Recorded live at Salle Medran in Verbier, Switzerland (26 July 2004), Evgeny Kissin reveals startling growth as a purveyor of Chopin’s music. His playing (on the Hamburg Steinway D), while still retaining its natural luster, has assumed a deeper sense of Chopin’s dramatic proportions, emanating almost exclusively as a product of the intricate relation between harmony and rhythm that pervades his work. The opening Polonaise in C-sharp Minor, for instance, glides between national dance and rhetorical epic, a ballade of intrinsically amorous character despite its warlike exterior. In spite of its bitter, martial sensibilities, the E-flat Minor Polonaise, too, educes intimate recollections in its trio section, Kissin’s filigree lithe and bristling with tensile strength. The air of unresolved tension at the piece’s conclusion reminds us that great art is not only abut happy endings.
Quicksilver and mercurial alchemy for the A-flat Impromptu, an old Horowitz staple. Kissin’s temperament seems more aligned to Artur Rubinstein’s grand, subjective sensibility, however, although the bravura elements – including a deft pianissimo run – are at Kissin’s facile fingertips. The F-sharp Impromptu enjoys a delicate fioritura that traces out its variants in liquid colors, much in the tradition of craftsmen like Horszowski. Its martial trio might well be a workers’ call to arms, interrupted by the lure of beauty. Kissin’s rendition of the G-flat Impromptu can only be called Scriabinesque, with its serpentine, intricate, harmonic course and sinuous rills. Stops pulled out for the familiar Fantasie-Impromptu, a silver streak in a limpid stream. While Chopin may have thought the central theme lingers too long, the audience does not. The most tragic of the polonaises, the C Minor from Op. 40, evolves a somber dirge for fallen ideals. Kissin bestows a glittering elegance on the proceedings, with its counterpointed jabs of lightning in a somber sky. Finally, the upbeat familiarity of the A-flat Polonaise, Cornel Wilde notwithstanding. Kissin imbues it with dignity and national zeal, the middle section rife with flint and cannon fire. Another 20 minutes of this recital wouldn’t have hurt.
— Gary Lemco
