Amir Katz: Chopin’s Nocturnes
You can consult Schnitzler on it: Chopin’s “Night Pieces” are suitable as polite atmospheric paintings – and have often abused as such. One can also strip this music if its veneer of sentimental evening lullaby and trace its highly varying ranges of expression. The Israeli pianist Amir Katz (born 1973), who recently celebrated his successful debut at the Wiener Musikverein (Vienna Musical Society), presents a recording of the entire cycle of Nocturnes, which in this respect is cause to prick up one’s ears: here music is created free of false pampering, tracing the multi-variant emotional realms that Chopin evokes in his pieces, also becoming harsh on occasion– and thereby pushing the boundaries of the framework of expression beyond that which is customary in popular renditions. In this way, the listener feels the dramaturgic effects a great deal more intensely than usual. And suddenly, the music lover can listen through the entire sequence without signs of fatigue resulting from overly flattened emotional values. Remarkable.
