If many modern pianists can be dismissed with damning brevity, Ignaz Friedman’s elegance and aplomb demand a book rather than a review. In his tantalizing selection of Chopin Mazurkas his inimitable brio allows for both a sense of peasant origins (that slight lift on the second beat, that light or emphatic – according to context – stress on the third) and the rarest sense of fantasy and idealization. His rapid tempo in, say, Op. 24 No. 4 offers him, paradoxically, time for one enchanting felicity or passing piquancy after another, and an airborne lightness and freedom. His legato and cantabile make notes melt together rather than merely join or elide with another, and in Op. 63 No. 3 the attributes of such haunting sweetness combine with an authentic ‘wood-note wild’.
Who would have thought that Op. 67 No. 3, a relatively slight work, could be spun off with such vivacious idiosyncrasy or that the Third Ballade could emerge free from all constraint (why not plunge down the keyboard in a cascade of double rather than single notes and end with further reinforcements in a cloud of glory?) True, Friedman can play free and easy with the score. Taken at such a speed the Second Impromptu’s final leggiero scales turn into an unapologetic display, their innate beauty compromised by an extravagant flurry. But in the E flat Nocturne, Op. 55 No. 2, with its subtle prophecy of Faurean radiance, Friedman spins the most magical of lines. Dame Felicity Lott could hardly sing more charmingly or seductively.
Seemingly as natural as breathing, Friedman’s artistry is quite without (disfiguring) archness, leaving younger pianists to wonder at such insouciance, at such effortless transcending of received wisdom. The transfers of recordings dating from 1930-6 are admirable, and Allan Evans’s notes are good enough to survive some careless proof-reading.'