 Dans un pianissimo ourlé de sfumato, Olena Kushpler engage son clavier versicolore dans les quatre stations de ce voyage initiatique qu’est « Dans les brumes ». Lecture sensible, émouvante, qui en dit long sur les capacités de pure poésie d’une pianiste d’emblée chez elle dans un univers si singulier. Magnifique pour la caractérisation, le jeu subtil, le sens des atmosphères, et avec quel art elle suggère des tensions infimes, des repentirs. Autant de poésie déborde sa Première série du Sentier effacé, jouée comme en secret, tout en couleurs d’automne. Elle joue pour elle-même et me touche d’autant plus, raffinant les teintes et les phrasés au point de donner une touche debussyste aux dix vignettes. Que n’a-t-elle enregistré la Seconde Série ! Mais non, elle choisit, écarte d’ailleurs aussi la Sonate, préférant dévoiler les petites esquisses que Janacek nota en marge de son journal, respirations bouleversantes où son génie du bref, son goût de l’ellipse me cueille d’émotion, et comme elle joue tout cela, jusqu’au mieux connu Souvenir beau comme un regret, et au babil tendre de cette petite merveille qu’est « Le Christ est né ». Qu’elle n’en reste pas là, elle nous doit les autres pages de piano ! (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé) Ever since my youth I have been fascinated by the music of Leoš Janácek: initially by his vocal works, particularly Jenufa, an opera with an unadulterated ‘peasant’ tone of such radical authenticity that it transforms itself into avant-garde music. I only discovered Janácek’s piano repertoire at a later date, and immediately grasped his basic aesthetic principle: he wanted to write a music of truth. Virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake had no place in his approach. I understood that the Bohemian master staked out a clear position in the great musical debate of the 1800s. It raged, on the one hand, between formal aesthetics, which viewed music as “sonically moving forms” (in the words of Vienna critic doyen Eduard Hanslick), and, on the other hand, the musical content aesthetics of Berlioz, Schumann, Wagner, and Bruckner, who devoted their efforts to transforming poetry and even philosophy into music. In Janácek, I also feel that he strives to imbue each phrase with profound expression, thereby creating music that reflects his feelings, hopes, and disappointments. Janácek’s music draws its energy from contrasts, which can be violent at times: each piece contains moments of brilliant luminosity as well as dramatic conflict. I view his piano cycle On An Overgrown Path as a clearly autobiographical work that reflects the experiences and moods he encountered in real life. The death of his daughter Olga led to profound despair, and the titles of individual pieces reflect how a father’s thoughts revolved around the memories of his lost child. Our Evenings, A Blown-Away Leaf, and Words Fail are all individual pieces that foreshadow the tragedy to come. The cycle culminates in The Barn Owl Has Not Flown Away!, and we can note that folk belief viewed the barn owl as an ominous messenger of death. I read Janácek’s piano minisatures as intimate sketches from a diary he was keeping: personal thoughts turn into musical ideas. He wrote the Rondo when he was a young student, and The Golden Ring was his last composition, dated 8 August 1928, four days before his passing. These “diary entries” thus encompass Janácek’s entire life, and for me they are treasures of inestimable value. (Olena Kushpler).
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