Recorded recitals of Chopin come and go but Janne Mertanen's is special; as thrilling as it is heart-warming. Featuring three of Chopin's greatest master-pieces; the Fourth Ballade, the Barcarolle and the Third Sonata, he also includes the Second and Third Impromptus. The playing throughout is of such an arresting freedom and instinct for poetry that you return to long familiar works with unfamiliarity, with a renewed awareness of Chopin, joining Schumann in his famous tribute, 'hats off, gentlemen, a genius!' Always there is that expressive give and take, the sense of an artist speaking to his audience, whether powerfully or confidentially(and Mertanen is a master of the insinuating phrase) telling them something magical, indeed, miraculous.
Which brings me to that most vexed of questions regarding interpretation in Chopin. What is 'tempo rubato?' There are descriptions of Chopin's own playing, his way of playing the melody slightly anticipating the beat, while the left hand continues in time. More picturesquely, it has been likened to a tree swaying in the wind while remaining firmly rooted. I was once asked at a conference to define 'rubato,' and replied that it is a form of breathing, calm and steady or rapid according to the context. I also received a telephone call from the Chinese pianist, the late Fou T'song,a celebrated Chopin specialist, asking me, after what had clearly been a frustrating experience at one of the London music colleges, whether it is possible to teach rubato. My reply was negative and less than useful. You can suggest and imply but you cannot state The pianist has to feel it in the constant emotional pulse and fluctuation at the heart of the music, a freedom caught by Cortot in his advice to his students, 'lose yourself, improvise!’
I say all of this because Mertanen's rubato is as natural as breathing, a tremulous pulse and fluctuation. Nothing is rigid, everything is liberated from the score. In the ever-elusive opening to the Fourth Ballade he achieves a true sense of its magical hesitancy(a quality once described by my colleague, Joan Chissell, as suggesting the wonder of a blind man experiencing sight for the first time). At the same time there is no lack of temperament from Mertanen in the build up to the coda, while the coda itself erupts in a blaze of defiance.
In the Impromptus there is, again, that gentle pulling back and coaxing forward, and a relish of Chopin's audacity in the near Schoenbergian transition from the Knight Errant central march to the first and now elaborated theme(what did Chopin's contemporaries make of its creaking and wavering tonality?) while in the final and startling cascade of scales Mertanen is every inch the master-pianist. He is even more persuasive in the the Third Impromptu's serpentine progressions, more inward looking than Cortot in his legendary and vivacious reading, but bringing his own personal engagement to every bar.
In the Barcarolle there are perhaps moments when freedom becomes looseness, nuance becomes mannerism. Yet if the performance loses some of it appeal for those with a severer, even puritanical view of Chopin, it is not without its glories, including a joyous surge of release in the piu mosso climax. Placing this performance in some sense of context you could say that it is, for example, the reverse of Pollini, an artist once described by the French pianist Bernard d'Ascoli as 'moral', one who eshews all possible excess or exaggeration in his quest for musical truth. Yet the Barcarolle, as much as any work in Chopin, repays many points of view and Mertanen's could hardly be more sympathetic, more attuned to its infinite richness and variety.
Finally, there is the Third Sonata and an interpretation very much the pianist's own. He takes the first movement repeat making you grateful rather than questioning, and in the finale, that great equestrian gallop, there are no holds barred. As Conrad Williams puts it in his novel 'The Concert Pianist,' there is a sense of 'untethered expression' a 'spilling over of sparkle and glitter' and finally, a wild release and victory' over the darkness and negation of the Second, 'Funeral March' Sonata. Here is a glorious lack, so to speak, of a steadying hand on the shoulder, or the sometimes compromising advice of the producer(Mertanen is one of the two producers of his own enterprise, making it hard for you to imagine him asking, 'was that quite clear?' or 'wasn't that a little exaggerated?'). Even when compared to recordings by Gilel's magisterial and Argerich's mercurial recordings, Mertanen goes his own way, and the result is endlessly compulsive and engaging.
This is a record to revisit constantly. Superb in sound I hope it will not be long before there will be more Chopin from Janne Murtenon.
Bryce Morrison