Garrick Ohlsson- winner of the 1970 Chopin Competition, one of the greatest Chopin specialists of our time, honored during the 2018 August Chopin and His Europe festival with the Gloria Arts Gold Medal- has recorded two Chopin recitals for The Fryderyk Chopin Institute: one on modern piano, the other on period piano. The same program in two different sound versions. This is now The Fryderyk Chopin Institute’s fourth such double album; these albums are of extraordinary knowledge-building value, permitting sensitive listeners to acquaint themselves with the particular beauty of early instruments in confrontation with their modern version. Garrick Ohlsson’s newest recordings acquaint us more closely with Chopin in two different ways, in both cases with the greatest of expertise in his music. For this recording, Garrick Ohlsson selected genres characteristic of Chopin: a ballade, nocturnes, a scherzo, mazurkas. The artist played this recital on a Steinway piano.

CHOPIN: NOCTURNES - SONY CLASS

Fou Ts'ong's excellently recorded Chopin series continues with four late works, and with some of the best playing that I have heard from him. Outstanding pianistic craft is displayed almost everywhere, as in the double trills of the Barcarolle and treble trills of the Polonaise-Fantaisie... In some quiet passages of the Barcarolle, as in the Berceuse's exquisite traceries, Fou Ts'ong approaches Debussy's ideal of a piano without hammers, his tone suggesting the utmost sensitivity. And in the Barcarolle, though every detail is exactly shaped, it is the grand sweep of the music as a whole that dominates.

Without underestimating the problems of the other pieces, it can safely be said that the Polonaise-Fantaisie is the most difficult work here to interpret. Fou Ts'ong does many excellent things, especially in the poco pià lento section; and note the dream-like reverie in which the music restarts after the return of the introductory gestures. But he does not achieve quite the flow, the sense of conviction, that mark his other...performances. Just the same, this issue still should have the attention of all Chopin collectors.

-- Gramophone [7/1979, reviewing the Berceuse, Barcarolle, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie]

In a sense, this new recording from Evgeni Koroliov of pieces by Frédéric Chopin that he played in his youth, continues on from his last one (Intermezzi by Johannes Brahms TACET 256). Contemplative, intimate music that reaches out calmly and fondly to the listener, allowing him/her to breathe deeply, forgetting the concerns and worries of the world outside. Evgeni Alexandrovich Koroliov is a Russian classical pianist. Koroliov studied at the Moscow Conservatory. Since 1978 he has been a teacher at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. He lives in Hamburg with his wife Ljupka Hadzigeorgieva. Together they also form a musical duo (“Duo Koroliov“). He is mainly associated with the keyboard repertoire of J.S. Bach, but he is also known for his performances of Haydn, Chopin, Debussy, some Mozart and Schumann, and contemporary works like those of Shostakovich.

Includes work(s) by Frédéric Chopin.

“The March King” John Philip Sousa compositions are known worldwide having been incorporated into the larger zeitgeist of sporting events, special occasions and military ceremonies. The Marine Band of the Royal Netherlands Navy contribute to the vast Sousa discography with this collection of familiar marches, tangos, operetta excerpts and arrangements that will have high appeal to the Sousa completist and marching band fans.

The repertoire of this album, consisting of selected works by Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849), poses a considerable pianistic challenge. Each of the genres recorded on the album requires the artist to adopt a slightly different perspective about a number of both formal and harmonic and melodic aspects, which are part of the idiomatic and unique specificity of the Chopinesque matter. The repertoire of Magdalena Prejsnar’s album, despite the fact that it features works of one composer, should be considered diverse, which perfectly reflects the richness of the artist’s piano skills.

"• Exclusive to Naxos! • All titles never before available in the U.S.! • Incredible value; budget prices! • German pressings of the immense Sony Classical Masters Catalog in smart, desirable and collectible multi-disc editions • The Sony catalog is replete with legendary artists and many of the greatest recordings of the classical repertoire • Box fronts feature large, prominently displayed photo of the featured artist • Slender, shelf-friendly boxes; CD's housed in space-saving slipsleeves"

Artur Rubinstein. RCA RCD1-7156 [Ballades, with Scherzos]; 5613-2-RC [19 Nocturnes; 2 CDs]; 5614-2-RC [51 Mazurkas; 2CDs]; 5615-2 [7 Polonaises]; RCD1-5492 [14 Waltzes]

