Customer Reviews

Chopin Collection

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Ever since reviwes have been made on Rubinstein he has been accused of "tighting up" a little too much in a studio. Even though there is some truth in this comment when you compare his live performances of Beethoven against his studio recordings, in Chopin and in this album this thought simply does not hold on. Here you get passionate Rubinstein in warm, articulate, logical performances of Chopin at his boldest. Please, listen carefully to the details in the Ballade No.4. It just keeps on building climax after climax, and the conclusion seems inexorable. And yet this is always Rubinstein letting music do all the talking.

If anyone needed to make a case for Rubinstein's genius not only as a Chopin interpreter, but as a pianist of the first rank, they'd need do little more than offer this one recording as evidence. The control of melodic line, lift, chordal technique, brilliance in ornamentation and fioriture - all of them are at the service of Chopin's conception, but come together with a sound that can only have been made by Rubinstein. Perhaps most moving is the first ballade; the grandeur of the main E major theme has never been brought out so compellingly, and the closing Gm section is nothing short of demonic. I've listened to this recording well over a thousand times, and have explored every other commercially-available recording of the ballades. Nothing quite compares. If I had only one piano record, perhaps even only one record of any kind, to choose for the proverbial desert island, this one would be it.

I'm not short of versions of the ballads and the scherzos so I have compared the Rubinstein's to many other (Ashkenazy, Pollini, Rachmaninov, Argerich, Janis, Kissin etc.). For the ballads I put Rubinstein and Ashkenazy in a special place. Ashkenazy has a better sound (thick and deep bass sound which is familiar in his recordings) and his playing he is exstremely powerfull. Rubinstein's sound is a bit flat but has no hiss or that kind of stuff. The playing is clean, every note is heard and the fantasy-feeling gets perfectly through. For the scherzos I put Rubinstein in the first place. In the 2nd I also like Argerich's powerfull approach and Kissin's playing in this schrezo is also superb. But for me no one gets the 3rd better than Rubinstein. Just listen to the "raindrops" in the right hand! I like the 4th very mush but find the Ashkenasy best. So after all I think that this must be the recording if you are looking for the ballads and the schrezos on one recording.

When one thinks of Chopin the first thing that comes to many people's mind is a composer of soft, gentle music with lovely melodies. True, much of his music was soft, some of it gentle and the melodies are the greatest ever created. But beneath the gentle exterior beat the heart of a patriot and warrior. He expressed his passion to his piano - his alter ego - and nowhere is it more apparent than in these eight works.

While the Nocturnes are languid, the Mazurkas quirky, the Polonaises military and the Etudes tours de force of technical skill, the Ballades and Scherzos are emotional paydirt, the core of the real Chopin. Although he was a minituarist, his skill at structuring the plot of the medium length piece (6-10 minutes) is as remarkable as that for the small work.

The Ballades are hard to define. One finds arching melodies, spectacular story lines and feverish, intense drama. They are like reduced symphonies and Rubinstein is the best conductor around. His interpretations have been criticized as too light, too airy, too " " (fill in the blank). I've heard better performances of individual Ballades (Cliburn, Horowitz, Kissin) but as a group, there is no equal.

The first Ballade - the only one I ever learned to play - rises and falls as the competing melodies vie for attention. The finale is extremely difficult and requires an extraordinary set of hands. The Fourth, my favorite, is quintessentially Chopin. Rubinstein handles the Presto con Fuoco at the end remarkably well which is rare since this is usually a mishmash of hurried notes.

The Scherzos are dramatic in the extreme. They have earned enormous praise that is richly deserved. Under Rubinstein's direction, the only word is "masterful". They never spin out of control yet maintain the fervor throughout. One rarely notices Chopin's organization of material but this is as important to his music as the creation of melodies or quixotic chord combinations. In this instance, the four have a similar but varying structure in which the theme is reprised through successive forays into secondary and tertiary themes. The C Sharp Minor is as all time favorite and Rubinstein carries just the right vigor.

Yet another splendid addition to the "Chopin Collection"