Chopin Orbit

“Chopin’s music is perfectly composed,” Hayato Sumino tells Apple Music Classical. “But somehow it always has an improvisational fire.” The Japanese pianist’s passion for Chopin, ignited during childhood, runs through Chopin Orbit, his deeply personal homage to the Polish composer. The album pairs eight essential works by Chopin with a blend of Sumino’s improvisatory reflections on them together with pieces by Thomas Adès, Leoš Janáček and Leopold Godowsky, diverse keyboard miniatures that come with their own Chopinesque qualities. “There’s such elegance in Chopin’s music and its aesthetics,” says Sumino. “I really love it, because I improvise and compose music in this way. I was inspired so much by his music. His compositions mostly started from his improvisations on the piano. Those must have been very beautiful!” Hayato Sumino first listened to Chopin’s music when he was five years old, two years after he started playing piano. “At that time, I didn’t even know who the composer was,” he recalls. “I just liked the piece.” And what piece was that? “It was the Polonaise No. 13 in A-flat major—easy, no difficulties,” he replies. Most five-year-old pianists would struggle to play the work’s fluid right-hand part, never mind putting it together with the left hand’s metronomic accompaniment. Yet young Hayato soon added the more demanding Waltz No. 14 in E minor to his repertoire. “It was so much fun playing these pieces. And later I wanted to play bigger works by Chopin. So I started learning his Scherzo No. 1 when I was nine. Chopin has been with me since then.” Chopin Orbit offers the chance for those familiar with the composer’s music to hear favourite pieces from fresh perspectives, as well as a welcoming entry point for new listeners. Sumino chose to play two of the best known of his album’s tracks, the “Raindrop” Prelude in D-flat major, Op. 28 No. 15 and the Berceuse in D-flat Major, Op. 57, on an upright piano, the instrument on which countless millions have learned to play Chopin. Even incendiary passages performed on a concert grand piano, such as those that erupt towards the end of the Polonaise-Fantaisie Op. 61, or the quicksilver right-hand runs in the “Black Keys” Étude Op. 10 No. 5, sit comfortably within the album’s prevailing mood of reflective gentleness. “It’s like an intimate dialogue between Chopin and the piano happening in a tiny room,” says Sumino. “I was not even thinking about an audience.” His choice of repertoire for the album, he adds, evolved gradually. “At first, I tried to include as many styles of Chopin’s music as possible. But the vibe arrived when I had the idea of changing the mode of the scale of his ‘Aeolian Harp’ Etude to the Lydian mode in my Lydian Harp, and the colour of his ‘Raindrop’ Prelude in my Raindrop Postlude.” The latter, which quotes a theme from a Keith Jarrett jazz session with bassist Charlie Haden, marries music played on grand piano with lines delivered on an upright piano specially prepared by Sumino to emulate the sound of a plucked double bass. “My re-compositions are not in the style of Chopin,” he explains. “I just took a motif from him for each improvisation. But the inspiration comes from many different authors. My arrangement of the ‘Larghetto’ from Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, for example, is a homage to [jazz pianist] Bill Evans’ Peace Piece, where I wanted it to have the same atmosphere. And I feel Chopin’s Berceuse has a similar vibe to Bill Evans’ piece in its structure and aesthetic, the right hand quite flowing and improvisational, the left hand always playing the same pattern.” Sumino’s improvisations are like satellites held in the orbit of Chopin’s pieces, remaining independent while drawing fundamental elements from them. “There are so many practical techniques and musically beautiful things in Chopin—in his Etudes, for example. So I borrowed some of them in my improvisations. I also wanted to feature music by composers who did kind of the same thing as me. Janáček is not related to Chopin musically, of course, but Godowsky made so many great arrangements of Chopin. Adès’ ‘Second Mazurka’ [from his Mazurkas, Op. 27] is not a typical mazurka at all. But he picked a fragment of mazurka and scattered it around in his piece. Janáček’s composition is called ‘Good Night!’ so my idea was to place it after Chopin’s Berceuse. It’s like listeners are still hearing the Berceuse melody, which I play on a celesta, but from far away in their dreams. And I played Janáček’s original music on grand piano. It’s to make the audience feel like they’re in between reality and a dream. That’s the point.” Imaginary Polonaise builds a bridge between Chopin’s world and Hayato Sumino’s homeland, connecting both through common bonds of nostalgia and romanticism. “It’s a very interesting thing that Polish and Japanese music are so different, but somehow Japanese people really love Chopin’s music,” he notes. “I think we have some similarity in terms of aesthetics and personality, but I cannot explain it. Of course, it takes courage to use Chopin’s music as a reference to make my own creative things. Chopin’s music is like the Bible for every pianist. But that’s why I wanted to put his original music together with my own re-compositions and compositions. I have been doing this since I was very young: improvising, composing, arranging.”