Chopin

[Late]

Hi All,

Asking for some recommendations again. At this point, I'm most interested in hearing what you might consider excellent recordings of the waltzes, impromptus, and nocturnes.

Performer and label recs most appreciated. Thanks!

[brownie]

When I was listening to classic music a lot (long time ago), thought there was no match for Dinu Lipatti on Chopin interpretations.

His records should still be pretty easy to find.

[J.A.W.]

When I was listening to classic music a lot (long time ago), thought there was no match for Dinu Lipatti on Chopin interpretations.

His records should still be pretty easy to find.

Ah yes, Lipatti... Great pianist, died way too young. His recordings can be found on EMI and (I think) Testament.

I don't have many Chopin interpretations, just Dinu Lipatti, Artur Rubinstein (RCA), Vladimir Ashkenazy (Decca), Yuri Egorov (EMI; another pianist who died too young) and Maria João Pires (DG). They're good enough for me.

Edited May 23, 2007 by J.A.W.

[gslade]

I think all the greats performers have been mentioned

I can only add some older obscure

Gieseking on EMI 36'

or going way back

Ignace Paderewski on Victrola 1917 (but a great performance of the Waltz in C-sharp minor, op.64 No.2)

[BruceH]

I kind of like Philippe Entremont.

[jazzbo]

I've not heard much to compare to, but I sure like this:

[mikeweil]

Mike Weil (E. Coyote) gave the heads up to Janus Something-Polish on Alpha Recordings-- I trust Mike.

My all-time favourite Chopin disc is by Arthur Schoonderwoerd on alpha:

This recording leaves absolutely nothing left to be desired! Got rave reviews in Germany everywhere, no matter the preference for historical pianos. If there's a good introduction to the beauty of a Pleyel Grand Piano in excellent condition, it's here.

The Polish guy is Janusz Olejniczak, his discs are on Opus 111, which now belongs to the Naive label group (CD Universe CD list). He also played the composer in an excellent film on Chopin, La note bleue - go see it if you can - hearing the piano concerto in that movie moved me to tears!

Thanks for trusting me - although I am a big fan of period inmstruments, I only recommend absolutely top recordings to others.

Edited May 23, 2007 by mikeweil

[Guy Berger]

Only Chopin I own, but it's good:

[michel devos]

For the Nocturnes, my first choice goes without a doubt to the Czeck pianist Ivan Moravec.

Originally produced for the label Connoisseur in the late sixties, these performances marry an extremely sensitive playing with a super sound quality.

Ivan Moravec, which I met and recorded many times is a perfectionist, be it for the interpretation side (very subjective, this...) and the quality of the sounds he produces : I don't know anybody giving so much attention to the slightest details of the piano tuning, the setting up of the keyboard mechanics and many other things.

All this is very well reflected in these Connoisseur recordings which are available on CD under another label :these performances sound like they've been recorded...yesterday!

Edited May 23, 2007 by michel devos

[Larry Kart]

At times he's underpowered or whatever, due mostly to age, but Vlado Perlemuter understands how Chopin should go IMO, and usually he brings it all home.

Rubinstein is a pianist I've come to admire greatly just recently but not in Chopin -- in fact, it was my lukewarm response to his Chopin on repeated exposure over the years that led me to go to sleep on his marvelous way with Brahms, Mozart, et al.

[Chuck Nessa]

If you are willing to have "intelligent fun" please find the Scherzo recordings made by Shura Cherkassky for Tudor. These are "crazy" my favorite Chopin recordings of all time. Music "interpretation" of the highest order in my book.

Otherwise, I suggest the RCA Rubinstein stuff as some sort of benchmark.

Concerning "original instrument" recordings, these guys have had only a few years with this repertoire but the "inauthentic" folks had decades to digest. You take your choice.

[Kalo]

Just curious (I don't own them) but what do folks think of Garrick Ohlsson's traversal of the Chopin Ouvre on the "audiophile" label Arabesque Recordings?

