(Re)discovering Chopin
(Re)discovering Chopin

Summary/Abstract: The present paper was awarded with the first prize at The National Musicology Competition of the “Dinu Lipatti” Festival. Following the requirements of the contest (the comparison between three different interpretations of the same piece - Frédéric Chopin’s Walz op. 69 no. 2, played by Alfred Cortot, Dinu Lipatti and Arthur Rubinstein), the author gradually came to observe a broader perspective. First of all, the interpretations painted three different “personas” of Chopin: the romantic, the classic and the aristocrat, the latter being the perfect melting pot of the first two. Then, the chronological order of these interpretations made way for an assumption of a possible evolutional chronology of the emotional aspect in playing Chopin. Above all, the presence of a crystal clear objectiveness of the subjective side in interpretation turned out as an indisputable element. This leaves us without the possibility to decide about a hierarchy of value among the three pianists, or to pinpoint the special and objective character of the ideal Chopin player. Finally, the same objective subjectiveness is decided to be the single existing element able to “excuse” the insufficiency of every remark, in the mirror illusions of the composer-performer- audience-reviewer relations.

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