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.

The secret of wonderment

Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes

"This is about the greatest music there is for the piano. It’s just extraordinary, the colors, the writing, the surprising form of the pieces, the enigma, the diversity of expression."

Leif Ove Andsnes's praise for these seven short pieces, the 4 Ballades and a selection of 3 Nocturnes by Frédéric Chopin, is extraordinary, and from a lesser pianist it might be a warning sign that these often delicate works have been swamped by bloated seriousness on the one hand, or overblown expectations on the other. But extraordinary things come in small packages: the Mona Lisa is, after all, only 30 by 21 inches. The stories to be told in each of Chopin's pieces are truly epic, and if you think an epic has to be 4,000 pages (with many more to come, in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire), don't forget about The Great Gatsby at 180 pages. Chopin's genius is in his economy as well as the scope of his narrative and the nuances within. Economy is, indeed, where Andsnes shines. Not every gesture needs italics, much less an exclamation point; not every dramatic moment needs a bright spotlight. What is needed instead is the "surprise and delight" that André Gide, in his marvellous Notes on Chopin, asked of the Chopin interpreter:

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.

One of the keys to Leif Ove Andsnes as an artist is his ability to communicate; this happens mainly, of course, with two hands on the keyboard, but you can see from this short video about the 1st Ballade how engaging and insightful he can be. "Suddenly a door opens!"



Here, by the way, is Gide on that same reveal: "... after a few indecisive measures in F where only the tonic and the fifth are given, Chopin unexpectedly sounds a deep B flat which suddenly alters the landscape like the stroke of an enchanter’s wand." Whether through a door or a wand, the secret of wonderment is revealed.

Profound music from a teenage prodigy

Martha Argerich: The Successful Beginning: Ravel, Bartok, Chopin, Liszt, Prokoviev, Brahms, Schumann, Beethoven, Mozart

A new bunch of important historic recordings is being released by Profil's Edition Günter Hänssler on August 19, 2018, including a promising David Barenboim release, which I'll be reviewing soon. But I'm most excited about this 4-CD set of music by a talented teenager from Buenos Aires, Martha Argerich. Argerich shot to worldwide fame when she won the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1965, at age 24. But she was already a star-in-the-making when most of these recordings were made in 1960 and 1961, having won both the Geneva International Music Competition and the Ferruccio Busoni International Competition in 1957, at 16 years of age.

As a pupil of Friedrich Gulda - Argerich went to Vienna in 1955 to study with him - one would expect something special from her Mozart, but the performances of two great middle-period sonatas are quite astounding. The first movement of the A minor sonata K. 310 begins briskly, but Argerich soon draws back a curtain to show the composer working out dramatic themes that will soon blossom into The Abduction from the Seraglio and then his other great stage works. Argerich's control here is exemplary; she doesn't tip her hand too early, but she's ready to turn up the temperature when required. And the final section of the slow movement is played with a delicacy that rivals her teacher. The B-flat major sonata K. 333 has the same calm surfaces with hidden depths, but at a higher pitch. The slow movement of this work is a miracle: like a Watteau painting it seems at first to be something of exquisite prettiness, but it is soon exposed as something so much greater: the most perfect and awesome beauty.

Of the two concertos included, it's again the Mozart that impresses, and luckily Argerich here has the stronger support of the two, from the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester under Peter Maag, a favourite conductor of mine who showed up a lot on disc in those days. This is also from 1960, so Argerich is still a teenager, but she sparkles throughout, and makes this great concerto about so much more than glittering runs and soft-focus pastoral scenes from Elvira Madigan.

Argerich has the huge advantage of being teamed up with the great Ruggiero Ricci, the Centennial of whose birth we've celebrated this month. Ricci was in his prime when these Bartok, Sarasate and Beethoven works were recorded (which made him 41 or 42, if my calculations are correct). While the violinist has the spotlight on himself in the Sarasate, the other two works are more balanced, and Argerich definitely doesn't let down her partner. This is the beginning of a great career as a chamber music player, to go along with an equally great one as a soloist.

Naturally the last disc in the set is largely Chopin, and everything we've heard from her Chopin in later years is present in embryo at least. A 1955 Buenos Aires Etude has dreadful sound - the only really bad sonics on the disc - but even there you can hear Argerich's power and control and delicacy. What a great opportunity to be in at the beginning of this marvellous pianist's Odyssey!

