Ingrid Fliter

August, 2011

CD Review: Ingrid Fliter plays Beethoven Piano Sonatas

In her new Beethoven CD Ingrid Fliter stands tall among the great interpreters of the past.

This is truly great Beethoven playing. It brings to mind the old recordings of Solomon, Hungerford, Myra Hess or Clara Haskil.

Her playing is not focused on the studied perfection and polish that is so often the case with younger competition-winning pianists today. Rather it makes these pieces come alive with a natural and unforced quality that underscores the very real perfection of the playing. It simply grabs the listener the way great Beethoven pieces should. Fliter brings an entirely apt integrity, depth of understanding and seriousness to these classic works.

She lets the music speak for itself and take its own time, while imposing nothing willful or arbitrary on it. She lets it tell its own story, which still seems painted so vividly. Every detail registers clearly, yet all sound like a natural exposition of what the piece simply is.

Fliter’s Appassionata can be placed among the great recordings of this sonata, and I’ve heard most of them. Fliter is dramatically convincing, serious, powerful and simply magnificent. It is the kind of artistry that makes comparisons completely irrelevant and leaves me vainly striving to put into words something that’s ineffable. You just have to listen to it.

After her two Chopin albums it was clear that the Gilmore Artist Award, which she received in 2006, was well and wisely chosen. If anything, this Beethoven CD is even finer and surely some of the finest Beethoven playing that can be found. That she seems to be pursuing an upward curve artistically is an affirmation of the good that an award like the Gilmore can do. May she long continue in the same direction! I look forward to whatever she chooses to play.

Kevin Moore, CNY Café Momus

July, 2011

Ingrid Fliter, Beethoven Piano Sonatas, EMI Classics 2011

Unfazed by technical demands, talented pianist Ingrid Fliter takes on Beethoven and wins with exhilarating and powerful performances...

...three of the most recorded ‘titled’ piano sonatas, all in minor keys, ‘Pathétique’, ‘Tempest’ and ‘Appassionata’, whose driving allegros she delivers with magisterial dramatic attack and effortlessness, unfazed by the technical demands. At the climax of the opening movement of the F minor sonata (‘Appassionata’), Fliter takes the breath away with the speed of her piu allegro envoi — this is one of the most exhilarating and powerful performances of this great work among recent recordings.

Fliter’s temperament and understanding of the turbulent emotional shifts of Beethoven’s piano writing at this stage of his life (in his early thirties) are refreshing at a time when the market is flooded with well-played but bland interpretations. She is also, like Argerich, a lyric poet, getting her fingers to “sing” the cantabile melody of the ‘Pathétique’s adagio without dragging or making it sound mawkish. She is equally arresting in the corresponding movements of the ‘Tempest’ and the ‘Appassionata’, making music of the silences and rests that are essential features of Beethoven’s expressive armoury. One hopes she explores the later, even greater masterpieces in due course. These thrillingly played interpretations whet the appetite for more.

Hugh Canning, Sunday Times

July, 2011

Ingrid Fliter, Beethoven Piano Sonatas, EMI Classics 2011

The opening chord of the ‘Pathétique’ Sonata commands attention, as does Ingrid Fliter’s thoughtfully exploratory way with the whole of the Grave introduction. She is in no rush to get to the Allegro. When she does it is brought off with a fine mix of clarity and direction-focused quickness and with some ear-catching alterations of touch … Following a dynamically varied first movement, in which fortissimo accents lack nothing in force, the famous song-like slow movement is mellifluously turned and made sentient by Fliter...

Fliter’s unfolding of the opening of the ‘Tempest’ is full of mystery, the distinct faster passages poised (a typical facet of Fliter’s playing), and when those enigmatic arpeggios return they are ever more suggestive (and finely pedalled, too)... For the ‘Appassionata’, Fliter reserves her fullest-sounding playing (faithfully captured by an unfailingly unflinching recording that also allows air around the instrument) in a fiery and controlled account that always knows where it is going.

Colin Anderson, International Record Review

July, 2011

Ingrid Fliter, Beethoven Piano Sonatas, EMI Classics 2011

The titles of these sonatas summon up a stormy, blood-and-thunder vision of Beethoven. That isn’t Ingrid Fliter’s way. Her approach is grandly spacious, and full of the subtle pedal effects you normally expect in Chopin. This lends the ‘Pathétique’ Sonata a proud, Racine-like pathos which I’ve never heard before. In the first movement of the ‘Tempest’ Sonata she gives the nervous alternations between fast and slow an almost modernist strangeness … a remarkable disc.

