Chopin Volume 4 – Waltzes; Nocturnes
Louis Lortie
Chandos CHAN 10852
The early waltzes that Chopin composed were meant to be small personal gifts and tributes – most of them were not even intended for publication. That changed somewhat after the composer’s visit to Vienna in 1831. The precocious 21-year-old reported back to Warsaw with breathless astonishment: “Waltzes are regarded as works here!” By “works” he meant recognized musical pieces, worthy of publication. That he could have doubted that astonishes us equally – these are not throwaway ditties, despite their slender size. Somehow, Chopin managed to squeeze into a space of three to four minutes compositions with their own mutable rhythms and containing micro-movements within their minute frames.
To master Chopin’s waltzes, one needs an equally mutable, mercurial talent. Louis Lortie, the incredibly accomplished Montrealer now residing in Berlin, possesses such talent. For many of us, Lortie is not the first name that comes to mind when you think of master pianists. Yet it is enough to start listening to him play these waltzes to realize the magnitude of his gift. They virtually cascade from his fingers, simultaneously inviting us into a reverie whilst invoking a desire to dance along. Only on a couple of occasions does Lortie rush the tempi, perhaps as if he could not believe that the impulsive, romantic Chopin had really marked them as “moderato.”
