The audience responded enthusiastically to Kobayashi’s intelligent virtuosity, although I missed some of the spontaneous touches and volatile contrasts distinguishing her recent Warner Classics recording of Op 28. Also notice her canny way of ever so slightly holding back before a treacherous leap to ensure accuracy and minimise risk without sounding cautious. Her varied legato and detached articulations catch your ear. Kobayashi picked a tempo that honors the composer’s con fuoco directive yet avoids speed traps. The latter becomes more difficult in the second half, when Chopin doubles the bass notes in octaves. The relentless right-hand semi-quavers are supported by a steady left-hand accompaniment. I’ll elucidate this point by zeroing in on the sixteenth Prelude, the étude-like B flat minor.
She works out each aspect of her interpretation to the proverbial nines. However, this morning, Aimi Kobayashi demonstrated an altogether higher level of control. In this respect, yesterday’s contender Piotr Alexewicz missed the mark.
Indeed, it takes a special pianist to convey each Prelude’s individual character and sound world, while, at the same time, weaving them together into a unified whole. Only three semi-finalists selected the Preludes cycle as their large-scale work option. ‘The first said I was dead, the second that I am dying, the third that I am going to die.’ Nevertheless, a masterpiece emerged that represents a microcosm of Chopin’s revolutionary style and aesthetic. ‘The three most celebrated doctors on the island have seen me,’ Chopin wrote to his friend Julian Fontana. In addition to bleak lodgings and no access to a decent piano, the bad weather aggravated Chopin’s tubercular condition. Chopin completed his Preludes Op 28 in 1838, during a visit to Majorca that ended up in disaster.