Classical Music

Classical Music

In Chopin Late piano works, Edoardo Torbianelli matches once again the poetry of his pianism with the rigor of his scholarly investigations into the music he plays. Together with the booklet essay-writer, Jeanne Roudet, Torbianelli has considered afresh the music written by Frédéric Chopin in the last fifteen years of the Polish composer’s life. To follow on from his collection, Torbianelli has recorded at Fondation Royaumont in France – playing on an 1842 Ignace Pleyel grand piano – Chopin’s A flat Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op 61, the B minor Sonata Op. 58 and a selection of Mazurkas and Nocturnes for this new Schola Cantorum Basiliensis release presented by Glossa. With this programme Edoardo Torbianelli is situating the compositional approach more directly within Chopin’s Polish heritage; though he later went into exile the composer was present in Warsaw until just before the November Uprising in 1830. Unlike Berlioz and Liszt, it is argued, Chopin eschewed literature as direct inspiration and – again unlike Liszt – the Polish composer’s piano music shares similarities in technique and performative style with the bel canto school of singing, the descendant of the art of eighteenth-century castrati and perpetuated in the 1800s by Italian singers as heard by Chopin himself in Paris. The resulting “vocality” of Chopin’s piano music finds echo in Edoardo Torbianelli’s interpretations for a recording which can be considered both for its fresh approach but also as a masterly reflection of the composer’s genius.

CHOPIN Ballades: No. 1 in g; No. 2 in F; No. 3 in A?; No. 4 in f. Nocturnes: No. 1 in b?; No. 2 in E?; No. 3 in B; No. 20a in c?. Prelude No. 25 in c? • Arthur Schoonderwoerd (pn) (period instrument) • ALPHA 147 (61:49)


There are two factors that set Arthur Schoonderwoerd’s Chopin disc apart from most others, and their importance is likely to vary significantly depending on your point of view. First, the four ballades are separated by individual nocturnes and preceded by a single prelude, the idea suggested in the notes being that the temporary change to smaller forms helps to reset the ears in preparation for the more complex and formally idiosyncratic ballades. Second, the instrument on the disc is not a modern concert grand, but an instrument contemporaneous with the composer, fashioned by Ignace Pleyel in 1839.


Schoonderwoerd’s accounts of these classics are marked by slower tempos and less rhythmic flexibility than those of most other pianists. The dynamic range is also narrower than what we are accustomed to, although this trait could be the result of his choice of the Pleyel keyboard. The instrument might also be at least partly responsible for his relatively intimate readings, a characteristic that is often quite fetching in lower dynamic levels but is less convincing in grander moments.


This emphasis on metric clarity over excessive rubato is especially noteworthy in the Fourth Ballade, which begins with a waltz almost steady enough in pulse to serve as accompaniment to a dance. The G-Minor Ballade is the slowest I’ve heard, rivaled in length only by Krystian Zimerman among major pianists on disc. His patience can be frustrating at times, lending a certain cautious calculation to music that benefits from at least a measure of impetuosity and an illusion of risk. On the other hand, there is a clarity to textures and rhythms that can be quite illuminating, even if momentum tends to be in short supply.


The four nocturnes and the single prelude are treated with a shade more flexibility, but again somewhat less than is the current norm. Here the delicacy of the instrument pays dividends, although the reduction in sustaining sound gives these beauties a skeletal aura that may not be to everyone’s liking. Tempos are closer to standard, a wise strategy given the thinner sustainability.


My favorite recordings of the ballades (Ax, Rubenstein, and Kissin) and nocturnes (Moravec and Pollini) haven’t been supplanted by Schoonderwoerd, but his view is a legitimate one, and well worth a listen by Chopin devotees. If you have an interest in hearing this music on a keyboard from the composer’s era, all the more reason to give it a shot.


FANFARE: Michael Cameron

This is surely the greatest, certainly the richest, of all Murray Perahia's many and exemplary recordings.

