Wilde Plays Chopin Vol 2
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: David Wilde, Fryderyk Chopin
Genre:
Instrumental
Label: Delphian
Magazine Review Date: 11/2014
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 78
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: DCD34138
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Fantasie |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
David Wilde, Composer Fryderyk Chopin, Composer |
Nocturne |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
David Wilde, Composer Fryderyk Chopin, Composer |
2 Nocturnes Op 27 |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
David Wilde, Composer Fryderyk Chopin, Composer |
Sonata for Piano No. 2, 'Funeral March' |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
David Wilde, Composer Fryderyk Chopin, Composer |
(16) Polonaises, Movement: No. 6 in A flat, Op. 53, 'Heroic' |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
David Wilde, Composer Fryderyk Chopin, Composer |
(26) Preludes, Movement: No. 15 in D flat (Raindrop) |
Fryderyk Chopin, Composer
David Wilde, Composer Fryderyk Chopin, Composer |
Author: Bryce Morrison
Refusing to take anything at face value, his performances scorn a more familiar suave and evasive outlook. He opens with the C sharp minor Nocturne, Op 27, finding ample support for his approach in its gaunt and baleful progression and bringing the dark and menacing rise in the central section to a rhetorical uproar. There is weight rather than facility in the ‘hoof-beats of the Polish Cavalry’ (Liszt) at the heart of the A flat Polonaise, heroic testimony, indeed, to Chopin’s patriotic fervour. Wilde stretches his points in the Second Sonata’s death-haunted pages. There are thunderous bass reinforcements and a near-quadruple fortissimo at the return of the principal theme in the Funeral March (echoing a Romantic tradition, most notably from Rachmaninov). Again, there is nothing sotto voce about the phantom finale but a gusty chasing of melodic fragments during its nightmarish course. For the D flat (‘Raindrop’) Prelude Wilde adopts a more natural, less single-mindedly different line, though there are thunderclaps aplenty in the central section’s downpour. In the E flat Nocturne, Op 9, on the other hand, his rubato tugs heavily against a more natural impetus, something that is nonetheless part and parcel of his uncompromising approach.
In his long and deeply personal essay he scorns all easy facility, using the word ‘gothic’ most aptly in relation to the B flat minor Sonata. Some may accuse him of assault and battery but others will surely pause to think again about Chopin’s stature. Delphian’s sound is crystal-clear and beyond reproach.
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