[Larry Kart]

As a partial answer to Kalo's question about Ohlsson's Chopin, here's a post (mine) from Mar. 8 comparing his version, Perlemuter's, and Pollini's of the Polonaise in F Sharp Minor, Op. 44:

Chopin's Polonaise in F Sharp Minor, Op. 44. What an incredible piece of music! I'm listening to three versions over and over -- Pollini's, Perlemuter's, and Garrick Ohlsson's. Pollini's is startlingly intense and, for want of a better term, gaunt -- almost skeletal. There's lots of power here from Pollini, and it's a piece that calls for that a good deal of power much of the time, but it's quite dry tonally -- deliberately, I think, in the name of a modernism that looks askance at most Romantic era gestures. And yet Chopin at his most intense and startlingly innovative -- and this piece would be one of those places -- was a Romantic era figure. Nonetheless, the Pollini is a keeper. He's especially good with the transition to section three of the piece (the bizarre mazurka interlude) from section two (the stamping "military" section, where repeated "A"s ring out against fierce, insistent, also repeated march-like figures; this section being one of the craziest and most powerful things I've ever heard -- see Charles Rosen's "The Romantic Era" for a great discussion of it). Ohlsson is powerful almost beyond belief in sections one, two, and four (the coda). He must have gigantic hands, the bronze sonority he gets, while a tad unvaried, is thrilling, and he brings out those repeated "A"s like gangbusters. (In Rubinstein's energetic, spontaneous 1932 recording of the piece, the repeated "A"s are inaudible -- no doubt the fault of the recording, not the pianist -- which makes that whole section virtually meaningless.) Also a tad unvaried, though, and a bit of a problem, is Ohlsson's rhythmic sense; there's nothing terribly wrong there, to my mind, but I'd like a bit more "bend" or "give" at times. Ohlsson almost sounds like he's trying to prove how tough and "masculine" Chopin really is, which in a piece of such power is like spraying sweat on a Olympic weightlifter. Where Ohlsson does lets me down though is in the mazurka section, where he gets soft and tinkly/moon-y salonish for a time. This is not how this music should go, I'm sure, and Perlemuter makes that clear. His mazurka magically flows right out of the "military" brutalities of section two and is, in some impossible to describe (at least by me) manner, contiguous with them -- all this thanks in large part to Perlemuter's wonderful rhythmic and tonal "rightness"; he gives me the feeling that this is Chopin playing Chopin. On the other hand, though Perlemutter throws himself at the piece's technical barriers without flinching, he doesn't have the chops one wished he did; while the power is there in terms of scale (which probably is crucial), and the superb rhythmic grasp is undeniable, there is a fair bit of smudging at times -- in part because it's a Nimbus "tiled-bath" recording, in part because Perlemuter's fingers at his advanced age wouldn't quite do his bidding. And yet he's great in section two; those repeated "A"s aren't quite as hammered out and hallucinatory as Ohlsson's, but Perlemuter seems to have a better (or perhaps just a different) sense of way they're there and therefore how to play them. Again, as with the mazurka section versus section two, Perlemuter's more or less "integrates" what is in fact meant to be quite odd and disturbing and thus makes it odd and disturbing in a more intimate manner. In effect, the weirdness feels as though it were as much in you as it is out there. I love Perlemuter. And, again, what an incredible piece!

[mandrill]

I second Michel Devos's choice of Moravec (check his Debussy & Schumann too).

Wonder if anyone here has heard these performances, which are also among my favorites:

Edited May 24, 2007 by Mandrill

[Kalo]

As a partial answer to Kalo's question about Ohlsson's Chopin, here's a post (mine) from Mar. 8 comparing his version, Perlemuter's, and Pollini's of the Polonaise in F Sharp Minor, Op. 44:

