. Like all recordings of Chopin’s complete waltzes, this is a disc best dipped into rather than heard in one sitting, but Fliter’s account can complete with the best, and she has been superbly recorded. It is, however, surely time this gifted pianist set down a broader range of repertoire. I look forward to it immensely."
BBC Music Magazine, five stars, Christmas 2009
“Presenting them in their published order, followed by the 11 posthumous waltzes with and without opus numbers, Ingrid Fliter sets a new benchmark for the complete waltzes. From beginning to end, this is among the finest Chopin recordings of recent years.
Why? Each Waltz emerges as if a great actress were reading a short story, each with its own colour and character. Fliter’s “timing”, by which I mean her phrasing and rubato, is judged to perfection; her tempi are near ideal; she never loses sight of Chopin the poet or reinvents him as a red-blooded virtuoso. In addition, the superbly voiced piano is realistically recorded, neither too distant in that impersonal back-of-an-empty-hall way nor so close that the instrument is not allowed to sing.
Dip into any section of any waltz at random and you will hear a version to supersede, or at least rival, your current personal favourite. To do this in all 20 waltzes is a remarkable achievement. One can admire the chilly perfection of Dinu Lipatti but he fails to touch the heart as Fliter does in such passages as the seventh theme (dolce) at 3’30’’ in Op. 18; neither is he as playfully insouciant with the contrasting forte/piano central grace-note section of the F major Waltz. Though you may thrill to the virtuoso treatments by Hofmann in the two A flat waltzes and Rachmaninov in the E minor Waltz, Fliter stays faithful to the spirit of the composer without denying her own keyboard personality."
Gramophone, December 2009
“The Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter was born to play Chopin. He is the composer with whom her name is most closely associated, and this second CD for EMI is devoted entirely to his works, in this case all the waltzes.
Fliter’s playing blends an innate feel for style with imagination. Subtle inflections of tonal shading and rhythm enhance the music’s sense of spontaneous invention. Equally essential to these interpretations are an appreciation of the finely balanced proportions of these miniatures and a judicious fusion of poise and insights into the warmth of heart that the music embodies. Famous waltzes such as the “Brillante” ones of Op 18 and Op 34 Nos 1 and 3 exude joy; the “Minute Waltz” Op 64 No 1 has a glowing freshness, graced as it is with Fliter’s limpid tone and her natural pacing. Dexterity is not deployed as an end in itself here. Rather, there is a consistent impression that Fliter uses her technique with discretion as a means to finding the nub and scope of expression that Chopin distilled in these pieces.
More soulful waltzes, such as the others in the Op 64 set or the two of Op 69, are shaped with delicate reflectiveness, with shifts into more robust, more active ideas sensitively judged. The D flat waltz Op 70 No 3 perfectly exemplifies the singing line that Fliter brings to her playing throughout this cherishable disc.”
The Telegraph, five stars, Album of the Week, October 2009
“After sampling Ingrid Fliter’s first Chopin CD, released a year ago, the critic and piano specialist Bryce Morrison deemed that she was “clearly born for Chopin”. He was entirely right…
She shows her mettle immediately with that spirited whirl, the Op 18 Grande Valse Brillante... The grace at high speed, the shaved phrasings, the little inflections and hesitations pronounce a pianist completely at ease with her own technique and the special mysteries of Chopin’s world, where gaiety shades into melancholy and nothing is quite what it seems.
As these waltzes proceeded… I remembered a comment by Schumann... If Chopin played that waltz for dancing, he wrote, “half the ladies should be countesses at least”. There’s a similar aristocratic touch about Fliter; you feel it in her refinement of touch, her elegant poise, her infinite shades of soft and loud.
At the same time she is never aloof. When Chopin decides on glitter, she’s a smiling diamond (Waltz No 14 in A-flat major). When the soul is bared, she stirs the heart without forcing tears (Waltz No 3, A minor). And everything glides so naturally. In her hands, the pauses and dawdlings of rubato become no technical tricks but delightful coquetry, ways of teasing those salon ladies to whom the waltzes were dedicated — Madame la Comtesse Potocka, Madame la Baronne de Rothschild, Mesdames d’Ivry, d’Eichthal and the rest.