Ivan Hewitt, The Telegraph, Rating: ****

July, 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall recital, June 7th, 2011

Filter was fully in her stride for the ‘Appassionata’. This was a perfect example of how to achieve maximum results with the minimum of fuss. Tempos were well judged and nothing felt forced or rushed. There was judicious use of rubato and phrasing was subtly nuanced. The first movement exploded with conviction, the variations of the second one were carried off to perfection and the finale swept all before it. Three encores followed, a polished Chopin waltz and a nocturne, closing with a Schubert Impromptu that was deliciously poetic.

Andrew Maisel, Classical Source

July, 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall recital, June 7th, 2011

An engineer's feel of logistics, a circus entertainer's eye for variety, a bombardier's sense of timing … she could sing a line as well as she could plan and deconstruct it. Her cantabile line seemed to have a happy time being blown around unthinkingly but beautifully in the Adagio of this otherwise moody sonata. In the Mendelssohnian Scherzo of the Sonata in E flat, Op 3 No 3, there was more purpose to the jolly whistling melody in the right hand… that is propelled by a thousand skittish legs in the left.

Yet Fliter's touch can pack a punch too. Her percussive interruptions in the first movement of the Sonata in E flat showed there was plenty of Semtex stuffed in those fingers … In the Beethoven, it made perfect sense. Her weighty account of the first movement of the ‘Appassionata’ sonata was full of these explosive, ardent outbursts, allowing the work to spring forth and snatch at our throats.

Igor Toronyi-Lalic, The Arts Desk

July, 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall recital, June 7th, 2011

The ‘Appassionata’: driven, haunting music, and played with throbbing purpose. Rather than dim the lights in the slow movement, Fliter turned them up: a restless quest for rest, perhaps, rather than a dreamy interlude. And the scorching finale felt like a mad scene worthy of opera. Three generous encores confirmed Fliter’s finesse: a glittering Schubert Impromptu, and a Chopin waltz and nocturne. We definitely left happy.

Neil Fischer, The Times

June, 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall recital, June 7th, 2011

The main part of her recital was devoted to sonatas by Beethoven – the second and third from the Op 31 set, and the Appassionata Op 57. All three works contained marvellous things, and the inner dramas of both the D minor sonata Op 31 no 2 and Op 57 were managed with real flair and imagination – the returns of the opening chords to punctuate the first movement of Op 31 no 2 were invested with mysterious beauty, the volatility of the Appassionata and its steady ratcheting up of intensity were timed to perfection.

Andrew Clements, The Guardian

December, 2009

Once again her playing magically combines a personalised poetic impulse with an exhilaratingly choreographed virtuosity... Fliter's account can compare with the best, and she has been superbly recorded.

Tim Parry, BBC Music Magazine

December, 2009

Ingrid Fliter sets a new benchmark for the complete waltzes. From beginning to end, this is among the finest Chopin recordings of recent years... Each waltz emerges as if a great actress were reading a short story, each with its own colour and character. Fliter's "timing" is judged to perfection; her tempi are near ideal; she never loses sight of Chopin the poet or or reinvents him as a red-blooded virtuoso.

Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone Magazine

September 18, 2009

Tchaikovsky, Chopin pieces highlight Houston Symphony's weekend

Hans Graf leads a masterfully shaped, expertly-realized rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter makes an impressive Houston debut with her exquisitely expressive and virtuosic performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

Though strikingly different in means and effects, the two make a compatible double-header for music fans for this weekend’s Houston Symphony program, opening the 2009-10 classical season.

The Chopin is an atypical concerto that eschews the customary interplay. Its appeal stems from the unique character of Chopin’s keyboard writing, with its nonstop opportunities for virtuosity. Fliter demonstrated great facility, dispatching elaborate and extended runs with flair and fluidity. Perhaps more crucial was her clear affinity for Chopin’s music, its mercurial qualities and ethereal grace. Her delicacy in restrained passages and her way of articulating each note in a phrase made the work a true showcase. That was especially true in the lovely Larghetto, this work’s transcendent movement.

Fliter brought vivacity and dynamism to the Allegro vivace finale, perhaps the movement most like one of Chopin’s miniatures, with its lively dance rhythms of waltz and mazurka.

