Remastered classics

Chopin: Ballades, Scherzo, Polonaise, Impromptu, Nocturne, Waltz, Mazurka

This new disc from IDIS includes the early studio recordings of Philippe Entremont playing Chopin, from a Concert Hall/Musical Masterpiece Society 10" LP from 1955, and the famous Columbia Masterworks Ballades LP from 1959.




Entremont was a true prodigy, growing up in a musical family, and his early brilliance is on display in this music, recorded when he had just turned 21, and later, when he was 25. Just last month Sony released a 34 CD set of Entremont's complete solo recordings, but I don't think there is more perfect pianism on display than in these four Ballades.

Philippe Entremont with his family (complete with dog). Manuel Litran, Paris, 1955

Exactly fifty years after he recorded the Ballades, in July of 2009, Philippe Entremont played them at a concert in New York. Here's the third Ballade, which naturally has a valedictory quality that the impetuous original lacked. I've quoted this passage from André Gide's Notes on Chopin before; I think it's very much relevant here:

Each modulation in Chopin, never trivial and foreseen, must respect, must preserve that freshness, that emotion which almost fears the surging up of the new, that secret of wonderment to which the adventurous soul exposes itself along paths not blazed in advance, where the landscape reveals itself only gradually.

This is Chopin playing that's fresh and alive, and the 2019 remastering by Danilo Prefumo preserves an important document of mid-20th century artistry.




This album will be released on August 23, 2019.