This Chopin recital represents Murray Perahia's return to the Sony studios after a two-year absence due to serious injury. So may I start by saying that this is surely the greatest, certainly the richest, of all his many and exemplary recordings. Once again his performances are graced with rare and classic attributes and now, to supreme clarity, tonal elegance and musical perspective, he adds an even stronger poetic profile, a surer sense of the inflammatory rhetoric underpinning Chopin's surface equilibrium. In other words the vividness and immediacy are as remarkable as the finesse. And here, arguably, is the oblique but telling influence of Horowitz who Perahia befriended during the last months of the old wizard's life. Listen to the First Ballade's second subject and you will hear rubato like the most subtle pulsing or musical breathing. Try the opening of the Third and you will note an ideal poise and lucidity, something rarely achieved in these outwardly insouciant pages.

Then there is the glorious Fourth and final Ballade in a performance as subtly gauged as any on record. Here Perahia achieves a fluidity of line and impetus that never compromise or sacrifice his sense of superfine and exploratory detail; and what other pianist possesses such an acute aural and rhythmic sensitivity? From Perahia the waltzes are marvels of liquid brilliance and urbanity. You would have to return to 1950 and Lipatti (EMI, 7/89) for a comparable quality though, frankly, even he hardly achieved such an enchanting lilt or buoyancy, such a beguiling sense of light and shade. In the mazurkas, too, Perahia's tiptoe delicacy and tonal irridescence (particularly in Op. 7 No. 3 in F minor) make the music dance and spin as if caught in some magical hallucinatory haze.

Finally, two contrasting Etudes, and whether in ardent lyricism (Op. 10 No. 3) or shot-from-guns virtuosity (Op. 10 No. 4) Perahia's playing is sheer perfection. The recording beautifully captures his instantly recognizable, glistening sound world as well as the immense grandeur of his conceptions. Rarely in my experience has such a truly transcendental pianism (he has every tint and colour of the spectrum at his fingertips) and such innate poetry been so unforgettably combined. Welcome back Murray Perahia; you have been sorely missed.

-- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone [12/1994]

Tatiana Chernichka writes of her new release: “The 24 Etudes of Frederic Chopin have a special place in the literature for the piano. These concert etudes are among the most difficult and most original of all works for the piano, and no pianist can resist coming to terms with at least several of them. The foundation of my journey as a pianist, as well as to my connection to the 24 etudes, was laid already before my birth. Born into a family of musicians from Novosibirsk, I represent the fifth generation of pianists. My mother, Olga Volchkova, was an outstanding pianist who studied under Heinrich Neuhaus and Yakov Zak at the Moscow Conservatory. Upon graduation, she was appointed to the faculty of the Conservatory in Novosibirsk, where she taught, lived, and became a mother. My mother was the first person in Novosibirsk to perform all 24 etudes in concert. In November 2014, I repeated this with a performance in the same concert hall, thus becoming the second person in my home town to play the etudes in concert. The recording of my [album] coincided with the 70th anniversary of my mother’s birth, and I wish to dedicate this recording to her memory.”

Includes work(s) by Frédéric Chopin.

Chopin's piano sonatas span a wide creative period, from his time as a student to five years before his death, when he was still in good health and his relationship with George Sand had not yet begun to deteriorate. Two of the three Chopin piano sonatas are cornerstones of the romantic piano repertoire; the first sonata is heard far less frequently in performance or recording. Chopin has been most revered as a miniaturist; much has been written discussing Chopin's larger-scale works: some have criticized his seeming lack of formal skill, while others have come to praise his compositional anomalies as innovation and ingenuity. Regardless, Chopin's characteristically transcendent, fluid melodies, unique pianistic beauty and distinctive poetic voice permeate these three sonatas.

Chopin: Works for Piano

“One should sing with the fingers,” or “If you want to play piano, you need to learn to sing” —such statements and similar quotes by Frederic Chopin have been passed down by many of his students from their piano lessons with him. With a nearly Baroque-Classical aesthetic, he preached the idea of an analogy between music and language, and from this he paid meticulous attention to phrasing and articulation. It thus comes as no surprise that contemporaries and epigonic composers happily used the vocal habitus of many of his piano works to arrange them as actual art songs. Several particularly successful examples, written by Luigi Bordese, Pauline Viardot and anonymous composers were compiled for the present release by pianist Wolfgang Brunner, long-standing director of the Salzburg Hofmusik, with singers Lydia Teuscher, Olivia Vermeulen, Karol Kozlowski und Andreas Schmidt.

