Homage to Chopin, a collaboration between cellist
Antony Cooke and pianist Armon Watkins, is, quite simply, a mess. From the beginning of the first track, listeners will immediately notice the album's pervasively poor sound quality; both cello and piano are extremely flat, dull, and indistinct. As the complexity of the music increases, a listener's ability to distinguish individual notes all but vanishes. If this unacceptably poor recording quality were not enough, the notes and passages that are audible are anything but exceptional.
Cooke's tone is unbearably nasal, unvaried, and weak. His highly over-Romanticized interpretation of
Chopin is saturated with aggressive vibrato, endless glissandos, and constant, unnecessary liberties with tempo and rubato. Watkins, following
Cooke's lead, has plenty of transgressions of his own, the biggest of which is his sloppy, over-pedaled, muddy passagework. The two performers do not always agree on tempo or the pace of the many ritardandos, nor on articulation. Put all of these things together and this particular "homage" is one that
Chopin, were he alive to hear it, may wish to decline.