Chopin Chez Pleyel: Planès | CD review

The period instrument revolution has less prominently influenced solo piano music than other areas of the repertoire, though this album finds Alain Planès using an 1836 Pleyel in order to attempt an approximate reconstruction of a recital given by Chopin at the manufacturer's own concert halls in Paris in 1842. "Approximate" is very much the right word here: contemporary reviews indicate that Chopin strayed from his announced programme and there are differences of opinion as to some of the recital's contents and running order: he also accompanied the famous contralto Pauline Viardot-Garcia in some songs, which are omitted here. The revelations stem from the admirable restraint of Planès's playing and from the fact that the sound of his Pleyel is at once darker, brittler and more percussive than a modern concert grand, which precludes not only the sentimentality that characterised many 20th-century Chopin performances but also the violent approach recently adopted by more radical interpreters. The Nocturnes, particularly the C Minor Op 40, No 1, combine elegance with profundity, while the selection from the Op 25 Etudes is exquisitely done.