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5.0 out of 5 stars
From Another Age, December 20, 2005
This review is from: Complete Edition 3: Mazurkas (Audio CD)
Though Luisada is by no means old, his playing takes us back to another age.
Arthur Rubinstein boasted that he changed the way Chopin was perceived, making him more masculine and straightforward than romantic players like de Pachmann and Paderewski did. Rubinstein's Chopin was in fact a reflection of his own more literal time -- a time that also produced Backhaus and Toscanini -- as well as Rubinstein's own love for the classiciam of Brahms which, under the influence of Joachim, pre-dated the Polish expatriate's love for Chopin.
Rubinstein clearly felt uncomfortable with the feminine, salon qualities that cannot be divorced from Chopin's sensibility. Descriptions of the composer's own playing make it clear that he was improvisatory, ethereal in his dynamics and reveled in rubato; Chopin was even accused of not being able to play in time. These qualities are rarely evident in modern players, who imagine they present a "greater" Chopin by robbing him of his true personality.
Luisada is not a modern player. His mazurkas evoke memories of some of the greatest Chopin interpreters of earlier ages -- de Pachmann, Maryla Jonas (whose selected Mazurkas are available from Pearl and Andante)and, in their humor and bounce, Friedman. Luisada's rubato will seem willful and wayward to those raised to believe Rubinstein was the last word on Chopin, but it will delight those who would like to hear something closer to the first word.
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