Krystian Zimerman was in his early twenties when he recorded the Chopin concertos for DG two decades ago, with Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For his long-anticipated remakes the 43-year-old virtuoso directs the Polish Festival Orchestra from the keyboard, an ensemble he founded and trained from scratch. Last month Harriet Smith charted the course of their lengthy, painstaking rehearsals which were followed by sessions for the recording in hand and a three-month concert tour.
Are the results worth all the extraordinary effort (and no doubt expense) that went into this project, as well as the extra cost to the consumer (the performances being just too long to fit on to a single disc) ? In many ways, the answer is yes. Helped by DG’s exquisite engineering, Chopin’s oft-maligned orchestrations emerge with the clarity of a venerable painting scrubbed clean and fully restored. Not one string phrase escapes unaccounted for, as is borne out in the dynamic micro-shadings of the E minor’s opening tutti, or the scrupulously worked-out turns and embellishments elsewhere. Every dynamic indication and accent mark is freshly considered, and each orchestral strand is weighed and contoured in order for each instrument to be heard, or, at least, to make itself felt. Some listeners may find the strings’ ardent vibrato and liberal portamentos more cloying than heartfelt, yet the vocal transparency Zimerman elicits from his musicians underscores the crucial influence of bel canto singing on this composer.
Zimerman’s ultra-polished fingerwork and colouristic gifts stress Chopin’s jewel-like symmetry and lyric beauty. If he downplays many of the composer’s dynamic surges and enlivening accents, he compensates with carefully pinpointed climaxes in both concertos’ slow movements. The slow timings, incidentally, have less to do with fast versus slow than the pianist’s insidiously spaced ritardandos and broadening of tempos between sections. More often than not he lets his right hand lead, rather than building textures from the bottom up, or bringing out inner voices as Argerich does in her more forceful, impulsive renditions. By contrast, some of Zimerman’s salient expressive points have calcified rather than ripened with age. Having said that, Zimerman has clear ideas of what he wants, and commands the formidable means to obtain the desired results, both at the keyboard and in front of his hand-picked musicians. In a year rich with offerings to celebrate Chopin’s 150th anniversary, Zimerman’s achievement stands out like a proudly hand-crafted valentine.'