Mazurkas – Rubinstein

Frederic Chopin - Evgeni Koroliov - Mazurkas
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 457 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Tacet # TACET 183 | Country/Year: Germany 2009
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

…It was a pleasure to listen to all 25 at one sitting. (…) For warm-hearted performances that are more nostalgic than jaunty and more introspective than aggressive, Evgeni Koroliov is highly recommended. He is helped by a flattering acoustic in Tacet’s recording.

Frederic Chopin - Evgeni Koroliov - Mazurkas
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 457 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Tacet # TACET 183 | Country/Year: Germany 2009
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

…It was a pleasure to listen to all 25 at one sitting. (…) For warm-hearted performances that are more nostalgic than jaunty and more introspective than aggressive, Evgeni Koroliov is highly recommended. He is helped by a flattering acoustic in Tacet’s recording.

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.

Vladimir Sofronitsky - Chopin
Polonaise No.1 / Ballade No.3 / Etudes / Preludes / Waltzes / Mazurkas
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 241 MB | Full Artwork: 41 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Denon # COCQ-83672 | Country/Year: Japan 2003, 1946-1953
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Piano, Historical Recording

…Although little known in the West, never having toured or recorded there, Sofronitsky was held in the highest regard in his native land. Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels looked up to Sofronitsky as their master, and famously, when Sofronitsky once drunkenly proclaimed that Richter was a genius, in return Richter toasted him and proclaimed him a god. Upon hearing of Sofronitsky's death, Gilels was reputed to have said that "the greatest pianist in the world has died."…

Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman returns to his roots to pay tribute to his compatriot Karol Szymanowski on the 140th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Having studied his solo piano works for decades, Zimerman presents a new album of richly varied repertoire spanning the period from 1899 to the mid−1920s. His aim is to shed new light on this less familiar aspect of Szymanowski’s output and help cement his reputation as one of the great composers of piano music.

The Japanese company, BMG Japan, sorted the original RCA RED SEAL CDs according to the composers and the year when the music pieces were created. BEST100 series are the best representative CDs, which were carefully chosen from those music pieces by acting and recording, and they were released again with the mark of RCA BEST100. These CDs are the most impressive records in the classical field at RCA’s best. Theoretically, we could find the single originals of those CDs, but BMG Japan reorganised excellently for everyone. During BMG Japan period, it was released for the first time in 1999 and for the second time in 2008 after SONY took over BMG. BEST100 series belong to the latter.

Jan Smeterlin was a born Chopin interpreter on home soil. Presented here is a collection that includes rare and previously unissued recordings. Writing to Gramophone in 1965, a Royal Navy Commander stationed in India made an impassioned plea: I have heard Rubinstein, Ashkenase, even Paderewski, playing the Chopin Mazurkas None has approached the sublimity of Smeterlins playing of them. Please, some recording company, capture his magical performances while they are still available. The record companies did not share such convictions, and Smeterlin died two years later.