Great Pianists 74

Ignacy Jan Paderewski (Artist), Chopin (Artist), Liszt (Artist), Schubert (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 13, 1999)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Philips
• ASIN: B00000IIYL
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,383 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Etude In C Minor, Op. 10 No. 12 'Revolutionary'

2. Etude In E, Op. 10 No. 3 'Tristesse'

3. Etude In G Flat, Op. 10 No. 5 'Black Keys'

4. Etude In C, Op. 10 No. 7

5. Nocturne In F, Op. 15 No. 1

6. Nocturne In F Sharp, Op. 15 No. 2

7. Nocturne In E Flat, Op. 9 No. 2

8. Waltz In E Flat , Op. 18 'Grande valse brillante'

9. Mazurka In A Minor, Op. 17 No. 4

10. Etude In A Flat, Op. 25 No. 1 'Aeolian Harp'

See all 21 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Polonaise In A, Op. 40 No. 1 'Military'

2. Waltz In A Flat, Op. 42 No. 1 'Grande valse'

3. Berceuse In D Flat, Op. 57

4. Mazurka In A Flat, Op. 59 No. 2

5. Mazurka In F Sharp Minor, Op. 59 No. 3

6. Mazurka In C Sharp Minor, Op. 63 No. 3

7. Chants polonais de Frederic Chopin, S. 480: The Maiden's Wish

8. Chants polonais de Frederic Chopin, S. 480: My Darling

9. 3 Etudes de Concert: No. 2 In F Minor 'La leggierezza' (A capriccio - Quasi allegretto)

10. 6 Etudes d'execution transcendante d'apres Paganini: No. 3 La Campanella

See all 16 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best in the series, the ultimate 20th century pianist., July 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Great Pianists 74 (Audio CD)

This is the best volume in the Great Pianists of the 20 century series. The playing is a revelation, exquisite, lyrical, and always profound. Each piece is played with a unique sensitivity and disregard for virtuosity. Only having heard of Paderewski, almost as a legend, it is breathtaking to finally behold this "ultimate pianist". It is even more breathtaking, when one realizes every recording was done in one take, years before modern tape editing techniques. (A modern CD of one hour may actually be made from many hours of tapes and remixed, creating marvelous recordings that never really happened, something more like sculpture than musical performance.) The beauty of tone even on these somewhat "hissy" older recordings is a wonder to hear. The Chopin selections makes one seem to hear their beauty again for the first time, more beautiful than any modern recording. The Liszt selections are fantastic. The famous Liszt second rhapsody is done in a lyric non-virtuosic cantabile style that is ravishing with meaning and beauty in every note, a new color every second. It is the ultimate second rhapsody done with pure musicality and avoiding technical excesses. He plays the music, not just Lisztian cadenzas with stuff in between like most modern virtuosos. He makes a beautiful Hungarian tone poem, not a virtuoso exercise in octaves and velocity. Paderewski always strives for beauty of tone and expression and seems to be uninterested in modern pyrotechnics. This is really a must for anyone who loves piano music, a real sojourn back to the days of Liszt and Chopin. Music like it was supposed to be.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Playing from a Different Era, July 7, 2007

By 

Hank Drake (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Great Pianists 74 (Audio CD)

Ignace Jan Paderewski was among the last of the 19th Century Romantic pianists, in the sense that textual "fidelity" took a second place to personal expression and tone. Even Rachmaninoff and Hofmann, both born in the 19th Century, favored a far less interventionist approach than Paderewski.

As has been pointed out, not all of the playing here is perfect. There are numerous technical slips and moments of caution. But it's worth remembering that tape editing was not available when these recordings were made. If the pianist was displeased with a take, the entire 78RPM side would have to be recorded again. Also, the note perfect esthetic came into vogue after Paderewski's time. Truth be told, there are no more wrong notes here than in many of Artur Schnabel's recordings.

It should be noted that one of the performances on this set, Liszt's La Leggierezza, is not actually by Paderewski. In one of the great blunders of recorded music, Phillips has included the performance by Benno Moiseiwitsch (which is also in their Moiseiwitsch volume). The liner notes also claim the piece includes a coda composed by Moiseiwitsch, when in fact it was composed by Leschetizky.

The sound is faded, understandably. However, Paderewski's beautiful (one might even say, "old fashioned") sonority comes through on these transfers.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best of All Possible Chopinesque Worlds, December 28, 2004

By 

Manasi Vydyanath (University of Chicago, Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Pianists 74 (Audio CD)

I have played and heard innumerable variations on Chopin, and this is probably the best version to date. Paderewski's playing is luminous, he works in fine, detailed textures, uses the presence as well as the absence of emphasis to make very subtle musical points, (especially in the 'tristesse' etude and the raindrop prelude.) He will build up a phrase, create almost unberable anticipation and drop into an intimate whisper at the very moment in which one expects an emphatic declamation. His playing is very unimodal, in that each piece has but one true peak, and the fact that he uses crescendi, accents and even fortes so ascetically makes this peak seem monumental in proportion. Paderewski's arpeggiation of the first chord of the raindrop prelude is nothing short of a stroke of genius. He makes the slightly banal valse brilliante seem mysterious, alluring and so very interesting. In many ways, he is an immortal subjectivist - after a point, the notes cease to be Chopin and become pure Paderewski. I would liken his interpretation to Furtwangler. He has an uncanny sense of rubato, stretching the bar-lines like Kandinsky, but never crossing them. I recommend this very, very highly, as a music-critic and as an artist.