Everett Evans - Houston Chronicle

September 12, 2009

Power, warmth in CSO's opener

Opening the Colorado Symphony Orchestra's 2009-10 season, Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter returned to Boettcher Concert Hall to perform Robert Schumann's moody and melodic Piano Concerto in A minor.

Alongside music director Jeffrey Kahane, Fliter lived up to her reputation, bringing her characteristic warmth and powerful technique to bear on the thematically dark and sober work.

In the first movement, Fliter and Kahane glided through the dizzying progression of emotions, culminating in Schumann's lengthy cadenza in which the virtuosa boldly battled its emotional conflicts. It was in the second movement, however, that her profound expressiveness illuminated the intermezzo's elegant, elegiac lines.

In the finale, the CSO kept tempo as Fliter raced through affirming, upward-reaching themes. Immersed in the metric ambiguities of the movement, Kahane and Fliter danced and skipped through colorful, exuberant passages that signal the triumph of optimism.

Upon an enthusiastic ovation, the poised and graceful pianist delivered a serene rendition of a Chopin waltz as encore.

Sabine Kortals - The Denver Post

August 7, 2009

“Fliter's virtuosity shines through” REVIEW | Kalmar proves ideal partner

The mild-mannered Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter is on a mission. In the recording studio and on the concert circuit, the 2006 Gilmore Artist Award winner is doing her all to cast a new light over the showstopping canon of the early Romantic era.

She's making a pretty convincing case, too. It's helped that over her last three appearances in Chicago, she has steadily bolstered her performances with a confidence and vitality that were sometimes absent in her earlier visits.

Wednesday night with the Grant Park Orchestra at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, she filtered away all the trivial hubris in Schumann's dazzling Piano Concerto for a bigger, more musically satisfying product than the status quo.

Fliter, 35, is a virtuosic pianist incapable of grandstanding. Part of her appeal as a live performer is that we barely notice her. Apart from the occasional lurch at the keyboard, she is an immovable rock beside her instrument. Carlos Kalmar and the Grant Park Orchestra were ideal partners as they provided malleable accompaniment around her dynamic and uniquely expressive playing. Even in a popular work like the Schumann, Fliter's remarkable talent to express competing and hidden voices sounded almost foreign.

The crowd loved her.

Bryant Manning - Chicago Sun Times

August 4, 2009

Conductor Jahja Ling, cellist Johannes Moser lead Cleveland Orchestra's weekend feast at Blossom Music Center

The weekend's other soloist was Ingrid Fliter. Like Moser, she, too, took an already passionate score - in this case, the Schumann Piano Concerto - to intense new heights.

Playing with the orchestra under David Zinman on Saturday, Fliter struck sensitive balances, blending smoothly with her peers and adding dark undercurrents to filigree. Once alone, though, Fliter popped clearly into the foreground with definitive statements and poignant phrasing in the Intermezzo. Her gifts were such that, in the final Allegro, one forgot the music's virtuoso demands and instead got caught up in a long rallying of the spirit.

Zachary Lewis - Plain Dealer Music Critic

April 24, 2009

Pianist shines like diamonds amid MSO velvet

After an initial explosion, a drifting ad-lib meditation for the soloist opens Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor.

On Friday, Ingrid Fliter put a surprisingly sharp attack and bright timbre on each sustained tone. She let each of them ring for a long time against velvety chords from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Fliter did not gather them into a phrase. Instead, she made the music utterly static as she played one note at a time, each sound a hard, glittering diamond worthy of consideration for its own sake.

That striking interpretive moment was no fluke. The sense of a penetrating musical intelligence at work emanated from her playing throughout this emotionally and structurally complex concerto.

Fliter applied her formidable technique and vast ranges of timbre and attack to clarifying and affirming the music's emotions and structures. She took things to extremes - very soft and very hard touches, furious speed and near stasis - but this is heated Romanticism, and extremes are the point. Conductor Andreas Delfs and the orchestra were right with Fliter, in a performance that brimmed with intelligence and passion.

