Chopin: Voyage album review – clarity and sincerity but Avdeeva keeps us at arm’s length

Fourteen years ago Julianna Avdeeva became the first woman since Martha Argerich 45 years earlier to take first prize in the prestigious International Chopin Competition, which is held every five years in Warsaw. Since that success however Avdeeva has left a rather mixed impression, both in her infrequent recitals in the UK and on disc, though those recordings have included a fascinating coupling of the two Chopin concertos on which she plays an Erard instrument of Chopin’s time.

The piano that Avdeeva uses for this collection of Chopin’s late works, from the B minor Sonata Op 58 to the three nocturnes of Op 62, is an historic instrument too. It’s the Steinway CD-18 that was Vladimir Horowitz’s personal piano, now in the collection of Steinways at the Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, where the recording was made. As Avdeeva’s fleet, lean treatment of the first movement of the sonata immediately shows, it’s a piano with a light action, and a slightly shallow, metallic edge to its tone, which brings great clarity to her playing,

She is not an especially affectionate Chopin interpreter, and even in the nocturnes Opp 59 and 62, there’s a slightly steely objectivity about her playing; perhaps it’s significant that her selection does not include the late sets of mazurkas and waltzes. But in both the sonata and the magnificent Polonaise-Fantaisie Op 61 there’s a real sense of authority and purpose; Avdeeva may sometimes keep listeners a bit too much at arms’ length, but there’s never doubting her sincerity.

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