Ingrid Fliter, Queen Elizabeth Hall | reviews, news & interviews
Ingrid Fliter, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Ingrid Fliter, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Argentinian pianist shows she is as good a Beethovenian as a Chopinist
Wednesday, 08 June 2011
We all make mistakes. I was absent for the start of Ingrid Fliter's Tempest sonata at her Queen Elizabeth Hall debut. Fliter was absent (mentally speaking) for much of the final movement of the Appassionata. The parts of Fliter's recital that we were both wholly present for, however, suggested she may well be as good a Beethovenian as she is a Chopinist.
Chopinists don't always make great Beethovenians (or vice versa). Fliter showed she had all the essential tools to be both: an engineer's feel of logistics, a circus entertainer's eye for variety, a bombardier's sense of timing. In the final movements of the Tempest sonata she also showed she could sing a line as well as she could plan and deconstruct it. Her cantabile line seemed to have a happy time being blown around unthinkingly but beautifully in the Adagio of this otherwise moody sonata. In the Mendelssohnian Scherzo of the Sonata in E flat, Op 3 No 3, there was more purpose to the jolly whistling melody in the right hand (very much a thinking melody) that is propelled by a thousand skittish legs in the left.
Yet Fliter's touch can pack a punch too. Her percussive interruptions in the first movement of the Sonata in E flat showed there was plenty of Semtex stuffed in those fingers. This power was quite a shock when I first heard her play at the Wigmore Hall last year. In the Beethoven, it made perfect sense. Her weighty account of the first movement of the Appassionata sonata was full of these explosive, ardent outbursts, allowing the work to spring forth and snatch at our throats. Then came an odd final half-hour.
It had been a pretty flawless recital up to this point. But then from nowhere flaws appeared: first, a poorly pedalled, oddly flat Andante (very much sine moto), and then a final movement which should have upped the con moto of the Andante but instead ground to a moto-less halt just as the first theme began to bubble up to the surface. She never really recovered. The rest of the movement was a bit of a smudgy fudge, though she collected herself enough in the coda to deliver a final night ride of impressive lightness and anxiety.
She came on for three encores: less attempts to show off, more chances to cast off the demons of that 11th-hour collapse. Schubert's Impromptu in E flat major was delivered in a perfectly attractive gusty way. But Fliter seemed unsatisfied and came out to the piano once more, this time for the Chopin Nocturne in D flat major. Despite spidering the fioritura with a breathtaking nonchalance reminiscent of Martha Argerich (who we might have been listening to next door at the Royal Festival Hall had she not cancelled), the piece saw her foul up several times, her rendition serially flopping onto its bottom like a toddler. So, to finally excise these gremlins she came on one last time for the Minute waltz. Faultless it wasn't. But as a display of pianistic rubato, it was exceptional. That'll do, her shoulders seemed to say. It did very nicely.
Share this article
more Classical music
Ridout, Włoszczowska, Crawford, Lai, Posner, Wigmore Hall review - electrifying teamwork
High-voltage Mozart and Schoenberg, blended Brahms, in a fascinating programme
Sabine Devieilhe, Mathieu Pordoy, Wigmore Hall review - enchantment in Mozart and Strauss
Leading French soprano shines beyond diva excess
Špaček, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - three flavours of Vienna
Close attention, careful balancing, flowing phrasing and clear contrast
Watts, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Bignamini, Barbican review - blazing French masterpieces
Poulenc’s Gloria and Berlioz’s 'Symphonie fantastique' on fire
Bell, Perahia, ASMF Chamber Ensemble, Wigmore Hall review - joy in teamwork
A great pianist re-emerges in Schumann, but Beamish and Mendelssohn take the palm
First Persons: composers Colin Alexander and Héloïse Werner on fantasy in guided improvisation
On five new works allowing an element of freedom in the performance
First Person: Leeds Lieder Festival director and pianist Joseph Middleton on a beloved organisation back from the brink
Arts Council funding restored after the blow of 2023, new paths are being forged
Classical CDs: Nymphs, magots and buckgoats
Epic symphonies, popular music from 17th century London and an engrossing tribute to a great Spanish pianist
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Philharmonia Chorus, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - poetic cello, blazing chorus
Atmospheric Elgar and Weinberg, but Rachmaninov's 'The Bells' takes the palm
Daphnis et Chloé, Tenebrae, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - lighting up Ravel’s ‘choreographic symphony’
All details outstanding in the lavish canvas of a giant masterpiece
Goldscheider, Spence, Britten Sinfonia, Milton Court review - heroic evening songs and a jolly horn ramble
Direct, cheerful new concerto by Huw Watkins, but the programme didn’t quite cohere
Marwood, Power, Watkins, Hallé, Adès, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sonic adventure and luxuriance
Premiere of a mesmeric piece from composer Oliver Leith
Add comment