Intermezzo

Ingrid Fliter returns to Wigmore Hall

Ingrid Fliter - Wigmore Hall, 16 December 2009

photo: Dan Porges

Drama seems to pursue Ingrid Fliter, especially when she visits Wigmore Hall. Last time, she suddenly paused mid-recital when a key became stuck. A replacement piano had to be wheeled on before she could continue.

Last night there was a more prosaic excuse – flu – as Wigmore Hall’s director announced before she came on. But, he added, she had agreed to soldier on with a pruned version of her originally-planned and heroically lengthy all-Chopin programme.

At first it seemed like a mistake. Her opening Nocturne was dull and measured, the sort of thing you might expect from a competent student. Left and right hands played with little sense of having anything to say to each other. Smudgy pedalling failed to obscure basic fingering errors. The plunging fingers and tossed hair were it seemed, like Lang Lang’s, plastered on to the performance as a route into the music rather than an expression of it. She made it to the end, but I half expected her to get up and make her excuses.

Extraordinarily, the Barcarolle that followed just seconds later displayed an entirely different pianist, the one the packed hall had come to hear. Great Chopin performances fall on a cusp between expression and empty display. It is Fliter’s skill – sometimes - to locate that narrow groove. The lilting rhythms flowed from her fingertips effortlessly. The audience applauded spontaneously, and Fliter announced haltingly she would continue with the whole of the planned first half.

A Nocturne, a Mazurka, a Polonaise – Fliter located the heart of each unerringly. Her playing can be extraordinarily muscular, more ‘masculine’ than any man. But she is also capable of the most delicate touch, whisper-quiet yet firmly articulated. It’s this ability to explore the extremes, allied with a pronounced and sensitive rubato that seems to breathe with the work, that makes her Chopin so compelling. Every note is an event, the cumulative effect emotionally wrenching.

After the interval it was back to the truncated programme, eleven Waltzes in place of the promised seventeen. Fliter relaxed into a less intense but no less inspired performance, exploring the reflective introspection of these familiar ‘dances of the soul’ as much as their glittering brilliance. Medicine for body as well as the heart perhaps – by the end of the recital Fliter was sufficiently recovered to brave a CD signing.

What's on in London in May

There's always plenty on in London musically speaking, but May looks particularly busy.

For starters, at the Royal Opera House, Diana Damrau and Giuseppe Filianoti take a roll in the hay for the first revival of Laurent Pelly's L'elisir d'amore. Il trovatore and Lohengrin are still around too.

At the ENO, David Alden's hotly-anticipated new Peter Grimes opens. Stuart Skelton, Amanda Roocroft, Gerald Finley and Felicity Palmer sing, Edward Gardner conducts. The second new production of the month is film director Abbas Kiarostami's first venture into opera, Così fan tutte.

Purcell's King Arthur is performed in concert at the Barbican on 6 May by Le Concert Spirituel. There are limited *free* tickets for under-26's for this one (check out the freeB link on the Barbican site).

17 May is Handel-fest day. Christopher Hogwood's Academy of Ancient Music bring Arianna in Creta to the Barbican. Miah Persson, Lisa Milne and Sonia Prina appear as originally scheduled, but Kristina Hammarström replaces the previously-announced Angelika Kirchschlager.

The performance starts at 6.30pm, so there should be (just) enough time to get there from Zurich Opera's Agrippina, which begins at 2pm in the Royal Festival Hall. The impressive cast joining Marc Minkowski and Zurich Opera's specialist period ensemble, Orchestra La Scintilla, includes Vesselina Kasarova, Eva Liebau, Marijana Mijanovic and Anna Bonitatibus.

The other operatic event worth mentioning is not in London at all, but in Manchester.  Over two nights, 9 and 10 May, Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra perform Götterdämmerung in concert at the Bridgewater Hall, with Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde. If this was in London, tickets would go in a flash, but there are still plenty of seats available.  Manchester is clearly a harder sell. It rather underlines the folly of the Royal Opera House's plans to create a Mancunian outpost. Northern opera lovers may be dedicated - there just aren't a lot of them.