Sophisticated playing in a classic frame

A Chopin Diary: The Complete Nocturnes

Two things need to happen in a very good recording of Chopin's Nocturnes: the very well-known ones need to be played so they sound as fresh and un-hackneyed as possible, while the hidden gems (and there are many amongst the 20-some pieces) need to be polished up to shine enough to be noticed amongst this embarrassment of riches. Claire Huangci scores highly on both points; she's put together a marvellous 2 CD-set for Berlin Classics that's convincing on the first listen, with many special touches that you notice the second or third time around. In a perceptive review for Musicweb, Dominy Clements praises Huangci's rubato, which "almost seem(s) like two-part counterpoint in the independent character she gives between left and right (hand)." This is sophisticated playing, full of subtle effects and strongly etched character, but all within a fairly classic frame. Nothing is mannered or show-offy. Huangci adds two bonuses: the Nocturne Oubliée in C-Sharp Minor, and, along with cellist Tristan Cornu, the Étude in C-Sharp Minor for cello and piano.

Downward to darkness, on extended wings

Chopin's health began to seriously deteriorate around 1842, and his final works have a valedictory quality. By the time he wrote the Barcarolle (one of his final works) in 1845-6 he surely knew that his death was near. Some of the brilliance of his earlier music is gone, though his special genius for writing piano music is still evident, even enhanced. His music is more refined, more concentrated, and his ornamentation more organic. Chopin's last works differ from each other, but each of them is somehow surprising.

The Barcarolle is an amazing work. Choppy waves on the Venetian canals gently rock Chopin's gondola, but this isn't a dreamy piece. His physical strength might have been ebbing, but there is still great power in this piece, and great virtuosity is required of the performer. Charles Rosen speaks of the piece's "long-range uninterrupted flow".

Above all the large-scale rhythm is worked out with an ease absolutely unique for Chopin’s time, and the final pages of the Barcarolle create a sense of triumph at once passionate and serene that has never been surpassed.

I listened to a whole bunch of great pianists playing this work: Perahia, Barenboim, Rubinstein, Argerich, Ashkenazy, Pollini, Rosen, Cortot, Lipatti. At one point I started to get sea-sick. While there are major differences between performances I'm not really sure what to make of them. Pollini's performance is taut, and Rubinstein's rather more leisurely.  At this level the real difference between these pianists is one of sensibility. One thing I learned for sure is that Jane Coop belongs in this company. Control, virtuosity, colour: everything is here in this smartly emotional performance.

So it goes in the whole disc, a re-release of Coop's 1999 recording. It's great that Skylark is re-releasing most of Coop's discs in 2016; though it was probably possible to buy any of these, now we can be sure.

When I listen to this music, I think of Sunday Morning, a poem by Wallace Stevens

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

The pain of unending longing

Just as Orpheus’ lyre opened the gates of the underworld, music unlocks for mankind an unknown realm—a world with nothing in common with the surrounding outer world of the senses. Here we abandon definite feelings and surrender to an inexpressible longing....

Only a week ago I was quoting E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1813 essay "Beethoven’s Instrumental
Music", in a review of a fine recording of Hoffmann's Symphony. But E.T.A. is at best only a minor composer; it's really in literature that he made his mark. The Beethoven essay is a landmark of music journalism because of its timing; it was an early appreciation of the cosmic significance of the Fifth Symphony. But the master of fantasy Hoffmann paints such a fantastic picture of why instrumental music is so romantic. Here's where he turns on the big guns:

Glowing rays shoot through the deep night of this realm, and we sense giant shadows surging to and fro, closing in on us until they destroy us, but not the pain of unending longing in which every desire that has risen quickly in joyful tones sinks and expires. 

Fifteen years ago Jane Coop rounded up a first group of especially romantic piano pieces, and CBC Records published it in their Musica Viva series. It's been a popular album since then (as was volume 2), and you can still order it from Amazon as a CD-R or on MP3. But on April 29, 2016, Skylark Music is re-releasing this disc, which is excellent news.

The music Coop has chosen comes from the gods of High Romanticism, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Brahms; the special god who perfectly distilled Romanticism, Debussy; and a late master who turned Romanticism up to 11, Rachmaninoff. Is there a more perfect piece to express "the pain of unending longing" than Brahms' A major Intermezzo, op. 118, no. 2? Nope; it always breaks my heart!



And is there a more perfect final quote from E.T.A. Hoffmann to end this review by letting everyone know how touched I am by Coop's playing? No, there isn't.

Romantic taste is rare, romantic talent even rarer, and perhaps for this reason there are so few who are able to sweep the lyre with tones that unveil the wonderful realm of the romantic.