The soprano in the APO’s Beethoven 9 shares the music that shaped her.
Chopin’s Nocturnes
My mother was a talented pianist, although life led her down other paths (I gather practise also became increasingly difficult with a small person around who always wanted to join in…). Some of my earliest memories are of waking up late in the evening to hear the piano playing down the hall. Schubert, Beethoven, Elgar all featured, but the pieces that were most reassuring and somehow fit the night-time were Chopin’s Nocturnes, especially No.1 in B-flat minor and No.5 in F-sharp minor. I’ve listened to many recordings of the Nocturnes, but Leonskaja’s evoke the feeling closest to those early memories and have become a fixture in my playlist.