The recording, clear and delicate, catches Fliter’s full spectrum of textures and colours. What a delight this CD is…”
The Times, October 2009
“The most recent winner of the quadrennial Gilmore Prize, Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter is fast establishing herself as the pre-eminent contemporary performer of Chopin, following her EMI debut of selected Chopin Piano Works with this album focusing purely on his waltzes…
Restrained and elegant without sacrificing the momentum required to keep the pieces flowing, there's more than a touch of Arthur Rubinstein in her performance, as befits one who grew up listening to his masterly 1963 recordings.”
The Independent, October 2009
Chopin Piano Sonata No.3, Mazurkas Op.59, Barcarolle Op.60, Grand Valse Brillante Op.18, Waltzes Op.64, Ballade No.4 (EMI Classics, and pre-released on-line)
“Fliter makes her major recording debut with a scintillating and heart-warming flyer for her forthcoming Chopin album. Clearly born for Chopin, her playing is a marvel of the most refined fluency and affection. For her the Mazurkas are very much Chopin’s confessional diary, and the richly expressive Op 59 set…are offered with a haunting sense of their Slavic idiosyncrasy, their alternating radiance, sudden anger and despair.
The Fantaisie Impromptu is never a poor country cousin to the other Impromptus, and here in particular Fliter will make lesser pianists wonder at her effortless musical grace and unfaltering command. Elegantly tapered phrasing and dazzling virtuosity combine to memorable effect in the D flat Waltz, Op 64 No. 1, while the Barcarolle, one of Chopin’s greatest works, is coloured and inflected with the finest distinction.
Throughout, Fliter’s rubato, or musical breathing, is at once natural and personal and EMI has captured all of her pianistic sheen, her exquisitely rounded and glowing sonority. This is tantalising indeed, and I can scarcely wait for the completed album which will include such late masterpieces as the Fourth Ballade and the Third Sonata.”
Gramophone, April 2008
“Ingrid Fliter clearly loves Chopin’s music. The warmth of her playing and the lyrical impulse of her interpretations are combined with discretion in matters of dynamics, pianistic decoration and tonal colour to make these pieces flow from her fingers with the spontaneity of someone deeply immersed in the music’s idiom.
This is not Chopin playing that seeks to dazzle superficially or to self-congratulate in its technical accomplishment. Chopin’s Third Sonata, for example, is imbued with a rare, mellow reflectiveness and troubled serenity, the scherzo offering a contrast with its rippling clarity. The rapid repeated notes in the Grand Valse Brillante are not merely digital feats, but leap for joy; the famous Minute Waltz is wonderfully fresh and supple.
Just as telling are the diverse moods she brings to the three Mazurkas Op 59, by turns wistful, lilting and rhythmically buoyant, and the Fourth Ballade’s blend of gentle contemplation, active flurries and passion. This is Chopin playing that glows, and magically communicates Fliter’s compelling, subtly inflected response to the music’s emotional scope.”
The Daily Telegraph, April 2008
“In the wake of Radio 3’s Chopin splurge, this CD in particular deserves mention. The Argentinean pianist’s Chopin is in the grand tradition: a big sound, and intense drama, with the architecture of the longer works brought out in high relief. Her waltzes charm and her mazurkas have peasant impulsiveness.”
Album of the week, The Independent, May 2008
“Fliter beautifully shapes the melodic lines of the highly sophisticated Op. 59 Mazurkas, gives a luminous and eloquent account of the Barcarolle, and brings a freshness and verve to the waltzes. The Fourth Ballade, one of Chopin’s greatest works, is laced with loving detail and lyrical flair… All told, a super disc.”
BBC Music Magazine, August 2008
“The Third Sonata is quite a mountain to climb, given competition in the form of Lipatti, Pollini and Uchida. Fliter acquits herself well. There is much tenderness to the first movement, delivered in a pliable fashion that never loses sight of harmonic goals. The Scherzo begins with some stunningly mercurial finger definition, while later contrasts are daringly indulgent. The Largo combines sweetness with heartbreaking fragility."
International Piano, May/June 2008
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