Frédéric Chopin
277 products
Chopin: Piano Concerto No 1 / Nebolsin, Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic [blu-ray Audio]
Nebolsin is the real thing, a genuine virtuoso who can interpret Chopin with imagination and style.
Most long-time admirers of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto are well aware of Artur Rubinstein’s classic 1961 recording, available now on an RCA CD. Other eminently worthy recordings include Argerich, on both DG (1968) and EMI (1999), Ax, on Sony (using a period-instrument piano), and Perahia, also Sony.
Young Uzbek-born, Spain-based pianist Eldar Nebolsin enters the ring. On no count is he ever less than thoroughly compelling in the concerto, from his dramatic and stormy entrance in the first movement to the brilliant but always tasteful virtuosity of his finale. His articulation is clear without sounding brittle, his phrasing elegant and warm, and his technique all-encompassing. Notice how deftly he captures Chopin’s lyrical side in the way he imparts delicate mystery to the first movement’s main theme or how he floats the main theme to the ensuing Romanza in lovely singing tones. In Nebolsin’s hands inner voices often emerge to impart greater impetus to the music: try the coda to his first movement where the left-hand figures - often buried in other performances - convey a sense of agitation and drive as the music hurtles nervously toward the ending. And if he doesn’t quite match the effervescence of Rubinstein’s finale coda, he comes very close.
In the end, Nebolsin makes the decision between him and the others a tough one. However, what tilts the scales in favor of Naxos is the clear and powerful sound and the incisive conducting of Antoni Wit, a conductor who, in an oxymoronic irony, is famous for being unknown. His extraordinary talents were overlooked for years, as critic after critic lobbied in the wilderness on his behalf. Now, owing to their persistence and Wit’s numerous acclaimed recordings on Naxos, he has earned much justly deserved recognition. Wit makes the most of Chopin’s generally bland scoring, often giving it weight and muscle, or pointing up inner detail, or simply letting the music sing where appropriate.
In the accompanying works, Nebolsin is just as compelling: the Fantasia on Polish Airs sounds fresh and vital despite its somewhat less inspired music. Krakowiak comes across with brilliant colors and chipper moods, Nebolsin’s fingers seeming to negotiate the thorniest passages with utter ease. Again, the sound is vivid. The Warsaw Philharmonic play with spirit and accuracy in all works. Notes by Keith Anderson are informative, as usual.
I must point out, as is noted in the heading, that this Blu-ray disc is an audio-only, high-definition production. Also, there is a blurb on the album cover stating that this is the, “First recording to use the new Polish National Chopin Edition.” However, I noticed nothing different in the scores from other performances, and whatever differences there might be are probably negligible. On the whole, this is a splendid release and augurs well for a second DVD from these same forces shortly, presenting the Second Concerto and other Chopin works. In sum, Nebolsin is the real thing, a genuine virtuoso who can interpret Chopin with imagination and style.
-- Robert Cummings, MusicWeb International
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Chopin: Great Composers in Words & Music
Polish by birth, Fryderyk Chopin made his name in post-Revolutionary Paris and is often depicted as the archetypal Romantic artist – blessed with extraordinary talent but consumed by the flame of genius, tormented by intense and tempestuous relationships and doomed to an early death. But how much of this story is based on fact? This account of Chopin’s life and times separates myth and reality. Illustrated with numerous musical examples, the narrative, written by music historian Dr. Davinia Caddy and narrated by actor Lucy Scott, takes us from his youthful beginnings as ‘a second Mozart’ to the darkness and light of his life and the brilliance of his work.
MAZURKA REMAKING CHOPIN
Chopin: Complete Works For Piano & Orchestra / Marshev, Porcelijn
Aside from his tone turning slightly metallic and strident in loudest passages, Marshev’s vibrant, fluent, and tastefully inflected pianism fuses power and poetry at every juncture. Listen, for example, to the First Concerto Rondo’s elegantly racing octave runs, to the sustained drama in the central minor episode of the Second Concerto’s Larghetto, or to the perky runs and roulades throughout the Grande Polonaise and you’ll hear what I mean.
