Ingrid Fliter's Chopin impresses at the London Piano Festival

Acclaimed Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter was here making her Kings Place debut and, given her distinction, she may well have wondered where the audience was for this London Piano Festival event. Hall One holds just over 400 people, but the 240 or so attendees still left a few spare seats in the Stalls, with no need even to open the gallery. She also offered an appealing programme of Classical and Romantic era masterpieces by Beethoven and Chopin of the sort that normally fills larger venues.

Perhaps this was a factor in the way she began, taking time to settle herself and arrange her spangled jacket before feeling ready to address the keyboard. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E flat major, Op.31 no.3 opens with ingratiating flights of fantasy, at once lyrical and whimsical. Fliter missed something of this mood and there was some unsteadiness in the filigree passages, which need precise articulation for their wit to tell. The Scherzo had more clarity and conviction, as the staccato writing requires, but also sometimes clangour, as Beethoven’s dynamic contrasts produced some too aggressive sounds from an unprepared fortissimo. The ensuing Menuetto had poise and grace, and the finale’s tarantella motion was fairly well despatched, but still the piano was clangorous much above forte. How well had this instrument been chosen and prepared? Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in D major, Op.10 no.3 fared much better, perhaps as the pianist adjusted to the conditions of this instrument in this hall.

Fliter though is especially admired for her playing of Chopin, whose Nocturne in B major, Op.9 no.3 opened the second half, hinting in its first pages at a great affinity between pianist and composer. The lilting sections were particularly attractive, almost vocal in their Bellini-like melisma. After that, with almost no pause, there came the falling flourish that announces Chopin’s Piano Sonata no. 3 in B minor. Again the lovely second subject was as natural as breathing, its marked pedalling and sostenuto manner scrupulously observed, as was the Molto vivace of the Scherzo, its figuration fleet and rhythmically tight in Fliter’s hands.

The sublime Largo – there is arguably no finer ten minutes in all Chopin – was the heart and soul of the sonata, as it must be. In the middle section, in which ever profounder feelings are explored, the counterpoint, so expertly balanced between Fliter’s hands, beckoned us into twilit regions to which Chopin alone holds the key. But we were dragged back into the light by the Rondo finale, brilliantly played agitato as marked right up to its closing stretto. Fliter’s performance of this sonata offered an ideal union of creative and re-creative art. Somehow, even the sound of the piano was transformed, into something warm and integrated through its range and across dynamic levels.