Recorded at Inkoo Church, 9/1997

Includes nocturne(s) for pno by Frédéric Chopin. Soloists: Thérèse Motard, Louise-Andrée Baril.

A graceful and charismatic performer, Fliter is known for her effortless technique and thoughtful, sensitive music-making; every performance is deeply personal and full of freshness and poetry, perfect for exploring Chopin’s masterful Nocturnes. Chopin composed his Nocturnes throughout his creative life and succeeded in both elevating and popularizing the form. His inspirational and original style, evident from even his early works, grew and matured to create an epic collection of gorgeously melodic piano music. Fliter included a tantalizing taster of this new album on her Preludes recording, adding Nocturnes Op. 9 No. 3 and Op. 27 No. 2 to round off the performance, which had several critics hungry for more. Her Preludes album was named ‘Recording of the Month’ by Gramophone, which also named it among the top 10 Chopin performances ever recorded. On this new recital Fliter delights us with characteristically insightful interpretations of which showcase both the sensitivity of her playing and the poetry of the composer’s music.

This is already our third encounter with the great Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin – an encounter, in fact, that is as unusual as his music, which has delighted people around the world for over one hundred and fifty years. In Fryderyk’s day, not everybody was able to listen to his works. To hear one of his concerts they would have had to travel to where he lived – in his early years that meant going to Warsaw, and later even further, i.e. to Paris. Today, all we have to do is listen to one of his albums and imagine that the genius composer is playing especially for us.

This disc is a treasure, a rarity to behold.

I have encountered relatively few instances in which an artist’s sensibilities have seemed perfectly attuned to the music presented. Here is one such case. Bernd Glemser grasps the full measure of the Chopin Scherzos and Ballades like no other pianist in memory. Lise de la Salle’s recent recording on Naïve was certainly compelling, even if the tempos were stretched a bit. Kissin (RCA), however, was my previous favorite in the Ballades, in a field that includes Ashkenazy (Decca), Zimerman (DG), Pollini (DG), Biret (Naxos), Gavrilov (EMI) and many others. But Glemser clearly trumps Kissin and probably all other individual performances of the Ballades and Scherzos that I can ever recall hearing.

Glemser, who has recorded all the Rachmaninov concertos and Prokofiev sonatas for Naxos—and much else, besides — is an extraordinary pianist, an artist I have found consistently excellent over the years. Here, in my first exposure to his Chopin, I can say this is astounding playing and not just from the technical point of view. Glemser’s dynamics are rich in graded nuance, his tempo choices centrist and always a natural fit, his phrasing sensitive to the minutest emotional tic and his overall interpretive grasp of the music incisive and fully convincing. If all his Chopin is this good, he can stand with or ahead of Rubinstein, Cliburn, Perahia and other icons in this repertory.

The disc’s layout is a bit unusual, but follows the chronological order given in the headnote: scherzos and ballades are presented in ascending order according to opus number, not in an alternating pattern, as it might first appear. But whatever order Glemser had chosen, his deft interpretations would have worked.

Notice the fleet but troubled agitation in his Scherzo No. 1, played as if to express a burst of negative energy that always slackens to recall painful memories. Glemser’s dynamics and phrasing here consistently capture the roller-coaster emotions and heartrending drama. His coda is utterly thrilling. The First Ballade is filled with equally troubled emotions, all expressed so deftly by Glemser: the main theme is lovely in its neurotic longing and poetry, and the big love theme brims with hope, but ultimately false hope, that is utterly disarming and beautifully sad.

Glemser’s Second Ballade opens with a lovely serenity that yields to angry agitation, the pianist once more capturing the mood swings with such a convincing grasp on Chopin’s expressive soul as to mesmerize the listener, as if no other way with this famous music is possible. The lovely Third Ballade, the only work here mostly free of troubles, gets a perfectly balanced mixture of serenity and vigor, the whole keeping the listener smiling and comforted. The other performances are similarly convincing and Oehms Classics’ sound is vivid and powerful. All in all, then, this disc is a treasure, a rarity to behold.

-- Robert Cummings, MusicWeb International