Thrilling, Fresh Perspectives on Chopin From Pianist Zimerman

The world of Chopin is not run by rules, or formulas or even hoary tradition. It is a world of feeling, a musical place where Romanticism resides. And Romantic can mean unstable, so to expect predictability in Chopin performances is unrealistic for the listener and unfair to the performer.

Krystian Zimerman, the justifiably beloved Polish pianist who returned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center with half a program of Chopin on Tuesday night, knows all this, of course. The history of his visits here--beginning with performances of the two Chopin concertos with Carlo Maria Giulini and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1978--document Zimerman’s essential Romantic personality. They have been controversial, definitive, quirkily individual, beautiful, intellectual and probing--often in the same performance. They have never been dull.

His Chopin was provocative, often thrilling, on Tuesday, when his first half began with the F-sharp Impromptu, Opus 36, and ended with the Fantasy in F minor. In between, Zimerman brought fresh insights and new perspectives to the B-flat-minor Scherzo, then turned to three Mazurkas, Opus 56.

The mazurkas are the wildflowers in the garden of Chopin’s fevered imagination; these performances in particular underlined the Romantic, establishing beyond doubt the composer’s eternal and unfailing youthfulness.

Zimerman played them as if inventing them on the spot--they were newly discovered, fervid. Just as he played everything else. One had to love the tender way he caressed the Impromptu, then reconsidered the facets of the over-familiar Scherzo, and finally attacked the great Fantasy like a lover crazy with desire.

The rest of Zimerman’s program, a revival of Schumann’s massive Sonata No. 1, also proved admirable for all the right reasons of contrast, spontaneity and detailing. The work remains a puzzle to most of us, however, a wild child some devious god has dropped in our laps. We should probably appreciate it; instead, we are mystified. Zimerman, for his part, played it with both compulsion and ease.