Backed by a colossal technique to tackle the most conflict-ridden passages with amazing soundness, Ingrid offered a substantial reading, filled with musicality and life, of one of the most splendorous piano concertos of the Romantic era.
~ La Nacion, Argentine daily
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Once again, the Sydney Opera House is going to play host to one of my favourite pianists. Argentina’s Ingrid Fliter who won the silver medal at the Frederic Chopin Competition in Warsaw in the year 2000 brings to our city the fascination and grandeur of Chopin’s piano music.
Performance dates
Sydney Opera House
8.00pm Wednesday, 18 September 2013
1.30pm Thursday, 19 September 2013
8.00pm Friday, 20 September 2013
8.00pm Saturday 21 September 2013
For more information about the Sydney Opera House concerts, please visit the Sydney Opera House website here.
Ingrid Fliter is also playing at Perth Concert Hall with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra 7.30pm on both Friday & Saturday, 13 & 14 September 2013. For more information about the Perth Concert Hall concerts, please visit here.
Frederick Chopin’s piano concerto no. 2
Composed in 1830 when Chopin was 20 years of age, the piano concerto no. 2 in F minor Opus 21 was first performed on 17 march 1830 in Warsaw, Poland with the composer as soloist.
The work is in three contrasting movements typical of piano concertos of the Romantic era. The musical directive for the first movement is Maestoso, meaning to be played in a majestic, stately or dignified manner.
The second movement is played Larghetto to mean a style that is rather broadly. It begins with the strings and woodwind leading the piano into arguably one of the most beautiful passages of music ever written. The melody is poetic and opera-like, as though it was meant to be sung like an Italian opera.
Chopin confessed in a letter that the second movement had been inspired by his secret passion for a younger singer at the Warsaw Conservatory, with whom he had fallen in love and dreamt about for six months without once speaking to her.
The larghetto movement of this piano concerto remained one of Chopin’s favouites and won the admiration of his fellow contemporaries Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt.
Below is the second movement performed by Ingrid Fliter when she was awarded the silver medal at the Frederic Chopin Competition in Warsaw in the year 2000.
The third and final movement is in Allegro vivace tempo, meaning fast and lively.
This movement is in stark contrast with the second where it shows the rhythm of a Polish mazurka.
The piano takes centre stage once again, presenting the glorious melodic lines and motifs throughout this movement while the orchestra plays second fiddle in providing suport and harmonization.
Ingrid Fliter
Born in Buenos Aires, Ingrid Fliter began her piano studies in Argentina with Elizabeth Westerkamp. In 1992 she moved to Europe where she continued her studies at the Freiburg Musikhochschule with Vitaly Margulis, then in Rome with Carlo Bruno and with Franco Scala and Boris Petrushansky at the Academy “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola.
She was a laureate of the Ferruccio Busoni Competition in Italy and was awarded the silver medal at the 2000 Frederic Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Ingrid Fliter was also selected as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2007-2009, working with several of the BBC orchestras under the auspices of this programme.
Ingrid Fliter sprang to international attention when she was awarded the 2006 Gilmore Artist Award, one of only a handful of pianists to have received this honour. The Gilmore Artist Award is presented to an exceptional pianist who, regardless of age or nationality, possesses profound musicianship and charisma and who sustains a career as a major international concert artist.
In recital, Ingrid Fliter has performed at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Museé d’Orsay, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Cologne Philharmonie, Salzburg Festspielhaus, Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, and at London’s Wigmore Hall and the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.
Recital highlights in North America have included New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, in Fort Worth for the Van Cliburn Foundation and in Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, Vancouver, Montreal and Santa Barbara.
Later this season, she makes her International Piano Series debut at the Southbank Centre in London. Festival highlights include La Roque D’Antheron, Prague Autumn, Valdemossa Chopin Festival, Cheltenham Festival, City of London Festival and the World Pianist Series in Tokyo.
She has also appeared at the Mostly Mozart, Grant Park, Aspen and Blossom festivals.
Ingrid is also an avid painter in her free time. You can view some of her work on Twitter.
Excerpt from the official website of Ingrid Fliter at www.ingridfliter.com
So dear readers, do you have a favourite classical music composer and if so, what is your favourite work by that composer?
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