Evgeny Kissin Kissin Plays Chopin Piano Sonata No.3, Mazurkas Etc.

Maria João Pires, widely recognized as one of the most brilliant pianists of the last forty years, celebrates her 20th anniversary as a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive recording artist with this 2-CD release devoted entirely to the works of Chopin, the artist's first new recording in over four years. Pires's affinity for Chopin has always been well-known to both critics and audiences; in fact, her interpretations are so beloved that her 1996 recording of Chopin's Nocturnes remains the best-selling solo piano recording of the past 20 years by a living Deutsche Grammophon artist.

Maria João Pires, widely recognized as one of the most brilliant pianists of the last forty years, celebrates her 20th anniversary as a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive recording artist with this 2-CD release devoted entirely to the works of Chopin, the artist's first new recording in over four years. Pires's affinity for Chopin has always been well-known to both critics and audiences; in fact, her interpretations are so beloved that her 1996 recording of Chopin's Nocturnes remains the best-selling solo piano recording of the past 20 years by a living Deutsche Grammophon artist.

Maria João Pires, widely recognized as one of the most brilliant pianists of the last forty years, celebrates her 20th anniversary as a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive recording artist with this 2-CD release devoted entirely to the works of Chopin, the artist's first new recording in over four years. Pires's affinity for Chopin has always been well-known to both critics and audiences; in fact, her interpretations are so beloved that her 1996 recording of Chopin's Nocturnes remains the best-selling solo piano recording of the past 20 years by a living Deutsche Grammophon artist.

Evgeny Kissin has made brave choices in selecting this program. Schumann's Sonata No. 1 is a huge, sprawling piece, difficult to play and to hold together and therefore not very popular. Carnaval is one of Schumann's acknowledged masterpieces and has been recorded by a wide variety of pianists, providing plenty of competition. In the Sonata, Kissin's performance is a complete success. He has the largeness of spirit, powers of organization, and huge technique to make the music convincing and hold the listener's interest for more than half an hour.

Roland Pöntinen’s generously filled and beautifully engineered recital features three of Szymanowski’s most exotic and harmonically daring middle-period works together with a handful of Mazurkas that were composed near the end of his life. The Swedish pianist gives very persuasive accounts of these later more emotionally restrained pieces projecting their melodic lines with great sensitivity without disrupting their natural dance-like flow. his sense of forward momentum works particularly well in the more capricious movements of the Masques such as ‘Tantris le bouffon’ which is delivered with almost Bartókian stridency.

This live performance took place during the AEVEA IPC (II/2020, onclassical.com/app/) and was recorded as HD/24-bits by producer and engineer Alessandro Simonetto by using 8 (eight) Bruel & Kjaeer and Neumann microphones. These recordings are part of the Aevea Piano Prize, and their sale are important in order to support future editions of the competition.

Martha Argerich has been described as “unquestionably one of the greatest pianists of all time”. She recorded a Chopin recital for EMI (now Warner Classics) in 1965, shortly after her victory in the prestigious Chopin Competition, but it only became available in 1999, when it appeared on CD. For Argerich's 75th birthday on 5 June, it finally sees its first release on LP, the format originally intended.