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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Chopin: 24 Preludes
Master pianist Maurizio Pollini turned 70 on January 5th, 2012 and DG are celebrating this milestone birthday with a new album of breath-taking Chopin. Pollini’s Chopin recordings are his best-sellers – the complete Nocturnes, released in 2005, have sold more than 100,000 CDs to date. Chopin: Preludes is a birthday programme of newly recorded solo works: Preludes op.28, four Mazurkas op.30, two Nocturnes op.27, and the Scherzo no.2 op.31. Pollini often feature Chopin’s works in his solo recitals – The Guardian raved, “... he still plays Chopin with the ease that floored even Rubinstein more than 50 years ago ...” “His sense of phrasing, structure and pacing is undimmed...There are other accounts of the 24 Preludes that are more impassioned, more vividly imagined and coloured, but few are more pure or devoted. Recorded sound is excellent. The fingers are not entirely all they used to be in terms of nimbleness, but that isn't too intrusive.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2013 **** “The best of it, especially the B flat minor Scherzo, is superb, the virtuosity effortless, the grip on the formal structure utterly secure, but elsewhere...there's sometimes a chilly relentlessness about the playing, an impatience almost, that keeps the music at a distance.” The Guardian, 1st November 2012 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op. 28
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| |  | Chopin: Preludes & Piano Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3
| | | (Sorry, download not available in your country) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Chopin: Nocturnes & Preludes
“The sum effect of these performances is exciting, deeply personal and often moving. I doubt that anyone who knows and loves Chopin’s music will find Francois’s approach less than absorbing.” Gramophone Magazine | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Hélène Tysman plays Chopin
Hélène Tysman has the ability to take the listener’s hand, at the outset of a Prélude or of a Sonata movement, and to lead and hold your attention until the very last bar, due to the outstanding range of colours she conjures up. She studied at the Paris Conservatory and has performed with many orchestras including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Sheila Arnold plays Chopin
Sheila Arnold’s performances show Chopin’s works in a new light; through the thrilling grasps of the perfomer, born in India and now a German pianist, who grapples intensively with historical instruments on all levels, producing a different sound and a complete new dimension on the pieces. She performs on an Érard Fortepiano (Paris 1839). | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 2
Joaquín Achúcarro (piano) This recording commemorates the 50th anniversary of Joaquín Achúcarro’s debut with the London Symphony Orchestra after winning the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic International Competition in 1959. Recorded at Jerwood Hall, St Luke’s, London, with Britain’s eminent conductor Colin Davis at the helm, Achúcarro delivers a consummate performance that brilliantly expresses his delicate and passionate style. Extra features include a substantial documentary about Achúcarro’s career and performances of solo piano pieces by Brahms, Chopin, Scriabin and Albéniz filmed in the beautiful setting of the Prado museum, Madrid. “Achúcarro’s approach is unorthodox in today’s stick-to-theletter-of-the-score, mechanically perfect musical world. His rubati seem excessive to some; to others, like a throwback to a Golden Age. For all of his reverence for the great composers whose music he plays, he maintains a healthy sense of their humanity as well. “Our duty is first of all to understand what composer does and wants, and then to try to deliver it the best we can, but also to serve the music,” he says. “And maybe sometimes the composer is wrong.” He adds, “People say you must follow the text. But if you follow the text, perhaps the music is not totally served.” … And he views what he does as a performer as an act of creation in its own right.” The Washington Post Extra features: Joaquín Achúcarro: 50 years on Documentary including interviews with Plácido Domingo, Simon Rattle and Zubin Mehta. Running time 131 mins Region code All regions Video codec: AVC/MPEG-4 Disc size: BD50 Picture format 1080i High Definition / 16:9 Sound format 2.0 & 5.1 PCM Menu language EN Subtitles EN/FR/DE/ES/IT “all three sections of both versions benefit from the masterly hand of director Robin Lough who, unlike many of his peers, knows how to let the music speak for itself without the need for frantic cuts and cross-fades...The short recital filmed in the Prado captures Achúcarro at his intimate best” Gramophone Magazine, June 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Chopin - Préludes
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| |  | Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op. 28
Wojciech Switala has won prizes in a number of international competitions: in Bardolino, Italy (First Prize), the Long/Thibaud in Paris (Second Grand Prix, audience prize, prize for the leading European) and the Montreal Piano Competition. In the Twelfth Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw (1990) he received the prize for the best performance of a polonaise. The disc features new recordings of the 24 Preludes, Op. 28 made on a Pleyel piano from 1848 and Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise in E flat major, Op. 22 made on an Erard piano from 1849. Recorded in Witold Lutoslawski Polish Radio Concert Studio, Warsaw, 11–13 November 2006 and 4 May 2007. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3
Ka Ling Colleen Lee (piano) Ka Ling Colleen Lee, a rising star of Chopin interpretation, has won numerous awards at many leading piano competitions, including sixth prize at the Fifteenth International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. Her sense of form and particular sensitivity to the timbres of the instrument have borne fruit in outstanding renderings of the B minor Sonata and the Polonaise-fantasy. Both these works appear on this disc, alongside Mazurkas from Op. 33 and six Preludes from Op. 28. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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