If there is one sure bet in the music of Chopin, it is Artur Rubinstein. His recordings of the composer’s music can be recommended without hesitation for their warmth, lyricism, and expressive point. Never over-interpreted, the music emerges with spontaneity and freshness in his accounts, always alive, always delightful and surprising. His fiery renditions of the Ballades and Polonaises combine drama and poetry in brilliant fashion, while his readings of the Nocturnes, Mazurkas, and Waltzes are notable for their Mediterranean color and unerring sense of mood. The sound of the 1960s stereo recordings for RCA may occasionally lack depth and seem slightly veiled, but it holds up well enough to convey unmistakably the tone and the touch that made Rubinstein one of the greatest pianists of all time. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

For the sixth volume of his Chopin project, the Canadian pianist and exclusive Chandos Artist Louis Lortie has built a programme that includes works from the earliest to the latest periods in the composer’s life, all of which have connection with or focus on Chopin’s Polish identity. The Hommage à Mozart, Op. 2 is a brilliant set of variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’ from Don Giovanni. Chopin composed it originally for piano and orchestra, in 1827, when he was just seventeen, and later made this arrangement for solo piano (a common practice at the time). The two Polonaises, Op. 40 date from the late 1830s, and contain some of his most openly nationalistic writing. The first – nicknamed ‘Military’ – evokes sentiments of national identity and pride, whilst the second, more melancholy work portrays feelings evoked by Poland’s vanished statehood. Lortie concludes the album with Chopin’s Fantaisie, Op. 49, from 1841. This work exemplifies the brilliant improvisatory style of Chopin’s writing for piano. These works are interspersed with four sets of Mazurkas, Opp. 6, 24, 41, and 67. Chopin almost single-handedly introduced the Mazurka to Paris when he arrived there in the late 1820s, and continued to compose them throughout his life, transforming the Polish dance form into some of his most dazzling and memorable compositions.

REVIEW:

At moments on this disc, a seasoned sort of beauty takes hold of our ears, wherein a keyboard’s conjuring casts an airy, aural spell. In the battle of dark and light, Lortie’s own brand of luminescence wins out every time.

– The Whole Note (Canada)

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

This double-CD set from RCA Japan (courtesy of Arkivmusic.com's on-demand reprint program) preserves what presumably is the best of Mieczyslaw Horszowski's December 9 and 11, 1987 Casals Hall Tokyo recitals, along with the encores from each date. Listen blindly and you'd guess that an older yet quite well preserved and highly experienced pianist was at work, someone between 60 or 75. Try the 95-years-young Horszowski, who's on top form.

True, he doesn't exactly sprint through the Chopin B minor Scherzo's outer sections as he did back in 1940, but he makes a virtue out of necessity by leisurely unfolding and consistently sustaining the music's polyphonic interest. This also holds true for the C-sharp minor Polonaise. The A-flat Impromptu amounts to a bel canto masterclass, while Horszowski requires only dabs of pedal to project the Mozart K. 332 sonata's first movement to such texturally differentiated effect.

The Bach Fifth English Suite is full-bodied and virile yet sensitively delineated (the Prélude's effortlessly conversational flow between hands, each of the Passepied's bouncy, delightfully ambidextrous qualities). Perhaps the fountain of youth kicks in strongest with the two Villa-Lobos miniatures, served up with red-blooded élan. The encores abound with memorable moments. Horszowski plays the Op. 25 No. 2 Etude's opening statement as if he were kneading the triplet passagework into a seamless legato line, yet upon its reiteration he lightens the tone and mostly eschews the pedal.

Force and finesse are the yin and yang elements that anchor the three Nocturnes. The elusive yet palpable give and take of Horszowski's rubato in the B minor Op. 33 No. 4 Mazurka is easier for to you hear than for me to describe. Horszowski played Mendelssohn's Spinning Song on both concerts; the second version is more fluent and relaxed. He also repeated the Mozart sonata's Adagio, or, more accurately, sang it out in full operatic splendor. The slightly distant microphone placement accurately depicts Horszowski's tone from the perspective of an audience member sitting in the best seat of the house. Notes in Japanese only.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

The fourth volume of what promises to be a complete Chopin piano music survey from Louis Lortie contains five nocturnes and the 19 waltzes. Lortie devises a running order that mixes and matches the works to achieve variety and contrast. For example, the youthful E-flat waltz (the one that Michelangeli often played as an encore) emerges like a ray of sunshine following the wistfully lyrical B minor Op. 69 No. 2, while the short, lightheartedly flashy posthumous A-flat waltz serves as a cameo-like bridge between the grand, multithematic E-flat Op. 18 and A-flat Op. 34 No. 1 waltzes.

