Award-winning pianist Ingrid Fliter makes her Linn debut with a distinctive performance of Chopin's notoriously difficult piano concertos, featuring the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jun Märkl.

The Van Cliburn Collection: Chopin Concerto No. 1- Rachmanin

COMPLETE SOLO PIANO WORKS

Born in 1999 in the Chinese province of Gansu, Chen Xue-Hong was quickly selected as part of the training program for the most talented students at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Zhang Xinning, Wei Danwen, and Du Taihang. He has won several national and international competitions as a young pianist, including the Chopin Competition in Beijing, the Astana Competition, the Horowitz Competition, and the St. Petersburg Competition. He has also already given numerous concerts in China as well as at prestigious venues in Europe and the United States. As a pianist of rare musical integrity and concentration, with a unique blend of depth and exceptional technical facilities, Chen Xue-Hong is currently studying in Beijing while pursuing his promising career as a concert soloist. Frédéric Chopin is one of Chen Xue-Hong’s favorite composers. He loves both the brilliant musician and the personality of his compositions. This recording was realized by Accentus Music in partnership with the Académie France-Chine. The academy was launched in 2018 by the outstanding pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei with the support of Cartier. The purpose of the academy is to promote music education and training, to encourage the emergence of highly talented young artists and to foster cultural exchange between Europe and China.

BRAILOWSKY PLAYS CHOPIN

Sony Classical is pleased to announce the first release of Alexander Brailowsky’s complete RCA Victor recordings, many of them never before available in the digital medium.

Born in 1896 in Kiev, Brailowsky studied at the conservatory in his native city, then part of the Russian empire. In 1911, he went to Vienna to become a pupil of the legendary Theodor Leschetizky, who taught many of the 20th century’s outstanding pianists. During World War I Brailowsky also studied with Busoni in Switzerland, and in 1919 made his debut in Paris. Five years later came his first appearance in New York where he settled, then making regular coast-to-coast tours of North America while continuing to visit Europe.

There was one composer with whom Alexander Brailowsky was associated throughout his career – and has remained associated through recordings since his death in 1976: Frederic Chopin. Brailowsky was the first pianist to present Chopin’s entire 169 solo works as a cycle, performing this feat before capacity audiences in New York, Brussels, Zurich, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Paris. At the end of his 1938 Chopin series in New York, one reviewer noted that “there are few enough pianists who have the prodigious memory, the physical strength, the comprehensive technique required for such an undertaking; there are far fewer who have – plus all these – the requisite musicianship. Mr. Brailowsky is one of these latter few.”

Not surprisingly, Sony Classical’s new comprehensive reissue of Brailowsky’s RCA albums largely comprises music by Chopin. Both piano concertos are included – No. 1 with William Steinberg conducting the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra in 1949 and No. 2 with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1954. High Fidelity later wrote of these two performances: “Brailowsky’s energetically contoured, sharply etched clarity represents an emerging modernity of outlook that points to present-day Chopin players.” The set also features Brailowsky’s two traversals of the Waltzes, as well as his complete recordings of the Etudes, Preludes, and Nocturnes, plus Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, the Ecossaises, and Berceuse. Of Brailowsky’s Nocturnes recording, Gramophone’s reviewer wrote: “He could sing beautifully at the keyboard. His nocturnes as a whole have a touching humanity and simplicity … The mono RCA sound is quite velvety.”

Following up its recent box of his 78 and early LP recordings for RCA, Sony Classical is now issuing a 5-album set of Chopin recordings made by the Ukrainian-American pianist Alexander Brailowsky in stereo for American Columbia in the early 1960s. The new reissue contains the complete Preludes, Waltzes, Mazurkas, Polonaises, Andante spianato, B minor Sonata, Fantaisie-Impromptu, Berceuse as well as numerous other works.

REVIEW:

If Brailowsky's Polonaises don’t match Arthur Rubinstein’s finesse and red-blooded ardor, they’re at least idiomatic and shapely, as are the sensitively turned-out Chopin/Liszt song transcriptions and the Berceuse.

– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Claire Huangci proves herself to be a vividly expressive interpreter of Chopin, the first since Artur Rubinstein to offer a complete cycle of the Nocturnes by Frédéric Chopin. During her background research work into Chopin’s oeuvre she repeatedly came across poems by French authors such as Charles Baudelaire, Victor Hugo and Tristan Corbière. She began to form associations and found a poem contemporary to each of Chopin’s nocturnes. You will find the links between poetry and music in the booklet. Claire Huangci herself explains: “They may add a further dimension to your listening pleasure, so that everyone can conjure up an image of what I see as I play. I do hope that these lovely verses will act as an impetus to allow listeners’ fantasy to take flight and to create their very own Chopin diary.” This approach is proof of Claire Huangci’s artistic maturity – an approach that will open up new avenues in our appreciation of Chopin. Frédéric Chopin was a special pioneer in Claire Huangci’s eyes. The child prodigy became acquainted with his works at a very young age and grew up with them. They were decisive to her personal development and artistic career, which took off at an early stage on an international level thanks to concert performances, arts grants and a host of awards. This resulted in a virtuoso life of short-distance and long-haul flights, juggling appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Osaka’s Symphony Hall or the Gewandhaus in Leipzig with life at home in Philadelphia. She has played with a host of orchestras including the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Stuttgart, the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony and the Moscow Radio Symphony. Accompanying her on her journey, so to speak, were not just her teachers, such as Eleanur Sokoloff, Gary Graffman and Arie Vardi, but the composer Frédéric Chopin: she owes her artistic breakthrough to his music. Time and again she has analysed, documented and profiled Chopin. Claire Huangci has brought together all of this experience and these insights on her new album, forming them into a “Chopin Diary”. The Nocturnes are the epitome of Chopin’s artistic work. They attest to the composer’s emotions on the cusp of the Romantic era and are simultaneously evidence of a restless life that hung between his artistic popularity, his dire state of health and an uncertain future. Composed in an atmosphere of domestic security, as night fell, they reflect his stimulating artistic day-to-day life. They are deemed to be perfect in form, combining all stylistically defining moods in a virtuosic form that to this day is unsurpassed. Some of the total of 21 Nocturnes form part of the standard repertoire for young pianists, yet Claire Huangci’s approach to them is a highly personal, unique one: “With her differentiated agogic approach and superior technique, Claire Huangci proved that she is now the most expressive Chopin performer of her generation", according to Gerd Kurat of the Südkurier newspaper. She rounds off the program with the Nocturne Oubliée and the Etude in C sharp minor, recorded together with cellist Tristan Cornut.

This recording should be seen in that manner: as a beginning, a solo recording debut by Alejandro Algarra in which he confronts two colossi of the instrument. It is quite a recording milestone to tackle these two essentials. A real challenge both for him as a performer and for IBS Classical as a record label. So please do not be deceived by the apparent simplicity and unpretentiousness of the term prelude. Quite the opposite, in fact. Nor should a prelude be understood in this case as a prolegomenon to a major piece (“Preludes to what?”, as André Gide wondered in his famous Notes sur Chopin), but as individual works which, taken as a whole, represent a major technical and interpretative challenge; undoubtedly one of the all-time highs of piano literature.

"Almost everything that Chopin ever wrote is still played. Chopin influenced the entire last half of the nineteenth century and continues to influence composers even today. From Liszt to Wagner, from Moszkowski to the young Scriabin, or from Ernesto Nazareth to Tom Jobim, Chopin is still alive as a composer without borders in time and space who never left us and will never do so." -Marcelo Bratke

Marcelo Bratke, one of Brazil’s finest pianists, has performed in some of the world’s most renowned venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Salzburg Festival, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Konzerthaus in Berlin and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He started his piano studies at the age of fourteen and due to a severe visual impairment he was unable to read scores properly, developing his own method of learning music based on his auditive memory capacity. Ten months after his first piano lesson, he made his debut with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eleazar de Carvalho and was awarded the ‘Revelation Prize’ by the São Paulo Critics’ Association.

Bratke believes music is an important contribution to society and in 2008 he founded Camerata Brasil, an orchestra formed of young musicians from impoverished areas of Brazilian society, performing with them more than 300 concerts in Brazil, Argentina, Japan, United Kingdom, Serbia, South Korea, Netherlands and in the US where their concert at Carnegie Hall was highly acclaimed by both the public and the critics of The New York Times, New York Post and Concert Net USA.

Other than the piano, there were few instruments on which Chopin focused his attention, which makes this album featuring cellist Anne Gastinel something of a rarity – all the more so in the hands of this iconic French cellist and her partner Claire Désert, veterans of countless concerts and recordings over several decades. Their united voice – as always, remote from the chorus of the mundane and the media-fixated – is a subtle, inspired cantilena. For here it is all about the singing voice that Chopin declared to be his model, overtly influenced as he was by Italian bel canto opera. Gastinel savors every moment, not only with the sense of refinement she shares with the greatest singers, but with a palpable musical breathing, sensitively illuminated at the piano by Désert, an accompanist in the noblest sense.

