Bad Hair Day

A recital of Chopin by the Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin, centred on the four ballades but also berceuse op 57, barcarolle op 60 and scherzo no 4 op 54. The ballades are full blown emotional romantic pieces written in response to revolutionary mayhem in Chopin's native Poland. The berceuse is a gentle lullaby, the barcarolle presaging the direction taken later by such as Debussy and the scherzo a fun piece of interweaving motives and harmonies. These counter the seriousness of the ballades. Kissin has been a controversial performer who can be quite mannered and idiosyncratic. A product of the child prodigy school and limiting himself to the central core repertoire, his development as a musician as opposed to a virtuoso could be said to have suffered. He is the kind of performer who attracts a devoted cult following however and I certainly have no arguments with his playing on this disk of material that he is most obviously at home with. I do wish he would get a stylist to sort out that hair though.