Jan Lisiecki – Preludes

An album of preludes performed by the excellent compatriot Jan Lisiecki is bound to delight. So, you may ask, whose preludes? That’s where it gets really interesting: Chopin, yes, of course (the 24 from op. 28), a few Rachmaninovs, of course (including the famous op.3 no.2), but also Gorecki, Messiaen and Bach. A broadly woven album, then, but with a great deal of stylistic coherence. 

Messiaen’s highly Debussian preludes are little known. Eight in all (only three are played here), they are the second composition published by the composer and thus considered ‘valid’ by him. With titles like La colombe (the dove) and Chant d’extase dans un paysage triste (Song of ecstasy in front of a melancholy landscape) we are plunged into impressionist atmospheres, but with harmonic inflections that we can already guess are surprising and will grow more adventurous in years to come. To our ears in 2025, we can immediately and effectively recognise some premonitory accents of Messiaen’s maturity. Lisiecki plays them with great delicacy, even tenderness. 

His very detached Bachs, almost mechanical, come as a surprise at first, especially No. 1 in C major BWV 846 from the First Book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the ‘famous’ one. But in the end, we come back to it and find it refreshingly airy. The same clarity, the same removal of stereotypical heaviness in Rachmaninov (the limpid, almost classical Prelude No. 3 in D minor from the 10 preludes of Op. 23) leads logically to the surgical machine-stomp of the two preludes of Gorecki’s Op. 1 (one thinks of Mosolov’s industrial style). 

The 24 preludes by Chopin, soaked in spring water with fluid movements that accommodate a reasonable dose of emotional investment without effusion, are a beneficial contrast. Lisiecki makes them flow and envelop the listener without stifling the potential spirituality of these delicate jewels. 

Excellent piano playing from an exceptional Canadian performer.