Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin - Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin plays Chopin and Liszt (2021)

Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt are the pillars of our art; through them the grand piano became the recognized "king of musical instruments". In the 19th century, the piano played a key role in musical culture due to its wealth of timbres, its unique sound properties and its gigantic size. After virginals, spinets, clavichords and harpsichords, the grand piano became the pinnacle of the development of keyboard stringed instruments. It became an imperative for every great composer to create works for piano. You can hardly imagine anyone who would have dedicated themselves to this instrument more than F. Chopin and F. Liszt. These two epoch:making personalities became the spiritual fathers of piano music and piano technique. By continuing the best baroque and classicist traditions, F. Chopin and F. Liszt helped the idea of ​​romanticism, emotional elevation and the idea of ​​a musical program to break through.
F. Chopin's ballads show unknown realms of human consciousness and emotions; they overwhelm us with their epochal scales, they show inner struggles and personal development with the help of the great language of music : the composer as a psychologist who united the human soul with the essence of the piano and produced a new art. Waltzes, preludes and nocturnes are the pearls of the piano repertoire that show the genius of F. Chopin in all its diversity.
The compositions from F. Liszt cycle "Années de pèlerinage" are the signs of the new times and new music. For example, the tonality in “Le mal du pays” was enriched with amazing harmonies and unheard transitions. The dramatic twists push the boundaries of form formation in music. In “Les cloches de Genève : Nocturne” the piano reaches new dimensions; it symbolizes mysterious, majestic bells, murmuring water, the movement of the wind and other concrete sounds. The piano becomes the instrument of tone poetry.
Music is a time:bound phenomenon. Music does not exist outside of a time coordinate. When a new performance is born, the music itself is reborn. When I perform the works of F. Chopin and F. Liszt, my main goal is to show their concepts and ideas : as I understand them : as they would have done themselves.