Neither Krakowiak’s knotty passagework nor the glittery bravura of the Là ci darem la mano variations pose problems for Marshev’s fingers. What is more, the South Denmark Philharmonic under David Porcelijn offers alert and vividly detailed support that belies any received notions that Chopin’s orchestrations are humdrum. Both soloist and orchestra unify the potentially piecemeal Fantasy on Polish Airs with sharp accents, darkly shaded modal twists, and a real chamber-like repartée. Notice also the gorgeous textural interplay in the Krakowiak’s introduction, with sustained strings, solo horn and clarinet, and the piano’s haunting unison lines. Marshev won’t cause collectors to jettison favorite individual performances, yet his high standards add up to an easy recommendation for those who want all of Chopin’s concerted works together, not to mention Danacord’s superb engineering and Jeremy Nicholas’ succinct, information-packed booklet notes.
-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
Chopin: Piano Works
Chopin: Nocturnes
Classical Violin Pearls
V 3: BRANA RECORDS COLLECTION
Chopin: Famous Piano Works
Chopin: Piano Concerto No 1 / Sokolov, Rowicki, Munich Philharmonic
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REVIEW:
An extraordinary document, with Sokolov’s integrity and humanity illuminating every bar.
– Gramophone
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21
Chopin’s melodic inventiveness emerges in the piano, as the soloist repeats the main themes before introducing virtuoso figurations and ornaments. - Interlude (Profil)
Louis Lortie Plays Chopin Vol 3
The first prerequisite of great Chopin playing is arguably beauty of tone, as well as refinement and variety… Lortie is a model Chopinist: eloquent but never sentimental, elegant without ever sounding effete, dramatic but never exaggerated, harmonically luminous, structurally immaculate – and surprising.
– BBC Music Magazine
"Lortie's Chopin playing has a wonderful, penetrating directness about it; there's not a trace of dreamy indulgence in any of the nocturnes, though all their decorative tracery shines out with a sharp-cut brilliance, and the impromptus dance and divert without a trace of self-consciousness” – The Guardian
In Love with Chopin / Halina Czerny-Stefanska
Chopin: Piano Works, Vol. 2 / Lortie
Volume 1 of his current Chopin series also has received excellent reviews: the magazine Pianist wrote, “He is a pianist of our time when it comes to speed, energy and an unfussy approach to Chopin. His way of playing is like a sharply cut steel sculpture, super elegant and with not one single smudge.” And in the words of International Piano: “These are full-blooded and eloquent performances, an auspicious start to what looks likely to become one of the finest of Chopin surveys.”
Alexander Brailowsky plays Chopin
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)
Chopin: Scherzo & Other Piano Works / Ohlsson
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.
Imogen Cooper's Chopin
British pianist Imogen Cooper has studied with some of the finest in the piano world, including with Kathleen Long in London, with Jacques Fevrier and Yvonne Lefebure in Paris, and with Alfred Brendel, Jorg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna. She is widely recognized for her interpretations of Schubert and Schumann. This release follows her three very successful recordings of Schumann. For this album, Cooper has chosen some of the greatest works of Chopin. The album programme makes up an outstanding recital. Coopers virtuosity and emotional wisdom creates a new lense through which to view this frequently performed repertoire. Following this release, Imogen Cooper will embark on a world tour, performing recitals that will include the repertoire included here, and visiting several of Europe’s most prestigious venues before venturing to other continents.
Chopin: Sonate No. 3 - Polonaise-Fantaisie - Nocturnes
Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (Arr. B. Kominek)
Alexander Brailowsky plays Chopin: Complete RCA Recordings
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.”
Chopin: Ballades, Scherzos, Études
The Koroliov Series, Vol. 22
Chopin: Piano Works
Chopin: Polonaises
