 Chopin et Pleyel, c’est une histoire d’amour bien connue. Quand il se rend à Majorque avec George Sand à l’hiver 1838, c’est un piano Pleyel qu’il emmène avec eux, et dans un courrier à un ami, Chopin décrit les pianos Pleyel comme « le dernier mot de la perfection ». En effet, le Pleyel était apprécié de Chopin pour son timbre gradué et sa sonorité légèrement voilée qui convenait parfaitement à son style. Pour ce récital représentatif, le pianiste Hubert Rutkowki, lauréat du Concours International Chopin à Hanovre en 2007, joue sur un magnifique Pleyel de 1847. Parmi les pièces importantes et emblématiques, Rutkowski propose la Ballade en sol mineur et l’impressionnant Scherzo en si mineur, la Fantaisie-Impromptu en ut mineur, puis une sélection de mazurkas, nocturnes, études, valses sans oublier la Polonaise en si bémol mineur. Ces œuvres, magnifiées et amplifiées par le registre scintillant du Pleyel, renaissent et revivent sous les doigts experts de l’interprète qui démontre ici une connaissance profonde du compositeur, un sens de la nuance et une sensualité rare. Rutkowski parvient, par le son unique du Pleyel, à nous emmener à Nohant où Chopin composait et jouait sous l’œil attendri de George Sand. Un remarquable enregistrement ! (Philippe Zanoly) In a letter to a friend Chopin described Pleyel pianos as ‘the last word in perfection’. What he identified as their ‘slightly veiled sonority’ suited his style. One observer remembered the composer saying that if he was not feeling on top form, he preferred to play on an Erard, for its bright and readymade tone. ‘But if I feel alert, ready to make my fingers work without fatigue, then I prefer a Pleyel… My fingers feel in more immediate contact with the hammers, which then translate precisely and faithfully the feeling I want to produce, the effect I want to obtain.’ The Chopin-era Pleyel was notable for its graded timbre, topped by the silvery, ethereal quality of its treble register. Chopin’s appreciation for the Pleyel sonority of pianos is written into the very fabric of his music. When he travelled to Majorca with George Sand in the winter of 1838, a Pleyel piano had to travel with them, and the composer continued to have a Pleyel grand delivered every summer, which remained until November. This was at some expense to the company, but then the relationship was mutually beneficial: while the composer was inspired by the Pleyel sound, the company did well from his patronage and his personal recommendations, and indeed Chopin and Camille Pleyel were firm friends for many years. For this mixed recital, Hubert Rutkowski plays a Pleyel instrument from 1847, during Camille’s stewardship of the firm. The most substantial works are the G minor Ballade and the B minor Scherzo, which makes so much of that glistening upper register. There is also the C sharp minor Fantaisie- Impromptu, the B flat minor Polonaise and a selection of etudes, nocturnes and waltzes. The pianist has contributed his own valuable essay to the booklet in which he outlines the special relationship between Chopin and the firm of Pleyel and its significance for his music: he is a President of the Chopin Society in Warsaw, and has also played and recorded under the theme of Chopin’s pupils: he is among the most distinguished Chopin pianists of our day.
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