Download here - Nick van Bloss

Dance-like Vitality
Nick van Bloss
plays Chopin heard by
ANDREW SCHARTMANN
'... unprecedented freshness ...'
It has been nearly five years since Nick van Bloss returned to the concert
circuit from a fifteen-year-long retirement. His comeback in 2009 was initiated
by a series of successful concerts and a highly acclaimed
recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. And if his latest Chopin recording is
any indication of what is in store, then we should all be grateful for van Bloss'
decision to rejoin the class of active performing artists.
A formidable technique is one sign of an excellent pianist, especially when it
goes unnoticed. Van Bloss' performance of Chopin's difficult Third Piano
Sonata sounds so effortless that it is bound to inspire confidence in even the
weakest of amateurs, who will come away thinking that he too can conquer
this work. More than a subject of marvel, van Bloss' superb technique allows
him to bring out the refined counterpoint at the heart of this music — a feature
that is too often obscured by an overbearing use of the sustain pedal. Even
those passages that do not exhibit dense contrapuntal weavings benefit from
this conservative approach. The first movement's second theme, for instance,
breathes with an unprecedented freshness in van Bloss' hands, which sculpt
the passage in a crisp but expressive light.
One potential downside to this approach is that it can lead to heavily accented
downbeats, such that the bar-lines of the score present themselves far too
candidly to the ear. This danger manifests itself in van Bloss' performance of
the finale, in which the opening chords, though molded into
a sensitive crescendo arc, are heavy handed. Like any high-caliber performer,
however, van Bloss' creative insights far outweigh the technical imbalances of
his performance. Thumping chords notwithstanding, the finale is characterized
by a highly imaginative approach to articulation, which breathes a dancelike vitality into a theme that is often perceived as brooding and serious.
Van Bloss' sensitive pedalling and articulation infuse his interpretation of
Chopin's Preludes, Op 28, with a colorful spectrum of sound. Rather than
using the pedal as a technical safeguard for the daunting left-hand figuration in
the G-major prelude, for instance, van Bloss uses it to articulate the music's
shifting harmonic palette. And a similar approach to these two facets of
performance allow him to navigate the subtle variety of characters that form
the cast of Chopin's F-major prelude.
Apart from being a showcase of flawless technique, van Bloss' interpretation
offers us a perspective on Chopin's music that is quite different from the usual
grandiose romantic swagger of many twentieth-century recordings. Nowhere
in his playing does he hit us over the head with sweeping gestures suitable
only to the concert hall. Rather, through a reserved but sensitive approach to
the keyboard, van Bloss offers us a glimpse of Chopin the salon composer. In
this sense, his project is one of recovery — one that seeks to excavate the
composer's reclusive personality. And so, while this new recording makes
an important musical contribution to the abundant Chopin discography, it also
carries with it an implicit intellectual argument. This depth of approach makes
van Bloss' work all the more interesting and worthy of our attention.
Copyright © 10 March 2014 Andrew Schartmann,
Connecticut USA