Classical Music

Classical Music

The Etudes of Frederic Chopin certainly need no introduction. Italian pianist Sebastian Di Bin plays these magnificent works with wonderful elan. Sebastian Di Bin was born in Udine. He is considered internationally one of the greatest pianists of his generation. He formally debuted at 11 years old with Ljubic’s Slovenicum Orchestra at a concert in Udine’s Parliament Hall. He has won numerous awards including the Golden Price First Prize at the San Jose International Piano Competition in California and the Fourth Prize at the prestigious Twelfth UNISA International Piano Competition in Pretoria in South Africa. His previous album for Centaur, released in 2015, received worldwide critical acclaim.

Classical Music

Diana Jaworska brings us Frederic Chopin's 24 Preludes on this new release. Now living in France, Jaworska was born in Poland in 1968 and has worked her way into the Classical music world with her eloquent musicality.

The �tudes by Fr�d�ric Chopin are three sets of �tudes (solo studies) for the piano published during the 1830s. There are twenty-seven compositions overall, comprising two separate collections of twelve, numbered Op. 10 and Op. 25, and a set of three without opus number. They are some of the most performed works in the piano repertory, and hardly need any introduction. These sublime works are beautifully performed by Polish pianist Diana Jaworska. Born in Poland in 1968, Diana Jaworska now lives in lives in Southern France, where she teaches the piano, performs concerts, makes recordings, and composes her own works.

Chopin looked back and evoked for us the story of his life in 24 Preludes. Through the medium of these works he revealed his deepest fears and sorrows, but also the beauty and integrity of his heart. The story of these ghosts culminates in tolling bells which are, in Cortot's words, "of blood, of earthly pleasure, of death..." But what follows? A pause: silence, timeless solitude, in the Etude Op. 10, No. 6. Then, suddenly, the soul wakes up and waltzes into space. The album ends with the Scherzo No. 2 "like a charnel house," or the house of the dead, as Chopin apparently described the opening- yet the finale sounds like a celebration of life. And so our ghostly journey ends with fireworks, with smiling and shining, looking far into the future..."

This new release from Angela Brownridge continues her survey of Romantic composers’ major masterpieces. Today it is difficult to appreciate the impact Chopin’s music had on his first listeners. His mix of Slavonic passion and Gallic precision created a world of such imaginative daring that it left his audiences bewitched, bothered and bewildered. Enigmatic to the last Chopin held aloof from such comments and left the more fancifully inclined to draw their own subjective conclusions. Like Faure after him, Chopin disdained his published tempting tell-tale additions. More pragmatically, Piano sonata No. 2 is Chopin’s darkest, large-scale masterpiece, ranking among the composer’s supreme creations. Remarkably you are left with a work of an astonishing, if wholly novel coherence. The shock of the new continues with the Four Ballades. Finally, the F minor Fantasie.

Recorded in: Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk 9,10 April 1986 & 13 July 1986 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Philip Couzens [Assistant]

DIE BREMER STADTMUSIKANTEN

V1: ELFRUN GABRIEL SPIELT CHOP

Chopin: 24 Préludes, Op. 28 (arr. for organ)

The current recording is a double portrait: the portrait of pianist Ralf Taal portraying Fryderyk Chopin - trying to display the model from as many angles as possible. The first touches to the portrait-CD are given by a colorful Prelude bouquet followed by the narrative, elegiac fourth Ballade and three etudes, op 10 - where Chopin unites brilliant technique with poetic-romantic figures. The splendid Polonaise, op 53 offers homage to Poland, the composer's homeland. And finally, one final brush stroke on the canvas, the restless, sarcastic and lyrically speckled second Scherzo.