On 31 May, Rene Pape joins Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall for the UK premiere of Torsten Rasch's 2003 song cycle Mein Herz brennt. This is (loosely) based on the music of headbanging German industrial metallers Rammstein - a fact the Southbank promo guff intriguingly fails to mention. Not as scary as it sounds though, as the source material is engulfed by Jurowski's favoured big-boned retro-nouveau Eastern bloc neo-romanticism (or Vladcore for short).

On a smaller scale, there are lots of recitals this month, including the big one, Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky at the Royal Festival Hall on 19 May.

At Wigmore Hall Kate Royal sings Schumann and Brahms on 7 May, and there's a solo recital from the great Jordi Savall the day after. On 19 May (the same date as Netrebko/Hvorostovsky unfortunately) Mojca Erdmann, Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber tackle Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch. The Wigmore's busy Haydn weekend begins on 29 May with an András Schiff lecture recital at 2pm.

And there are a few more Wigmore day time events worth mentioning. On 12 May at 2pm there's a *free* recital of Kurtag and Schubert by Jonathan Biss, which will be recorded for the Wigmore's own label. On 18 May at 1pm Anne Schwanewilms sings Debussy, Strauss and Wolf, and on 25 May at 1pm Ingrid Fliter plays Chopin and Schumann.

Philip Glass makes a rare appearance at the Barbican on 26 May for an evening of chamber music.

The fabulous Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain plink and twang at the Cadogan Hall on 5 May.

One of the most intriguing events of the month is a Barbican concert on 30 May. Various artists including the Britten Sinfonia perform the Music of Moondog , and there are companion pre, post and interval events, including an 11.30pm concert at St Giles Cripplegate, Moondog Around Midnight .

Ingrid Fliter wows Wigmore Hall

Ingrid Fliter - Wigmore Hall, 19 June 2007

Beethoven: 32 Variations on an Original Theme in C minor, Piano Sonata No. 18 in E flat Op. 31 No. 3
Chopin: Nocturne in D flat Op. 27 No. 2, Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor Op. 58

It's been a while since I've seen a pianist actually enjoying playing the piano as much as Ingrid Fliter did tonight. Too many spread a grey blanket over an evening as if they're just grimly enacting the losing end of a taproom wager, but Fliter brought sunshine and warmth to her performance.

As the recipient of last year's Gilmore Award (worth $300,000(!!), previous winners Piotr Anderszewski and Leif Ove Andsnes(!!)), recently signed to EMI, and soon to be a Radio 3 New Generation Artist, expectations were high for tonights recital, her Wigmore and London debut.

Without either robotically flawless technique or armflinging showmanship, she drew the audience in simply with her own musicality and engagement, managing to keep even the usual coughers and rustlers pretty much silent.

Assertiveness coupled with delicacy characterised her performance. As she progressed through the Beethoven variations, each new idea was presented as if freshly thought. The spontaneous flow rushed through the Beethoven sonata too, with the closing presto con fuoco a thrilling and spirited end to the first half of her recital.

And the second half's Chopin was even better, fitting to her sensibilities like haute couture. The Nocturne must be one of the most recorded pieces ever, but Fliter amazingly found something new in her light airy interpretation. Here is a video of her playing it a few months ago; her Wigmore performance was very similar:

I did wonder if we mightn't have got an even better performance if the Wigmore had decent airconditioning. The warm June temperature made it uncomfortable enough just sitting there in the audience. Despite wearing a light strappy dress (very glamorous, similar to the one in the picture at the top), Fliter needed to mop down both herself and the piano frequently, often between movements. Schweaty mitts may have been behind a failure to articulate some of the faster passages totally evenly, as the video proves this is not a regular problem for her.

Her three encores sandwiched a virtuoso Argentinian dance between Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu and a joyously executed Minute Waltz, displaying yet another facet to her talents, one I would like to see more of.

The concert was being recorded for Radio 3, but no word as to when it'll be broadcast - with luck, soon.