In general, Lortie is at his elegant best. He lovingly lingers over phrases in the posthumous A minor waltz as if he’s reluctant to let the bittersweet phrases go. As with the B-flat minor Op. 9 No. 1 nocturne, Lortie’s E minor waltz is supple and small of scale, in contrast to more dynamic, surging interpretations. Lortie’s brisk, liberally-pedaled F minor waltz imparts a floating, almost weightless character to the work. Similarly, the flexible, well-proportioned A minor Op. 34 No. 2 waltz never drags, and the F major Op. 34 No. 3’s “dog chasing its tail” right-hand runs are doled out with remarkable evenness and control.

The A-flat Op. 42 goes swimmingly by any standard, although a wider dynamic scope and bigger climaxes would have elevated the performance from memorable to irresistible. However, Lortie illuminates the B major Op. 32 No. 1 nocturne’s dark undercurrents by way of pronounced yet logical modifications of the basic pulse. His uptempo way with the A-flat Op. 64 No. 3 waltz reminds me a little of Rachmaninov’s similarly paced, poker-faced interpretation.

Of the two Op. 37 nocturnes, I prefer Lortie’s G minor for its introspective simplicity. The G major is quite pretty on the surface (the beautifully pointed chromatically descending notes in the left hand, for example), but Ashkenazy’s greater breadth and more incisive right-hand double notes get more out of the music. One also could imagine additional rhythmic kick to the central mazurka section in Lortie’s sensitively shaded posthumous C-sharp minor nocturne. The smooth and discreetly resonant engineering complements Lortie’s artistry. All told, this release is an enticing, albeit lower-voltage, alternative to recent Chopin waltz cycles from Stephen Hough and Alexandre Tharaud, with a generous 83-minute total playing time.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Polish by birth and a victor of the Chopin Competition, Emanuel Ax was bound to have a close relationship with Chopin. But it is the sheer quality of his playing that makes him so renowned as a Chopin performer. Six CDs present Ax’s interpretations of a stimulating range of concertante, solo and chamber works by his compatriot. The two concertos are played with Sir Charles Mackerras conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment across two discs from 1998–1999.

In his debut recordings on a historical instrument, Ax conjured “period performances unlikely to be outshone for their imagination and poetry” (Gramophone). Reviewing some of the solo performances collected here, Gramophone wrote that Ax’s recordings “are of a superlative distinction and show all the relaxed fluency and tonal elegance of a master pianist”. “No doubt Chopin would have approved” of his handling of the Mazurkas, said ClassicsToday.com, presented alongside the complete Scherzos and Ballades, as well as the Second and Third Sonatas. Ax’s famed partnership with Yo-Yo Ma, represented on the final disc, produces a “tactfully balanced, persuasively fluid performance” (Gramophone) of the Cello Sonata.

REVIEW:

Ax’s recordings are of a superlative distinction and show all the relaxed fluency and tonal elegance of a master pianist. Ax and Yo-Yo Ma produce a tactfully balanced, persuasively fluid performance of the Cello Sonata.

-- Gramophone (paraphrased from note above)

CHOPIN, RACHMANINOV: SONATAS F

Thomas Prat started playing the piano at the age of six but it was his discovery of Chopin’s works a few years later that revealed his passion for music. He studied with Jean Marie Cottet at the Conservatoire National de Région de Paris, and has studied with Eric Vidonne pupil of Alicia de Larrocha at École Normale de Musique de Paris. He also benefited from precious advice during his pianistic journey with Anne Quéffelec and Eugen Indjic. Moreover, his appetite for science led him to become an engineer and specialize in applied mathematics at École Centrale Paris.He has performed in France at Salle Cortot, at Reid Hall, at Radio France studio 104, at the Festival de Louviers, at the Festival “Les Amateurs Virtuoses!”, at the “Flâneries Musicales de Reims” as well as at the “Nohant Festival Cho-pin”. He has also performed abroad, at Gasteig in Munich, at Łazienki Park in Warsaw, at the church in Brochów (where Chopin was baptized), in Shanghai and Milan. In 2018 he won First Prize at the Fourth International Fryderyk Chopin Competition for Amateur Pianists in Warsaw organized by the Fryderyk Chopin Society. Amateur competition participants do not work as concert pianists or piano teachers to earn money. They play the piano for the sheer love of music, independently of their professional careers. Present-day amateurs take us back to the time of Chopin (1810–1849), his pupils and his art.