Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (arr. for piano quartet)

There is nothing unusual about the transcription of piano concertos for miniature performing forces, whether for salon performances or rehearsal purposes. Mozart himself wrote alternative versions for three of his piano concertos, and during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries transcriptions of concertos were frequently published at the same time as the full-scale work. Chopin’s concertos were no different, and the F minor concerto in particular has appeared in various reduced formats. Presumably this would have found favour with Hector Berlioz, who wrote in his Memoirs: “The whole charm of Chopin’s works is focused in the piano part; the orchestra of his concertos is nothing other than a cold and almost useless accompaniment.”

These latest reductions of the Chopin concertos are by the Polish pianist Bartłomiej Kominek, a performer steeped in the works of his compatriot, and are themselves based on earlier, scholarly transcriptions by Kazimierz Sikorski. They work very well; the long orchestral introduction to the E minor concerto, which can seem curiously lumpen and uninspired under even the most sympathetic of conductors, gains grace and charm in the hands of the Vilnius Quartet, and the entry of the piano is appropriately impressive. The decorative filigree nature of Chopin’s writing for the soloist lies well over the string quartet accompaniment, and in these transcriptions the pianist supplies some of the material from the full score in addition to the solo passages.

These are true chamber performances, delightful in every way, with excellent playing from both the Vilnius Quartet and the pianist Tamami Honma. Her deftness of touch and ear for colour are entirely in keeping with the way Chopin himself apparently played: the Musical World publication of February 28, 1838 described him as “perhaps, par éminence, the most delightful of pianists in the drawing room, the animation of his style is so subdued; its tenderness so refined; its melancholy so gentle…”

About the performers

Tamami Honma is a Japanese-British pianist known for pairing standard repertoire with less commonly recorded arrangements and chamber configurations, of which this Somm disc is a characteristic example. The Vilnius String Quartet, drawn from Lithuania’s classical music scene, brings the same close ensemble listening to these reduced concertos that string quartet playing more generally demands, a different discipline from following a full orchestra, and one that suits the intimacy of the chamber-scale arrangement Kominek and Sikorski built from Chopin’s own orchestral writing.