Håkon Austbø’s Chopin is straightforward, true to text, and free from interpretive artifice to the extent that listeners might take issue with the lack of fanciful phrasings and “traditional” rubatos, or with the pianist’s seemingly unorthodox approach to certain passages. More often than not, however, Austbø casts fresh light on the music’s inherent classicism and polyphonic riches, abetted by his sonorous and colorful tone.
Many pianists, for example, press ahead during the Third Ballade’s mezza voce episode at measure 157 when the music modulates to C-sharp minor. Here Austbø allows the elaborate left-hand line to patiently sing out. And rather than accelerate in the climactic fortissimo bars, Austbø trusts Chopin’s restraint and saves speeding up for when the composer asks for it in the final stretto and piú mosso.
Similarly, in the First Ballade’s opening section, Austbø honors Chopin’s moderato directive without undue lingering, and makes expressive points by way of touch and balance. Counter-lines and inner voices are firmly etched into the textural fabric. A pity that Austbø breaks the momentum by treading gingerly through the Presto con fuoco coda. The Second Ballade’s outer sections are attractively lilting and pellucid, while the agitato sequences don’t splinter at the seams as they often do. Austbø’s extremely subtle transitional rallentando between measures 79 and 83 almost goes by unnoticed.
The pianist’s fastidious and well-structured Fourth Ballade also features details that might sound strange at first, yet they’re substantiated by the score. Just before the quiet chords leading into Austbø’s expansive coda, Chopin indicates a stretto over the staccato build-up in measures 199 to 202. Most pianists broaden the passage’s three final triple-forte chords. Not Austbø. He realizes that the stretto still is in progress, and duly serves up the chords in three quick karate chops.
Although I would never part with freer, more songful Barcarolles from such disparate artists as Cortot, Rubinstein, François, and Kempff, Austbø’s stricter narrative nevertheless abounds in interesting details, such as the effectively emphatic F-sharp bass pedal points in the sublime coda. In some ways Austbø’s Op. 62 Nocturnes evoke Arrau’s robust tonal palette minus the latter pianist’’s probity. No contrapuntal byway escapes Austbø’s notice throughout a well executed yet somewhat stiff and unpoetic Polonaise-Fantasie. Simax provides superlative engineering and booklet notes that spout philosophical drivel.
