Chopin Genius Loci

The life and career of Frederic Chopin, whom Claude Debussy described as a “man of generous ideas,” have elicited many writings, and have been the source of many legends, excessive tales, and caricatures. Chopin’s genius, expressed in many different manners, reveals the complex personality of a secretive musician who kept to himself but was also driven by an all-encompassing passion. “Externally I am joyful,” Chopin would confide, “but internally I am consumed. (…) The pleasure of living, and immediately thereafter a desire for death”.In articles dedicated to Chopin in La France Musicale starting in February 1851, less than two years after the composer’s death, Liszt would speak to that effect: “Even tempered and jovial, he seldom let on to the secret convulsions that racked him”. Aside from exceptional virtuosity, Chopin’s music – which does not stem from any literary source – evokes in turn feelings of passion or enthusiasm, emotion or melancholy, perhaps owing to his estrangement from his native Poland, which he left in 1830 never to return. In the words of his friend Henri Heine, “his real homeland was the enchanted kingdom of fantasy”.

Vladimir Horowitzs admissions about the twelve Études, Op. 10 and the twelve of Op. 25 by Frédéric Chopin, all of which he found dreadful, or to be precise, dreadfully difficult, are both revealing and disarmingly frank: 'For me, the most difficult is the one in C major, Op. 10/1. I cannot play it, and the other one in C, Op. 10/7, is no better. And I cant really play the one in A minor. Op. 10/2 properly'.

The Eloquence label has restored to modern circulation many recordings of the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet, but few of them have been as overlooked as this pair of concertos, which are now released internationally for the first time on CD, in new digital remasterings. French music found Ansermet in his element, and he was a concerto accompanist of renowned sensitivity: ‘the slow movement is particularly sweetly felt,’ as Gramophone remarked in its March 1951 review of the Chopin F minor concerto. In his booklet note, François Hundry (author of the authoritative biography of Ansermet) remarks on the frisson and Romantic sensibility which pianist and conductor create together in this, their only partnership on record.

On December 15, 1842, Frederic Chopin wrote to Breitkopf and Haertel, his publishers in Leipzig, offering them a newly composed Ballade and a Scherzo, and mentioning a new Impromptu. The pieces involved were the 4th Scherzo, the 4th Ballade, and the 3rd Impromptu, without a doubt three of the composer’s greatest works.

For the fourth instalment of his Schubert+ series, Can cakmur focuses on the genre of the impromptu, aiming to identify historical predecessors for Schubert's piano writing as well as gain an insight into the evolution of free-standing poetic keyboard compositions.

The art of the 20th century legendary pianists lives on in this century in the creative work of Grigory Sokolov, “the greatest pianist of modern times,” “the world's pianist No. 1,” “a genius” as the contemporaries name him. Sokolov's name ranks with the names of the great musicians of the past – Vladimir Horowitz, Sviatoslav Richter and Glenn Gould. The pianist gives quite a number of concerts annually in different cities of Europe, including a traditional klavierabend in his native St. Petersburg. Grigory Sokolov finished the special music school of the Leningrad Conservatory under Liya Zelikhman, and in 1973 he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory under Moisey Khalfin. Later on, Sokolov became a professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he taught for a long time. As early as at the age of twelve, Sokolov gave his first solo concert, and at 16 he received the first prize of the 3rd International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1966. That victory signified the beginning of Sokolov's career.

EMI's Best Chopin 100 is a six-disc anthology that covers the essential keyboard works of Frédéric Chopin with considerable depth and coherence, making it one of the best imaginable introductions for the budget-conscious beginner.