Featuring history-making performances from some of the 20th century's towering virtuoso pianists, this deluxe andante four-CD/book set presents Chopin's greatest works in recordings by Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Cortot, Rubinstein and others.
The word "microcosm" has been so devalued by overuse that one hesitates to
bring it into play yet again. Still, it is an entirely appropriate description
of Chopin's set of 24 Preludes (Op. 28), which begins this set and seems nothing
less than a literal "world in miniature." Within the bounds of these
extraordinary little works (which range from 30 seconds to about five minutes in
duration), one finds music of astonishing richness and variety compressed into
the most economical of forms.
Take Alfred Cortot's recordings of Chopin's Preludes and Waltzes as an antidote to the shimmering, featureless technical "perfection" that so often passes for interpretation in our international concert halls these days. Few world-class pianists have committed so many finger-slips, approximated passages and out-and-out "clinkers" to disc. And yet to emphasize Cortot's mistakes is to miss the point spectacularly: listen past his frailties and you will be rewarded by some of the most personal, poetic playing on record. In Cortot's best recordings, we find what his radically dissimilar admirer, Alfred Brendel, called "a mixture of spontaneity and exact calculation." And especially in the Preludes, which Brendel aptly described as "24 pieces sounding like 24 different characters."
If the Preludes are superlative miniatures, the Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor (Op. 35) has the sort of epic grandeur more readily associated with heroic sculpture. Sergei Rachmaninoff's recording of this sonata — with its great "Marche funèbre" that manages to be both immaculately formal and absolutely terrifying — has long been recognized as a milestone. As the American critic W. J. Henderson, who covered musical life in New York for a half-century, observed of this interpretation: "The logic of the thing was impervious; the plan was invulnerable; the proclamation was imperial. There was nothing left for us but to thank our stars that we had lived when Rachmaninoff did and heard him, out of the divine might of his genius, re-create a masterpiece." It was, he said, a case of "genius understanding genius."
Dinu Lipatti was both a gentler musician and a sunnier soul than Rachmaninoff. It is difficult to imagine what he would have made of the Sonata in B-flat minor; he was ideally suited to the Sonata No. 3 in B minor (Op. 58), with its innate elegance and Apollonian bearing. Yet he does not neglect the heartrending implications here — the finale is as bleak in its way as anything Chopin ever wrote but, in Lipatti's hands, the tragedy is a lyrical one.
Most of the pianists here enjoyed international reputations (Josef Hofmann, Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein, in particular, rarely played to an empty seat). It is good to hear Ferruccio Busoni, another legendary pianist-composer, in two of his final recordings. And a 1939 rendition of the Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor proves that the teenaged Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was already Michelangeli — poised, precise, a little mysterious. Solomon's interpretation of the Fantaisie in F minor is thoughtful and proportionate, yet endearingly fresh: in some ways, it is the most "modern" performance in this set. Still, none of the recordings gathered here, however antiquated, will ever quite grow old.
Click here for more information
on "Chopin: Solo Piano, Volume I."
