By Hugh Robertson

‘There's nothing small-scale about Fliter's performances. This is very much Chopin playing in the great tradition.’

That review from The Guardian encapsulates what so many know to be true: that there are few people alive who know the music of Frederic Chopin better than Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter. She was a silver medallist at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, has given countless acclaimed performances, and her recordings have won awards and been showered with praise from every corner of the globe.

As Fliter explains, Chopin’s music as been a major part of her life for as long as she can remember – and according to family lore, perhaps goes even further back than that.

‘My first memories are related to my father playing the piano, my mother singing and Rubinstein playing Chopin Waltzes,’ she recalls with a smile. ‘I fell in love with that combination and it's very deep into my roots, into my guts.

‘I come from a family that are immigrants from Europe and in Europe at that time, so 100 years ago, it was very common to have a piano at home, and people were actually considering that as everyday education and part of the culture. So that is the tradition that I received. I was educated in that. I just remember going to concerts and operas and looking at videos at home and listening to Rubinstein everywhere where we were: in the car, in the kitchen, anywhere.

‘Also, my grandmother was born in Lithuania, which at that time was Poland. So she very proudly said that I play Chopin very well because I have some Polish blood – which I don't have! But she dreamed of me having some Polish blood.’

Whether or not Chopin is in Fliter’s blood, it is undeniably in her bones after all these years with him as both a personal and professional companion. Chopin was there at home but was also a major part of her early piano studies, which Fliter – herself now a teacher of young pianists – thinks was the ideal training for a lifetime in music.

‘He is an old friend,’ says Fliter. ‘I grew up with his music, and actually I think my teacher was very clever in giving me a lot of Chopin as soon as possible when I was a child. He’s a very educative composer because he develops so many things when you play his music. There are so many difficult components and so many complex realities within Chopin’s music that a child benefits a lot from studying his music.

A lifetime is not enough to discover this music.

This October Fliter returns to Sydney for four performances of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto with conductor Eduardo Strausser, in a concert that celebrates the bravado and thrill of youth: Chopin’s concerto, paired with Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Scottish’ Symphony, were both written by young men still in their teens, both fired by their ironclad certainty that they had something to say, and their time was now.

For Chopin this period of his life was a major turning point. He grew up in Warsaw and was identified as a prodigy from a very early age, and began giving public concerts by the age of seven and composing soon after. His star burned bright throughout his teens, but, with the Polish–Russian War brewing, he left Poland for Paris in 1830 and never returned. His final performance in Poland, in October 1830, saw the premiere of both his piano concertos, so this piece offers us a glimpse of a young man, the world at his feet, about to make a major leap into adulthood and the wider world.

It is an engrossing and fascinating time in Chopin’s life and indeed in many of our lives, the cusp of adulthood where our lives open wide and are ripe with opportunity. That energy and naivety is something that Fliter tries to capture in her performances, avoiding the histrionics and over-sentimentality that too many performers fall into.

‘How much I can avoid...overcharged emotions? [How can I get to] that little innocence that he might have felt before his life really departed and started doing whatever he did in his life. But at that time he was still innocent and pure and probably a dreamer. I’m trying to explore that as well inside of me…that boldness, that courage, [when] believe everything is possible and the world will surrender in front of you.’

Chopin is a composer that is not often performed by the Sydney Symphony, chiefly because he only wrote a very small handful of works for orchestra. The vast majority of his output was for solo piano, which has led to a popular misconception that he only wrote music suitable for ‘Peaceful Piano’ playlists on streaming services.

‘Chopin is more popular for his entertaining and pleasant and [relaxing] music…they are very popular. But there’s a very dark side, a very extreme side about life and death and real deep matters about human conditions that in his music…there’s a mystery that you want to explore.’

That mystery is something that Fliter thinks is ideal for a first-timer, or a newcomer to classical performances. ‘I envy a person that might be interested in coming to the concert – if he or she has never experienced a classical concert live, Chopin’s Concerto No. 1 would be one of the best choices to go to listen to.

‘There's no better piano music than this piano concerto to experience classical music live,’ she continues. ‘It’s music that really speaks to your heart. It's not difficult listening. You just listen to this music and you get dragged into a stream of beauty: beautiful tunes, beautiful sounds, strong feelings, daring moments, very virtuosic texture as well in the piano writing, incredibly difficult.

‘But they all have to sound easy and natural,’ says Fliter with a laugh. ‘They should know that this is very difficult piece! [But] if they feel that it's very difficult, I'm doing something wrong. So come and judge!

‘I would feel very, very confident of inviting someone who hasn't very often come to a classical concert to come to this one – because I'm sure they will have a great time.’

Fliter will be among those having a great time: not only is she performing music by this composer that has been such a central part of her life, but she is coming back to Sydney – a city that she has incredibly fond memories of.

‘I remember that one of the most important days of my life I spent in Sydney, actually,’ she recalls. ‘I was turning 40…and I was playing that evening, for the first time, all the Chopin Preludes in a recital for the Sydney Symphony. Those are the days that you never forget.

‘So I have Sydney very much in my heart forever. And also the collaboration with the orchestra has been always marvellous, very inspiring and happy and enthusiastic. So I have the best memories from being in Sydney. I cannot wait to come back.’