Customer Reviews

Great Pianists 74

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Simply buy this great c.d. collection. This is without question the finest music you will ever listen to. Romantic, mesmerizing, and enchanting. These three adjectives describe the music of the great Paderewski. I hope you take the risk, as this music is a little pricey. Like a treasure chest waiting to be opened, this music is worth it's weight in gold. Wonderful! Wonderful!

Paderewski was often derided by critics and other pianists of his day for the poor taste and Romantic exaggeration of his playing. This 2-CD set has the recorded evidence of the validity of these accusations on every track. Thus, it is a valueable document for teachers and players to show how someone famous, who could play all the notes and had a stellar career, could be a bad interpreter and performer.
His "feeling" for Romantic repertoire was so eccentric that he makes some of the pieces sound like early jazz or ragtime. To hear it is to believe, and, if you believe in the myth of I.P as a great artist, prepare to have your bubble burst. If you want to confirm what history has generally said about I.P's musicality, this set is perfect. If you like the music, buy another, ANY, other recording.
MBB

I have bought this cd last year and i still listen to it everyday.This is a must to every pianist in the world.

The recordings are fine and the playing is mediocre. He misses notes or total parts(simplification) and there are so many false notes its a shamble. The man was famous, but its pretty obvious he has no control after becoming a concert pianist when he was a full grown adult. If you want a real artist go for Hoffmann, Rachmaninoff, or at least somebody who is remembered for their great playing, not image. I give it a three because of his mediocre playing(one star for the playing and two for the fancy jacket)...