Chopin threw down the gauntlet for all who would come after him. These 24 studies, and the three works published as 'Nouvelles Etudes' within the M�thode des M�thodes de Moscheles et F�tis - a publication including studies by Henselt, Liszt, Mendelssohn and Thalberg - probe and refine every aspect of a pianist's technique, as one might expect from the technical and didactic implications of their title. What distinguishes them, however, from the hundreds of other similar volumes published throughout the 19th century and beyond, is the melodic genius, harmonic novelty and long-range structure that is peculiar to Chopin. Alessandro Deljavan is a young Italian pianist whose previous recordings for Brilliant Classics include the violin sonatas of Anton Rubinstein (BC94605), played with his regular duet partner Daniela Cammarano. Perhaps more pertinently, Brilliant has also just released his new recording of Chopin's Waltzes (BC95208). According to Fou T'Song - no mean Chopin pianist himself - Alessandro Deljavan is 'one of the most interesting pianists I have heard in my life'. Excerpts on YouTube from his success at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth confirm the truth and promise of Fou T'Song's acclamation. Deljavan's approach to the Etudes is not as monuments of pianism but with a charming and sometimes surprising sense of relaxation which takes for granted the kind of formidable technique that they were designed to test. Deljavan is free with the rubato that makes this music breathe: there are many other recordings of the Etudes that set the pages on fire: this one riffles them in the breeze, tapping into the vein of aching nostalgia from which all of Chopin's music draws. It was first made available as part of the most recent Chopin Edition from Brilliant Classics (BC94660).

CHOPIN Preludes: op. 28/4, 6, 7, 15, 20. Souvenir de Paganini ( Carnival of Venice ). Polonaise, op. 26/1. Fantasy-Impromptu. Wiosna, op. 74/2. Contredanse. Mazurkas: op. 7/1; op. 67. Waltz, op. 74/2. 3 Ecossaises. Cello Sonata: Largo. Études: op. 10/3, 12. Nocturnes: op. 9/2, 20; op. 15/3. Piano Concerto No. 2: Larghetto • Cyprien Katsaris (pn) • PIANO 21 43 (78:48)


This is exactly the kind of recording that should be listened to—by force, if necessary—by all those publicity folks at labels big and small, from Decca and DG on down, who have somehow formed the opinion that Hot Young Pianist X is the next great genius of the keyboard. As fine as some of these players are, very few have the kind of seasoned authority one hears in this recital from Cyprien Katsaris. This is not merely good playing, not even great playing. It is playing so wholly wrapped up in the spirit of the composer that the performer disappears, and you find yourself listening to Chopin and not to “Katsaris,” superb though he is.


Not a single note or phrase of this recital passes through the mind without making an impression of some sort. Moreover, despite having a big technique—especially obvious in such items as the Fantasy-Impromptu and the Carnival of Venice —Katsaris never, ever makes it sound as if he’s showing it off. He’s not trying to dazzle you with B.S. He’s playing music, and he happens to have the right technique and style for it. That Carnival of Venice is a perfect example. Probably listed in the program under its Souvenir de Paganini title, as soon as he begins playing the audience recognizes the melody—and laughs. Katsaris keeps on playing it, but teases the melody a little with little flourishes and touches of rubato, knowing that he has his audience in the palm of his hand. It’s playing that makes you smile, and how often have you had that experience when listening to classical music?


These 26 selections were recorded in both studio and live settings over a 32-year period, the Fantasy-Impromptu coming from a 1978 studio recording and the etudes, mazurka, nocturnes, and Chopin’s own piano-only transcription of the Larghetto from the Second Piano Concerto coming from both concerts and studio sessions from 2010. There is remarkable continuity of style and vision in all of them, even though—to my ears—the early Fantasy-Impromptu lacks just a bit of personal identification with the material compared to the later performances.


But really, folks, this is what great playing is all about. These are Chopin recordings to stand the test of time, along with those of Cortot, Rubinstein, Cherkassky, Hobson, Lipatti, and Barbosa. The young lions today—a few names, like Alice Sara Ott and Daria Gloukhova excepted—have technique to burn but no real personal stamp on their material. The highest compliment I can pay to this disc is that all the selections, even the studio recordings, have the feel of a live concert about them. You feel as if you’re in the hall, listening to Katsaris and being enraptured by the music, not sitting at home listening to a dead piece of plastic on your CD player.


Cyprien, if you see this review, know that you have issued a masterpiece. Words fail me in trying to describe just how great this disc is.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley