Chopin: Polonaise No. 1 in C sharp minor, Op. 26 No. 1

Arthur Rubinstein recorded the first seven Polonaises of Chopin three times. The fine performances heard here, from the middle period of his recording career, still stand as among the best, for Rubinstein was one of only a handful of pianists able to imbue these Polish works with such rhythm, nobility and vigour.

“These impressive pieces are played with authority and a fine sense of their inner meaning and have been faithfully reproduced.” The New Records, May 1952

Rubinstein’s first, 1935/6 recording of the Polonaises is available on Naxos 8110661.

Reissue Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

The French pianist Samson François (1924–1970) recorded three complete Chopin sequences: the ballades, which brought him his first great success on record, the nocturnes and the polonaises. François learned his Chopin from Alfred Cortot, from whom he inherited a visionary style which suits the polonaises particularly well. (By an irony, Cortot himself played these works relatively rarely and recorded almost none of them.)

It was Chopin that François chose for his first recordings, which he made at the end of the 1940s on the Brunswick label. He recorded the polonaises twice: first in mono in 1958; then the present stereo version, made in the Salle Wagam in 1968 and 1969. There is no fundamental change of conception. If the mono recording benefits from the natural acoustic of the Salle de la Mutualité and at times offers something more rapt, it also affords less bel canto in the right hand too: the effect is more battling than dancing,so to speak.

Above all, these polonaises achieve a dramatic tension that sets them apart from other contemporary versions on disc: neither Rubinstein, supremely elegant as always, nor Stefan Askenaze, who cherishes the dance element, approach these works with such intensity.

The couplings are a handful of late works recorded at the end of sessions devoted to the nocturnes: the Trois Nouvelles Etudes, the Tarentelle, the Fantaisie in F minor and the F sharp Barcarolle share the same overcast outlook, and to that extent are a perfect foil to the often exuberant polonaises.

François played all the Chopin that was published in his day: even the C major Rondo for two pianos of 1828, reworked for four hands from an earlier solo piece, and recorded here with the pianist’s lifelong friend Pierre Barbizet.

All tracks are newly transferred and remastered to ART standard at Abbey Road Studios.

Award: Diapason d’Or

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth we are reissuing on Helios some of the finest performances from Garrick Ohlsson’s complete Chopin project, originally recorded for the American label Arabesque and reissued on Hyperion as a 16 CD boxed set (CDS44351/66) in 2008. Sadly unacknowledged at the time of their original issue (very few of the original discs received much review coverage), these CDs include some of the greatest contemporary Chopin playing and include definitive performances of the complete etudes and mazurkas. It’s worth remembering the not only did Garrick win the 1970 Chopin competition (the only American to do so), but he also won the special prize for Mazurka playing, that most idiomatically Polish genre of Chopin’s output.

Janina Fialkowska is a regular guest soloist with the world’s most prestigious orchestras and has worked with conductors such as Haitink, Metha, Solti and Slatkin. She was born in Montreal amd her career was launched by Arthur Rubinstein after her prize winning performances at the first piano competition held in his name in 1974.

In recent years York Bowen, the composer, has enjoyed a spectacular revival, but until now his talents as pianist (barring a late recording of his own music for Lyrita) have not been heard since the days of 78s. At the height of his success, in the first decades of the 20th century, Bowen was as much known as pianist as composer and frequently performed at the Proms amongst other things. His first recording, a very rare disc on the Marathon label, was released in 1915, but the bulk of his work was done for Vocalion; after they went bankrupt in 1927 he appears to have made no further 78s. Pride of place must go to Bowen’s Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto. This was the very first recording of the work and its neglect has been due to the fact that it was one of the last recordings to be made under the old acoustic process which was superseded the year the work was issued. Bowen’s pianism is extremely fluent and he plays his own cadenzas! Through all the featured works we hear a pianist who plays in the ‘grand manner’ and that, and his preference for romantic repertoire, reveal him as somewhat atypical of the English pianist of his time. Perhaps his nickname ‘the English Rachmaninov’ did indeed hit the nail on the head.