Tom Strini of the Journal Sentinel

... an exciting technique and keen intelligence animated by an impetuous temperament... a remarkable talent.
The New York Times

Ingrid Fliter's lovely piano recital at the Kennedy Center... provided evidence of an assured and discriminating musical intelligence yoked to a stage personality of unusual warmth and charm... Fliter's clarity of thought and meticulously calibrated dynamic control - she commands a seemingly infinite variety of louds and softs - were immediately apparent. I do hope Fliter returns soon, and to a venue where more people can hear her. She has much to offer us.
Washington Post

Fliter ran through the filigreed patterns of Chopin's ornamental writing as easily as drawing curlicues with a finger in the air. From a backdrop of unassailable technique, she was able to listen and let go with the music.
Fliter had the power to project the music in Blossom's large pavilion without forcing the tone. What's more, she proved herself a sensitive agent of Chopin's style. She played the heart-stoppingly lovely writing in the slow movement in keeping with Chopin's idiomatic quickening and slowing of the lines.
Fliter, 33, plays with a maturity and elegance that suits her well to the Cleveland Orchestra. I hope she'll be back soon.
Akron Beacon Journal

Between German monuments came Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2, to which Fliter applied a spectrum of nuances. The 2006 winner of the Gilmore Artist Award possesses the fluency and tonal gold the piece demands. She brought vibrant temperament to Chopin's moody writing and played the second movement's poetic utterances as if they were sent from heaven.
Cleveland Plain Dealer

Fliter possesses an awesome pianistic technique that is light years ahead of most power pounding competition winners... This extraordinary artist combines musical intelligence with the kind of keyboard mastery of which legends are made... Fliter is a force of nature and an artist of the highest order.
Entertainment News & Views (Miami, FL)

[Ingrid Fliter] made the music sound as though it were being born under her fingers... she balanced her selections neatly between demonstrations of remarkable technique and musical statements of considerable clarity, depth and resonance.
Washington Post

[Ingrid Fliter] seemed to play to her greatest strength, which is her holistic approach to a piece. Her clear articulation of phrases and large-scale formal sections of a piece are signs of a mature artist... By all accounts, Fliter was a wise choice for the 2006 Gilmore Artist.
Kalamazoo Gazette

[This was] one of best the Chopin [performances] ever played by an Argentinean after Martha Argerich. Her version of the Chopin's Concerto No. 2 can be registered among those produced by the most outstanding pianists of the two last generations: Kissin, Demidenko, Maria J. Pires, Kristian Zimmermann or Emanuel Ax
Diario La Nación, Argentina

Fliter is very much her own person, with essential sparks of individual imagination that show a fertile mind as well as a phenomenal technique at work... In the second half came a Chopin group that was simply spellbinding. The music seemed to flow from her with an utterly natural lyrical impulse, graced with power, luminous delicacy and a spectrum of tonal coloring that combined to mark her out as one of the most instinctive and eloquent Chopin interpreters playing today.
The Daily Telegraph (UK)

Fliter appears to be a pianistic force of nature... stay tuned, a wonderful pianist has arrived.
Los Angeles Times

[Fliter] proved a musician of immediate appeal. Her touch on the keyboard, soft and enveloping but with strength, heightened the clarity of her playing. She stretched long lines effortlessly and displayed a properly classical sense of proportion and understated elegance... Judging just from this one performance, she seems as much a thinker and communicator as virtuoso pianist.
Atlanta Journal Constitution

...inspired pianism captured on the wing.
Chicago Tribune

More than anything else it was Fliter's out-sized, vivacious personality that proved so winning. Rarely will one encounter such infectious delight and sheer communicative pleasure in making music as that which the pianist put across Friday night [Miami International Piano Festival].
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

...this glamorous blonde pianist played the Beethoven Concerto No. 1, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led fluidly by Charles Dutoit, and dared to go beyond dutiful adherence – she proclaimed Beethoven, in marvelously ghostly arpeggios, in an uncommonly searching cadenza, in sforzandos that jumped boldly off the page. A big-time contender.
LA City Beat

Backed by a colossal technique and with a mental attitude allowing her 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 [Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2].
La Nación

Her performance radiated the innocent colorful youthfulness which is unique to Debussy's early masterpieces. Her refinement of keyboard touch is extraordinary, her tone always flexible, clear and metallic, her range of colors virtually infinite, and her dynamics subtly shaded... This is all coupled with a unique duality which both encompasses rhythmic tension and flexible interpretation, and the rangy shaping of melody which is always logically articulated. To be concise: we heard a performance where virtuosity did not contradict poetry.
Music Magazine, Budapest