LDV44

20 CHOPIN_24 PRELUDES, FANTAISIE-IMPROMPTU, NOCTURNES, BARCAROLLE And you have never played the Mazurkas in concert? Never – except for one of them on a special occasion. But I do play them all . . . in secret! Teaching has been very important to you for some years now: what place do you assign to Chopin’s music in your classes? When you’re young, it’s entirely logical to want to be able to play virtuoso works requiring a genuine physical effort, Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto for example. I myself was playing Balakirev’s Islamey at the age of fifteen, so I understand that urge very well. The poetic dimension, the variety of colours, the different ways of getting a melody across, the construction of a logical rubato are things that we believe to be easy. They are anything but! That’s why I encourage my students to choose Chopin nocturnes, Brahms intermezzi or Bach preludes and fugues to help them work on their cantabile, explore harmonies and feel the strength that lies in the depths of music. They need to fill out the sound and try to grasp the way the composer breathes: music was written by living, breathing people. Chopin doesn’t breathe in the same way as Haydn, or Debussy, or Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Ravel, Bach .