Frederic+chopin

When Pogorelich did not make the finals of the 1980 Warsaw Competition (where they play exclusively Chopin), his response was to sign with Deutsche Grammophon for his first recording and he made it an all-Chopin affair. From his stunning opening take on Chopin's Sonata #2, to a Funeral March restored to its grandeur, to the breaktaking final moments of the Scherzo #3, Pogorelich announced to the music world that he'd arrived.

Another example of superb programming, Piotr Anderszewski's Chopin recital on Virgin is brilliantly conceived and masterfully executed. Concentrating on the compoer's late works, Anderszewski's program starts with two sets of Mazurkas played with supple sensitivity and sympathetic poetry, builds through the last two Ballades played with dramatic intensity and terrific technique, climaxes in the last two Polonaises played with heroic grandeur and tremendous virtuosity, and closes with the tender and intimate Mazurka in F minor as an encore. Anderszewski's technique is imperious, his tone is sensual, his performances are emotional, and his interpretations are magisterial. Individually, each performance is strong and vital. Taken all together, the whole disc is more than the sum of its parts. Virgin's sound is warm but a bit close and sometimes a little too immediate.

It is grand to hear novice players so successfully take on three of Chopin's chamber pieces, the Cello Sonata, Piano Trio, and Grand Duo for cello and piano. There have certainly been great recordings of these works in the past – one thinks immediately of those by Mstislav Rostropovich and Jacqueline du Pré – but the energy, enthusiasm, and sincerity that cellist Andreas Brantelid, pianist Marianna Shirinyan, and violinist Vilde Frang bring to this music more than justifies preserving their performances. Brantelid has a big but nuanced tone, an elegant but impressive technique, and an obvious affinity for the music, and he is well-matched by Shirinyan's polished technique and empathic accompaniments and Frang's easy virtuosity and lyrical interpretation. The ensemble is poised but comfortable and the interpretations are cogent and compelling. Captured in close but smooth digital sound, these performances deserve to be heard by anyone who loves this music, or great chamber music playing.

Esteemed for almost 60 years as one of the greatest Chopin interpreters, Maurizio Pollini confirms his preeminence with this 2017 release on Deutsche Grammophon, and offers his first all-Chopin disc since 2012. Chopin's late works were composed between 1845 and 1849, and include the Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60, the 3 Mazurkas, Op. 59, the Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat major, Op. 61, the 2 Nocturnes, Op. 62, the 3 Mazurkas, Op. 63, the 3 Waltzes, Op. 64, and the Mazurka in F minor, Op. Posth. 68, No. 4; they are notable for their harmonic richness and freedom of melodic embellishment, characteristics that made them especially influential among his Romantic contemporaries. Pollini's fluid phrasing and control of expression and dynamics have always given his performances sophistication and a feeling of balance, though these are engaging renditions that are far from cerebral or clinical, claims that critics have sometimes laid at Pollini's door. Yet listeners can hear for themselves how polished and deeply felt these performances are, and appreciate the artistic wholeness of Pollini's conceptions, from the elegance of the "Minute" Waltz to the sublime melancholy of the posthumous Mazurka in F minor. Highly recommended for fans of great piano music.

For while it would be idle to pretend that this 70-year-old virtuoso, struck down at the height of his career with psoriatic arthritis, still commands the velocity and reflex of his earlier years, his later Chopin and Liszt are a tribute to a devotion and commitment gloriously enriched by experience. The First Impromptu is piquantly voiced and phrased while the C sharp minor Etude, Op. 25 No. 7, could hardly be more hauntingly confided, more ‘blue’ or inturned. How you miss the repeat in the C sharp minor Mazurka, Op. 50 No. 3 (not Op. 15, as the jewel-case claims), given such cloudy introspection and if there are moments when you recall how Rubinstein – forever Chopin’s most aristocratic spokesman – can convey a world of feeling in a scarcely perceptible gesture, Janis’s brooding intensity represents a wholly personal, only occasionally overbearing, alternative; an entirely different point of view. Time and again he tells us that there are higher goods than surface polish or slickness and in the valedictory F minor Mazurka, Op. 68 No. 4 he conveys a dark night of the soul indeed, an emotion almost too desolating for public utterance… Janis is no less remarkable in Liszt, whether in the brief but intriguing Sans mesure (a first performance and recording), in a Sonetto 104 del Petrarca as tear-laden as any on record and in a final Liebestod of an exhausting ardour and focus.

Passion rather than insouciance is Pires’s keynote. Here is no soft, moonlit option but an intensity and drama that scorn all complacent salon or drawing-room expectations. How she relishes Chopin’s central storms, creating a vivid and spectacular yet unhistrionic contrast with all surrounding serenity or ‘embalmed darkness’. The con fuoco of Op. 15 No. 1 erupts in a fine fury and in the first Nocturne, Op. 9 No. 1, Pires’s sharp observance of Chopin’s appassionato marking comes like a prophecy of the coda’s sudden blaze. Such resolution and psychological awareness make you realize that Chopin, like D. H. Lawrence, may well have thought that “there must be a bit of fear, and a bit of horror in your life”. Chopin, Pires informs us in no uncertain terms, was no sentimentalist.

The career of the young Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov has taken off since he won the Honens Prize in 2012. He issued a live recording and then a fine album of Tchaikovsky pieces that, while pleasures all, are not really everyday items. With this set of 24 of Chopin's 58 mazurkas, he makes what might be regarded as his debut in mainstream repertory. Twisting and turning the slightly tense rhythm of the Polish folk dance in a dozen different directions, they're an excellent pick for Kolesnikov's deliberate yet playful style. Kolesnikov observes all of Chopin's repeats, daring the listener to find them tedious and delivering with readings that diverge in small but telling details from the first time through. It's in the small details that Kolesnikov excels. The temperature of the entire recording is low, and Hyperion's engineers set just the right level at their favorite venue for this kind of recital, the Wyastone Estate concert hall. But the listener is drawn into Kolesnikov's unique handling of the unusual technical devices in which these pieces abound.

Pianist Dong Hyek Lim, a bit older than the youthful face in the graphics might suggest, has gained a reputation as a Chopin specialist, with restrained, often exquisitely detailed performances made for the small recital hall rather than for the concert hall. This was, of course, the kind of venue for which Chopin wrote most of his music, and this is a very fine tour through the much-recorded 24 Preludes, Op. 28, which form the centerpiece of this album. Lim does well to introduce things with the flashier and rarely played Variations brillantes in B flat major, Op. 12, commanding the listener's attention before delving into the Preludes, some of the most harmonically intricate music Chopin wrote. Sample any of the really famous Preludes, such as the Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, No. 4, for an idea of what Lim is up to here: he not only lingers over dissonances, but explores their potential directions with sensitivity and intelligence, all while keeping the top of the dynamic range not very high. Lim takes you back to the public world with the Berceuse in D flat major, Op. 57, and Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60, which show him to be capable of a more brilliant style. London's Henry Wood Hall fits these pieces well, but Warner's engineers might have gone with even a more intense, intimate space for the preludes. In any event, the performance of those is one of the most absorbing to have come along in quite some time.