Chelsea Guo: Chopin: In My Voice
Orchid Classics

On this preternaturally poised debut album, pianist Chelsea Guo demonstrates her deep affection for Frédéric Chopin (1810-49), not only in devoting the recording to his material but in investing herself so completely in the performances. One of its selling-points concerns the fact that she accompanies her piano playing with vocals on the release (the two recorded simultaneously), but in truth that applies to only three of the twenty-nine tracks. That doesn't make the release any less appealing, however. Her playing is a delight throughout, and the vocals-and-piano pieces add an extra appealing dimension that helps distinguishes the release from other piano-only Chopin recordings.

A prize-winner at the 2020 U.S. National Chopin Piano Competition who debuted as a pianist with the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra at age nine, Guo is well-equipped to take on the project. Currently enrolled at The Juilliard School, she's performed worldwide and on some of the world's most prestigious stages, Carnegie Hall's included. Singing came to her early too, and Guo has been recognized with awards for her vocal talents. The seed for Chopin: In My Voice was planted when she first realized how effective a recital might be if it were to feature both solo piano and art song content and when a performance of three Chopin songs was warmly received at a 2019 performance in Miami.

Recorded over three days in October 2020, the seventy-three-minute release follows the complete set of Chopin's Preludes, Op. 28 with the long-form Fantasie in F minor, Op. 49, Barcarolle in F-sharp minor, Op. 60, and the three songs with vocals: “Moja pieszczotka”; “In mir klingt ein Lied”; and Rossini's “Di piacer mi balza il cor” (while not obviously by Chopin, the latter aria exerted a strong influence). The instrument on which Guo performs is a Style 4 Steinway, which produces a ravishing sound throughout.

Though it would have made the recording significantly shorter, had the release presented the preludes alone it still would have satisfied given the degree to which the twenty-four pieces encompass such a vast array of emotional experience. Contrasts in style and character are accentuated even more when the pieces alternate between major and minor throughout. Said contrasts arrive rapidly too when all but three are under three minutes apiece, with the set's longest the five-minute fifteenth. Just as one is becoming acclimated to the spirited animation of the first, for example, it's replaced by the sombre second. Memorable moments are plentiful: the loveliness of Chopin's writing blossoms resplendently in the thirteenth; an emphasis on block chords lends the twentieth an air of majesty; and the tempestuous twenty-fourth brings the work to a dazzling finish.

Guo's pianistic prowess is evident in her execution of the torrential third, eighth, and sixteenth; as expertly as she navigates rapid passages, she deftly amplifies the poignancy of slower preludes such as the fourth and sixth. Her renderings charm and enchant, even when a prelude is little more than a half-minute long, and one of the many striking things about the enrapturing "Prelude No. 15 in D-flat Major” (aka the “Raindrop”), the longest of the set and one of the most-performed, is the subtle melodic echo of “Maria” (from West Side Story) that emerges during its delicate, at times funereal presentation (of course Bernstein is hardly the only composer whose music contains references, intentional or not, to works by his precursors). Affirmation, joy, longing, romance, nostalgia—an entire constellation of feeling is embodied within the explorative work.

In contrast to the concision of the preludes, the Fantasie stretches across thirteen minutes, progressing patiently as it does from a markedly funereal opening march through lyrical and declamatory sections. As different duration-wise as the Fantasie is from the preludes, it, like them, encompasses a panorama of moods. One of the release's most charming settings is the Barcarolle, whose form has its roots in folk songs sung by Venetian gondoliers and whose graceful, lilting rhythm evokes the gondolier's stroke.

Guo's performance of “Moja pieszczotka” (“My Sweetheart”), the twelfth of Chopin's Polish songs (collected after his death and posthumously published in 1859), shows she's more than a little capable of impressing for her singing ability, and her soprano proves as alluring in her tender reading of “In mir klingt ein Lied,” a vocal version of the "Étude in E major, No. 3" arranged by Alois Melichar and featuring words by Ernst Marischka. The album concludes with a captivating treatment of Rossini's “Di piacer mi balza il cor” from La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie), which one imagines would make a splendid choice of encore for a Guo live performance.

July 2021