The composers Frédéric Chopin and Alexander Scriabin sought other worlds – to float, to ascend to heaven. Pianist Catalin Serban juxtaposes their piano works on his new GENUIN album, made possible by Konzertleben e.V. and C. Bechstein grand piano. A multiple first prize winner at piano competitions in Germany, Italy, and Romania, Catalin Serban has established himself as a soloist and chamber musician. His work has focused intensively on the Romantic and early modern piano repertoire and chamber music literature. In this production, Catalin Serban presents sonatas, nocturnes, and fantasias by the two composers, who are vastly different and yet, in some respects, bear similarities. Serban's highly virtuosic and sensitive piano playing shows the paths of the two, away from compartmentalization and narrowness, towards new spaces and the greatest possible freedom of movement.

Pauline Buet and David Violi are fascinated by the poetic universe that emanates from the color blue: the blue note, the blues of the soul . . . The color evokes yearning, spleen, but also gentle melancholy and happy nostalgia. When the Yves Saint Laurent Museum asked them to make this recording at the Villa Majorelle in Marrakesh, the wonderful resonance with the special shade of Majorelle blue made this program a natural choice: Chopin, the Romantic lover, and Poulenc, the tormented eccentric. In conclusion, the piano mingles with Pauline’s voice, as it often does at the end of their concerts, and the touchingly nostalgic words of Barbara's song Septembre – ‘Quel joli temps pour se dire au revoir’ (What lovely weather to say goodbye) – are yet another illustration of the spirit of the program, like some delicious Proustian madeleine.

A meaningful and brilliant tribute to a great artist from one who has the making of one. A joy from start to finish.

On his PENTATONE debut album Hommage à Horowitz, pianist Maxim Bernard revives Vladimir Horowitz’s legendary 1986 Moscow concert with a programme containing gems by Scarlatti, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Moszkowski, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff. While Horowitz’s wife Wanda Toscanini called the Moscow concert the summit of her husband’s career, Maxim Bernard sees it as “a defining moment of his existence, in which charm, elegance, poetry and bravura are marvelously brought together.” Bernard compares Horowitz’ carefully curated musical program to the way one prepares a gourmet meal, and aims to give it a second wind, presenting it from a new angle, in light of his own personality. Maxim Bernard is a versatile musician who adores challenges, and is praised for his original ideas and innovative thematic concert programs.

REVIEW:

This well-presented tribute to Horowitz concentrates on pieces favored by the master. There are several photographs of the pianist, and notes are supplied for each of the works. There is no real background on the pianist. I’d prefer to think of that as humility. Also missing is any mention of the piano. I suspect it is a Steinway since Horowitz usually performed on one. 

The recital begins with three Scarlatti Sonatas in gentle, predominantly lyrical performances. This is followed by Mozart’s Sonata, K330, played with admirable expression and control. A sequence of Etudes by Rachmaninoff and Scriabin show tonal quality of considerable beauty, as does Schubert’s Impromptu D 945:3. At this point I released my critical faculties to luxuriate in the sheer beauty and comfort emanating from my speakers. Bernard makes little attempt to imitate Horowitz’s playing. He is his own man, and the sheer listening satisfaction elicits a smile from my sometimes stoic expression. Two Liszt pieces including the Petrarch Sonata 104 are followed by two Chopin Mazurkas and the ever popular Polonaise in Aflat. All are stylistically correct, and fully met my expectations with a natural use of rubato and brilliantly executed embellishments. Three of Horowitz’s favorite encores complete the program with style: Schumann’s `Traumerai’, Moszkowski’s `Etincelles’ and Rachmaninoff’s Polka de W. R. Nothing is pushed beyond virtuosic limits, but all comes together in a meaningful and brilliant tribute to a great artist from one who (on the basis of what is heard here) has the making of one. A joy from start to finish.

-- American Record Guide

Ivo Pogorelich has a special relationship with the piano music of the Polish Romantic composer Frédéric Chopin. It is Chopin, after all, whom he has to thank for his international breakthrough. When, at the age of 22, Pogorelich took part in the 1980 Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, his exceptional playing caused an immediate sensation. Martha Argerich, who was on the jury, described him as a “genius”.  Since that time, Pogorelich has been increasingly committed, on recording and in concert, to an image of Chopin that is far from the commonplace cliché of the brilliant and pleasing composer of salon music. Now Pogorelich once again offers completely new insights into Chopin’s world and the soul within the sound in what is in fact his fifth Chopin album, but the first for more than twenty years. He has selected works from the 1840s, the last decade of the Polish master’s life. These include the Nocturnes op. 48 no. 1 and op. 62 no. 2, the Fantasy op. 49 and Chopin’s third and last Piano Sonata, op. 58.

