Chopin: Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52

As early as 1948 Richter recorded a Polonaise Op.25 No.1, and in 1950 the Ballade No.2 Op.38, few Studies… An avowed enemy of 'completism' the present programme is a fabulous example of his choices, excluding the famous Funeral Sonata, Walzes or First Piano Concerto…, leaving these to Gilels: ‘far better than me' in his opinion!

A Liszt recital on Sony Classical last year was Khatia Buniatishvili’s critically acclaimed debut as a recording artist. After the great recognition of this first album, she is now following this up with an album that encompasses five works by Frédéric Chopin. This album marks her debut concerto recording with orchestra.

Khatia Buniatishvili has been described by The Independent as “the young Georgian firebrand”. At the age of only 24 years, this Tblisi-born pianist has already achieved an exceptional maturity of interpretation and a distinctive artistic approach that make her playing unmistakable.

In the current season she is the “rising star” in Vienna at the Musikverein and Konzerthaus, is giving recitals in Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam and Paris, as well as at the Wigmore Hall, is a guest at the festivals in Schwetzingen, Lucerne and Verbier and is making her first appearances with the Munich Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony.

Clarity of form and colour, the piano as a narrator and ballad-singer: Nelson Goerner has his own way of interpreting Chopin, and he shows it here in a varied recital programme ranging from major works like the famous B minor Sonata through the Nocturnes to the F minor Ballade.

This is Volume 2 in our series of solo piano works by Chopin, played by the French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie.

Recording exclusively for Chandos, Lortie is recognised as one of the finest interpreters of Chopin today. He first recorded Chopin’s Études for Chandos more than twenty years ago; the disc was named as one of the ‘50 great performances by superlative pianists’ by BBC Music. Volume 1 of his current Chopin series also has received excellent reviews: the magazine Pianist wrote: ‘He is a pianist of our time when it comes to speed, energy and an unfussy approach to Chopin. His way of playing is like a sharply cut steel sculpture, super elegant and with not one single smudge.’ And in the words of International Piano: ‘These are full-blooded and eloquent performances, an auspicious start to what looks likely to become one of the finest of Chopin surveys.’

The ballade was associated with French poetry up until the mid-nineteenth century, when Chopin was among the first to transform the genre into a purely musical form for solo piano. His four ballades, recorded here, are among his most extraordinary and powerful works, full of dramatic contrasts, with moments of lyrical tenderness followed by passages of rambunctious energy.

The Irish composer John Field invented the piano nocturne as a lyrical and dreamy short piece, a charming and languorous creation that was later transformed and extended by Chopin into something with a much wider emotional range, and a general sense of wistfulness. This ‘Chopin’ style of nocturne soon came to replace the Fieldian style as the preferred model of the genre. The simplicity and directness of expression found in the nocturnes have made them the most popular of all Chopin’s works.

Composed towards the end of his life, the Barcarolle (originally a Venetian gondolier’s song) for solo piano is a melancholy, but sweepingly romantic work that conjures up strong images of Venetian boats, water, and oars. Also on this disc is the Berceuse (inspired by the traditional mood of the lullaby), based around a single four-bar theme which Chopin ornaments in increasingly elaborate ways as the piece develops.

The life and career of Frédéric Chopin (“a man of noble ideas”, according to Debussy) have been much written about, and have given rise to numerous legends and exaggerated stories. The hackneyed clichés of the fragile and ailing artist, of the worldly seducer, and the unfortunate circumstances of his break-up with George Sand are all too well known to need re-telling here. Heinrich Heine said of Chopin that he was “the kindest, the most reserved and the most modest of men of genius”. The composer himself was notably reticent, but summed up his own complex personality with the words: “On the outside I am cheerful, but inside I am in turmoil.”

In addition to its staggering virtuosity, Chopin’s music is pervaded by an indefinable sadness that combines suffering, sensuousness and melancholy – characteristics that may owe something to his exile from his native Poland, which he left in 1830, never to return. The Nocturnes and some of the Preludes – several of which acquired sub-titles that the composer detested – give off a mysterious aura of poetry and comtemplation. “What emotions he was able to embody in music! And what passionate and melancholy reveries he liked to indulge in!” Berlioz recalled. Whatever sentiment is expressed in the music of Chopin, sensuousness remains one of the dominant elements of his aesthetic palette and of a musical style that was completely new and inimitable.

This 2-channel hybrid SACD features the much admired Ukrainean pianist Sergei Edelmann in a collection of pieces for solo piano by Frederick Chopin. The disc includes the Four Ballades, as well as the Barcarolle in F sharp minor, opus 60, the Fantasie in F minor, opus 49, and the Polonaise No. 7 in A flat major known as the “Polonaise Fantasie”.

Born in Lvov, Ukraine in 1960, Sergei Edelmann comes from a long and outstanding musical heritage. He was taught to play by his father Alexander Edelmann, a renowned pianist and teacher who had links to Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter. In his native country Sergei’s first orchestral performance was at the age of 10 playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. He subsequently performed extensively in recitals and with orchestras throughout the old USSR. His BMG Classics/RCA Red Seal CDs with the Bamberg Symphony under the baton of Claus Peter Flor and the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra with Paavo Berglund include both Mendelssohn Concertos and the Strauss Burlesque, and his series of solo recordings of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, and Prokofiev have garnered enthusiastic critical acclaim.

Frederick Chopin’s Four Ballades represent some of the most challenging music in the solo piano repertoire. They were composed between 1835 and 1842, and were the first to use the word “Ballade” (a term which was previously associated with 19th century French poetry) in a musical context. Despite a shared lyrical quality, each piece is however highly distinctive in style and mood.

The young French pianist Lise de la Salle's new project is one of the event releases of the Chopin bi-centenary year, a recording which couples the famous Four Ballades for solo piano with a live performance of the Second Piano Concerto, performed with one of the best orchestras of the time, the Staatskapelle Dresden, under its former principal conductor Fabio Luisi.

In 2007 the Staatskapelle Dresden was awarded ‘Prize of the European Culture Foundation of the Word’s Musical Heritage’ - the only orchestra in the world ever to have been so honoured. In December 2008, it was selected, as so often in the past, as one of the world's top ten orchestras - this time by Gramophone. The British magazine has also been fulsome in its praise of the pianist: “Lise de la Salle is a talent in a million.”

Lise de la Salle, born in 1988, began studying the piano aged four, gave her first concert at nine, and made her debut with orchestra in Beethoven’s Second Concerto at 13. Since 2001 she has pursued an international career that has taken her to such venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Hollywood Bowl, Metropolitan Art Space in Tokyo, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Wigmore Hall in London.

At the age of 14, her first recording (Ravel, Rachmaninov) marked the start of her collaboration with Naïve. In 2004, her second album (Bach, Liszt) was named CD of the Month by Gramophone. This was followed in 2007 by a third CD, the First Concertos of Shostakovich, Liszt, and Prokofiev with Lawrence Foster and the Gulbenkian Orchestra, which won the same distinction in Gramophone. In 2008 came a double album of Mozart and Prokofiev featuring a DVD (Lise de la Salle, Majeure!) directed by Jean-Philippe Perrot, which was named Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine Choice.

Recorded live at The Granary, Beccles U.K., this recital captures Pascal Rogé in the repertoire that has earned him the reputation as one of the world’s greatest interpreters of Chopin and the French repertoire.

Pascal Rogé is today’s greatest ambassador and stylist in French piano music. Winner of two Gramophone Awards, his name is synonymous over many years with the finest in French piano playing, both in concert and on disc for Decca, and now in Debussy for ONYX