Chopin's Polonaise in F Sharp Minor, Op. 44. What an incredible piece of music! I'm listening to three versions over and over -- Pollini's, Perlemuter's, and Garrick Ohlsson's. Pollini's is startlingly intense and, for want of a better term, gaunt -- almost skeletal. There's lots of power here from Pollini, and it's a piece that calls for that a good deal of power much of the time, but it's quite dry tonally -- deliberately, I think, in the name of a modernism that looks askance at most Romantic era gestures. And yet Chopin at his most intense and startlingly innovative -- and this piece would be one of those places -- was a Romantic era figure. Nonetheless, the Pollini is a keeper. He's especially good with the transition to section three of the piece (the bizarre mazurka interlude) from section two (the stamping "military" section, where repeated "A"s ring out against fierce, insistent, also repeated march-like figures; this section being one of the craziest and most powerful things I've ever heard -- see Charles Rosen's "The Romantic Era" for a great discussion of it). Ohlsson is powerful almost beyond belief in sections one, two, and four (the coda). He must have gigantic hands, the bronze sonority he gets, while a tad unvaried, is thrilling, and he brings out those repeated "A"s like gangbusters. (In Rubinstein's energetic, spontaneous 1932 recording of the piece, the repeated "A"s are inaudible -- no doubt the fault of the recording, not the pianist -- which makes that whole section virtually meaningless.) Also a tad unvaried, though, and a bit of a problem, is Ohlsson's rhythmic sense; there's nothing terribly wrong there, to my mind, but I'd like a bit more "bend" or "give" at times. Ohlsson almost sounds like he's trying to prove how tough and "masculine" Chopin really is, which in a piece of such power is like spraying sweat on a Olympic weightlifter. Where Ohlsson does lets me down though is in the mazurka section, where he gets soft and tinkly/moon-y salonish for a time. This is not how this music should go, I'm sure, and Perlemuter makes that clear. His mazurka magically flows right out of the "military" brutalities of section two and is, in some impossible to describe (at least by me) manner, contiguous with them -- all this thanks in large part to Perlemuter's wonderful rhythmic and tonal "rightness"; he gives me the feeling that this is Chopin playing Chopin. On the other hand, though Perlemutter throws himself at the piece's technical barriers without flinching, he doesn't have the chops one wished he did; while the power is there in terms of scale (which probably is crucial), and the superb rhythmic grasp is undeniable, there is a fair bit of smudging at times -- in part because it's a Nimbus "tiled-bath" recording, in part because Perlemuter's fingers at his advanced age wouldn't quite do his bidding. And yet he's great in section two; those repeated "A"s aren't quite as hammered out and hallucinatory as Ohlsson's, but Perlemuter seems to have a better (or perhaps just a different) sense of way they're there and therefore how to play them. Again, as with the mazurka section versus section two, Perlemuter's more or less "integrates" what is in fact meant to be quite odd and disturbing and thus makes it odd and disturbing in a more intimate manner. In effect, the weirdness feels as though it were as much in you as it is out there. I love Perlemuter. And, again, what an incredible piece!

Thanks for that, Larry.

I was curious about the Ohlsson interpretstions not only because they were released on the audiophile Arabesque label, but also because he made an appearance -- very much appreciated -- at my high school in the late 1970's, which I have nostalgic memories of. He is, indeed, a big man with big hands, as you surmised.

So whose version do you recommend?

[Epithet]

Why fuck Pollini's nocturnes, exactly?

[Larry Kart]

I was curious about the Ohlsson interpretstions not only because they were released on the audiophile Arabesque label, but also because he made an appearance -- very much appreciated -- at my high school in the late 1970's, which I have nostalgic memories of. He is, indeed, a big man with big hands, as you surmised.

So whose version do you recommend?

Of this piece, if I had to choose, Perlemutter. Likewise with much of Chopin, but I'm certainly not up on everything that's available -- don't know Engerer and Feltsman for example, though I do know and like some of Feltsman's Bach. I have tried much of Rubinstein's RCA Chopin, mono and stereo; it always seems bland to me, despite AR's reputation in this music. Again, I think other composers, esp. Brahms, were his real forte. On the other hand, I haven't heard AR's EMI Chopin (from the 1930s), which is said to be much more urgent. His EMI version of Op. 44 certainly is, but, as mentioned above, it is sabotaged by the inability of the recording to capture a key sotto voce passage.

[Teasing the Korean]

Any thoughts on Krystian Zimerman? I love his recording of Barcarolle...

[Late]

I found the Lupatti for a decent price and ordered ...

[brownie]

I found the Lupatti for a decent price and ordered ...

You shouldn't be disappointed with that Lipatti!

Hope it will be to your taste!

[mikeweil]

Concerning "original instrument" recordings, these guys have had only a few years with this repertoire but the "inauthentic" folks had decades to digest. You take your choice.

Considering the age at which Chopin died, he didn't have so much time either ...

[mandrill]

Anyone else here who spares some love for this recording of Nocturnes?

As for polonaises- I recently stumble upon LP by Lazar Berman (it's on DG)- the guy who swore never to play Chopin after he didn't qualify for Chopin competition in Warsaw in his youth, yet apparently got coaxed into it by DG honchos. Haven't tried it yet though. I doubt it will be as good as his Liszt, but one never knows.

But I sure like this reading of Polonaises:

[Late]

Has anyone here heard Rubinstein's EMI (not RCA) recordings of Chopin? There's a 1991 five-disc box set (of primarily 30's recordings) that I think is "complete." A number of online vendors have dramatically reduced its price recently, leading me to believe that it's going out-of-print.

If anyone here has it and would like to give a mini-review, that would be great.

[Bright Moments]

Only Chopin I own, but it's good:

[alppila]

If you are willing to have "intelligent fun" please find the Scherzo recordings made by Shura Cherkassky for Tudor. These are "crazy" my favorite Chopin recordings of all time. Music "interpretation" of the highest order in my book.

Sorry to dredge this up but can anyone tell me if these are available on CD?