What Pogorelich admires in these works is Chopin’s ability to make the piano a gateway to the soul: “Chopin delivers an open invitation to penetrate human psychology. It’s a specific invitation to continually seek out and explore every possibility that the piano has to offer. That’s a never-ending process, and it will continue to challenge new generations of artists in the future too.”

The Croatian-born pianist traces a path in this recital that starts with the small form, continues by way of the brilliant Fantasy and finally reaches the large-scale, four-movement sonata form. In Pogorelich’s hands, despite their magical lyricism, the two Nocturnes have a  gripping sense of tension and drama. The Fantasy in F minor, op. 49 is marked by a sombre mood of conflict, yet at the same time it reflects the improvisational skill for which Chopin was celebrated. With the Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, op. 58, the composer not merely bids farewell to this genre, with all its rich tradition. The work also demonstrates his efforts to create a new kind of sonata. And with Ivo Pogorelich this much-performed and popular piano work is transformed into an exciting new encounter with Frédéric Chopin.

REVIEW:

After a 20-year hiatus from the recording studio as regards Chopin, Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich (b. 1958) returns with an hour of deeply-thought, if eternally controversial, interpretations of some standard, late-Chopin repertory.

Pogorelich claims that “art is cruel,” that it often violently confronts our conventions and our complacency. Even if one does not subscribe to Antonin Artaud’s credo of art’s “theater of cruelty,” we must acknowledge that Pogorelich softens the blows with a wonderfully warm sonority and clarity of line.

If one is willing to concede that “depth of expression” compensates for or justifies hyperbolic slowness, then Pogorelich’s Fantasy in F Minor (1841) will appear a miracle of sustained intimacy, given its full three-minutes’ length beyond that of Claudio Arrau. The grim, martial opening will soon cede to national, Polish impulses in aristocratic contours, in mazurka and polonaise rhythms. Pogorelich becomes mesmerized by his own poetic filigree, so the musical thread loses a sense of dramatic continuity. Again, the luxury of the arpeggios and runs, high and low, mixed together with declamatory bass chords, proves haunting. In the middle section, Lento sostenuto, Pogorelich finds a drawn-out, poetic balance of improvisatory and ballade-like narrative. The last pages become a postlude or epilogue, very slow and deliberate, strumming their way into a vaporous coda.

Pogorelich’s way with Chopin last, published Nocturne in E (1846) feels better suited to his grand leisure: marked Lento, dolce sostenuto, the melodic line can bear the stretched, serpentine extension it receives, more like Berlioz than Chopin. The secondary theme in ascending, bass runs achieves C-sharp Minor and a series of syncopations that articulate Chopin’s advanced sense of polyphony. Pogorelich makes these rhythmic impulses more lyrical than their accustomed wont. We feel significantly alerted to Chopin’s trills and moving bass line, as the piece eventually assumes a modified rondo format. The music ends, or rather collapses, into the tonic and evaporates.

The last of Chopin’s three piano sonatas, this in B Minor (1844), receives the most improvisatory treatment in the program. The opening, Allegro maestoso, acquires a searching gravitas, alternately martial and nostalgic. Pogorelich milks the secondary theme in D, breaking its dreamy phrases to contrast with the quicksilver runs that provide a coda to the disparate fragments. That the movement ends in the tonic major seems artificial here, another spliced-on, poetic shard.

So far as improvisation occurs, the Scherzo: Molto vivace in E-flat Major from Pogorelich really proves the berries. He invests a liquid urgency into its eighth-note runs, while the chordal, B Major section projects reflective poise. Doubtless, all of Pogorelich’s slow tempos have been awaiting the B Major Largo movement, which now drags out a long, chain-link series of nocturnal thoughts in E Major. If the playing were not so intrinsically lyric, the progress would resemble a sweet dirge with tolling bells. The last movement, Finale: Presto non tanto, assuming the listener’s patience has endured, moves with a hard-won (after a lingering, high dominant 7th chord) gallop, a bit marcato for my taste, but at least moving with decisiveness, especially in the brilliant runs. The secondary theme in the relative B Major, hurls a sense of national pride at us, its left hand’s singing in the manner of a liberated etude. Pogorelich’s sonority gains the heroic high ground at last, thundering to a firm, B Major coda.

-- Audaud.com (Gary Lemco)