The mazurka and the polonaise may be among the most formal of Polish dances, but not in the hands of Chopin, where they become expressive vehicles. And especially not in the hands of the Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski, who brought wonderfully original insights to a group of four mazurkas and three polonaises in his all-Chopin recital. His reading of the polonaises especially was alert to the inner qualities of pieces too often tossed off with mere bravura.
But it was in the second half that things really caught fire, with exquisitely wrought accounts of the two op. 48 Nocturnes in C minor and F sharp minor. Both were characterised by a broad emotional and dynamic range; indeed, the C minor unfolded like a miniature drama, with catharsis and resolution. Trpceski’s gift for subtlety of touch and nuances of tonal colouring came into its own in the final section of the F sharp minor, with its series of lovely modulations dropped like rosebuds blooming into flower, rounded off with a perfectly judged scalic run, technically immaculate but also sensitively veiled.
Following a little routine worthy of Rafael Nadal, Trpceski ended his main programme with the first and second Scherzos. Both were dazzlingly fast, but used speed for expressive purposes: ominous figures leaping out phantasmagorically like leering faces in the B minor, pellucid rippling surfaces in the B flat minor. Then a generous series of encores, not avoiding the crowd-pleasing but tellingly ending in the introspective mode Trpceski inhabits so creatively.
Barbican Hall
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