Valentina Igoshina is a young Russian pianist with impeccable credentials and a lovely singing tone. She plays Chopin just as Chopin himself might have played, delicately, beautifully, using subtlety rather than bravura to create drama and poetry.
You will hear her play the Chopin Etude Opus 10 No. 3. It is beautiful, sensitive Chopin, unhurried, uncomplicated, and very musical. This etude was given the name "Tristesse". The sadness is delicately and simply communicated without any hint of the tragic.
You will hear a performance of the Chopin Nocturne in C minor, Op 48 No 1. Perhaps not the most popular of Chopin's Nocturnes, but many pianists believe it to be his finest and most profound work in the genre. Valentina Igoshina plays it lovingly, reserving the passion for the difficult middle section and coming out of it with a residue of anxiety such that the piece does not end emotionally where it began.
She plays the "Raindrop" Prelude, Op, 28 No. 15 by Chopin, a piece so often played with excessive strum und drang as though it were a thunderstorm and the raindrops hailstones. Here it is played with a great tranquility, only slightly disturbed in the middle section.
One of the most difficult of Chopin's works to play is the Prelude Opus 28 No.7. It is very short and without any technical challenges to speak of. But to make music of this brief half a page is a monumental achievement. Igoshina does just that and the music speaks so eloquently over a span of a very few measures.
And she plays the Polonaise "Heroique" Opus 53 by Chopin. This is a war horse and is all too often played as such. But the Polonaise is a processional dance, and even in its grandest and most stately form, it is to be danced gracefully.
There is more Chopin to be heard, Liszt and Rachmaninov, including the latter's complete second piano concerto. And three very interestingly different performances of the Chopin Grande Valse Brilliante Op 18.
Chopin Etudes Opus 10
No 3 in E Major Op 10 n3
Excerpt from No 5 in G flat Major
Chopin Fantasie Impromptu in C Sharp Minor Op 66
Chopin Nocturne in C Minor Op 48 n1
Chopin Preludes Opus 28
No 7 in A Major
No 15 in D flat Major
Chopin Piano Sonata 2 Op 35 iii Marche Funèbre
Chopin Grande Valse Brilliante 1 in E flat Major Op 18
