.alexrossmusic reviews three new recordings of Chopin’s complete Nocturnes, a home listening experience that “gathers its own dream logic.”
Chopin’s Nocturne No. 7, in C-sharp minor, begins with a low, ashen sound: a prowling arpeggio in the left hand, consisting only of C-sharps and G-sharps. It’s a hollowed-out harmony, in limbo between major and minor. Three bars in, the right hand enters on E, seemingly establishing minor, but a move to E-sharp clouds the issue, pointing toward major. Although the ambiguity dissipates in the measures that follow, a nimbus of uncertainty persists. Something even eerier happens in the tenth bar.
The C-sharp-minor Nocturne is a good test case for assessing these pianists’ styles, which diverge in many respects. Lisiecki is the one who most consciously follows the high-Romantic school of Chopin playing—a studied sensitivity that, in the wrong hands, can evoke a fidgety period-movie performance by someone like Timothée Chalamet. In Lisiecki’s hands, the Nocturne gets off to a deliberately sluggish start, as if rousing itself from slumber.
As for Hough, his tempo is markedly faster than that of the other two. He gets through the piece in under five minutes; Lisiecki needs almost six. As the initial line rises, Hough presses forward instead of holding back. He is anything but businesslike, though. What is immediately and magically apparent is the singing quality of the melody. When, in the sixth bar, it rises from C-sharp to G-sharp, Hough seems to take a quick breath before hitting the second note, as a singer would do.
Some diehard Romantics might object that Hough is too fleet in his approach. At times, the sheer lushness of Lisiecki’s manner reaps rewards; I was entranced by his exceptionally slow but never slack unfurling of the D-flat-major Nocturne. Still, Hough, whose reading is nearly two minutes shorter, wins me over with his liquid, limpid articulation. Again, he has thought at every turn about how a human voice would deliver the melody.
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