Laurence Oldak - Influences (2019) [Hi-Res]

This recital program associates Bach and Chopin - is it therefore unusual? At a first glance, the four musketeers of the romantic generation born around 1810, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin and Liszt, were all marked by the resurrection of Bach's music, almost completely forgotten until then. We often remark upon the rediscovery of the St Matthew Passion directed by Mendelssohn in 1829 in Berlin, when, in reality, this particular city was one of the rare places where Bach had never really ceased living in the memory of the people, thanks to the tradition of his sons. Nevertheless, the event has a symbolic value and explains a general devotion which would affect all the great romantic musicians (with the exception of Berlioz). Mendelssohn's oratorios, his preludes and fugues for organ and piano, show this clearly: Schumann, who venerated Bach and considered his music to be "daily bread", introduced Clara to the Well-Tempered Klavier and composed his Fugues in homage to Bach; in the case of Liszt, he would make transcriptions for the piano and also compose using motifs borrowed from the model. But Chopin? None of his composition was initiated by Bach, and he seems to have only played his works once; a fragment of the Concerto BWV 1063for three keyboards, with Liszt and Hiller. Nevertheless, numerous accounts from his pupils confirm that he considered the Well Tempered Klavier to be essential repertoire. It is therefore in his music itself that one must detect a discreet but lively influence...

Laurence Oldak, piano