VALENTINA IGOSHINA (b 1978)
Russian Pianist

Valentina Igoshina is a young Russian pianist with impeccable credentials and a lovely singing tone.  She plays Chopin just as Chopin himself might have played, delicately, beautifully, using subtlety rather than bravura to create drama and poetry.

You will hear her play the Chopin Etude Opus 10~3.  It is beautiful, sensitive Chopin, unhurried, uncomplicated, and very musical.  This etude was given the name "Tristesse".  The sadness is delicately and simply communicated without any hint of the tragic.

You will hear a performance of the Chopin Nocturne in C minor, Op 48~1.  Perhaps not the most popular of Chopin's Nocturnes, but many pianists believe it to be his finest and most profound work in the genre.  Valentina Igoshina plays it lovingly, reserving the passion for the difficult middle section and coming out of it with a residue of anxiety such that the piece does not end emotionally where it began.

She plays the "Raindrop" Prelude, Op, 28 No. 15 by Chopin, a piece so often played with excessive strum und drang as though it were a thunderstorm and the raindrops hailstones.  Here it is played with a great tranquility, only slightly disturbed in the middle section.

One of the most difficult of Chopin's works to play is the Prelude Opus 28~7.  It is very short and without any technical challenges to speak of.  But to make music of this brief half a page is a monumental achievement.  Valentina Igoshina does just that and the music speaks so eloquently over a span of a very few measures.

And she plays the Polonaise "Heroique" Opus 53 by Chopin.  This is a war horse and is all too often played as such.  But the Polonaise is a processional dance, and even in its grandest and most stately form, it is to be danced gracefully.

There is more of Valentina Igoshina's Chopin to be heard, as well as her Liszt and Rachmaninov, including the latter's complete second piano concerto.  There is also a wonderful peformance of the Tchaikovsky first concerto.  Sadly, the sound is inadequate and the orchestra is not quite up to her level, but the subtlety of her playing, even in bravura passages, is there to behold.  And three very interestingly different performances of the Chopin Grande Valse Brilliante Op 18.

Valentina Igoshina plays Chopin

Grande Valse Brilliante 1 in E♭ major, Op 18
05:55 ➢ Valse 6 in D♭ major, Op 64~1 "Minute"
07:45 ➢ Nocturne in C minor, Op 48~1
13:53 ➢ Prelude in A major, Op 28~7
16:14 ➢ Prelude in D♭ major, Op 28~15 "Raindrop"
22:52 ➢ Étude in G♭ major, Op 10~5
24:50 ➢ Scherzo 1 in B minor, Op 20
32:58 ➢ iii Marche Funèbre from Piano Sonata 2 in B♭ minor, Op 35
41:36 ➢ Polonaise in A♭ major, Op 53 "Heroique"
47:55 ➢ Étude in E major, Op 10~3
53:02 ➢ Fantasie Impromptu in C♯ minor, Op posth (Op 66)