Chopin: Waltz No. 6 in D flat major, Op. 64 No. 1 'Minute Waltz' (Valse du petit chien, Little Dog's Waltz)

The Masters of the Piano Roll continues with Volume 14 in this series of recordings of the great pianists of the 20th Century.

These piano rolls are nearly 100 years old and come from a collection owned by Denis Condon who is one of the world’s most respected authorities on the piano roll and has some 18,000 in his collection

These recordings were made in 1992 and recorded on a brand new Yamaha Concert Grand under Denis’s supervision – they are not historical recordings.

Jean Dubé is internationally recognized as one of the most important young pianists of our day. He has been playing all over the world since the age of only four. He gives master classes and performs as soloist, with chamber groups and orchestras throughout the world. His Chopin recital includes a selection of Mazurkas, Nocturne Op.9, Galop Marquis and Tarantella Op.43.

Reissue Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

It is not surprising that Lipatti achieved cult status in the years following his death at the age of 33. He was an extremely sensitive musician and a man whose approach to the piano was one of utter fastidiousness, always striving for perfection in every aspect of his interpretation and performance. Throughout this Besançon recital there is a clarity of sound, evenness of attack and scrupulous attention to gradation of dynamics, characteristic hallmarks of Lipatti’s playing. The fourteen Chopin Waltzes are played in the order that Lipatti chose for performance but, according to his wife, he was too physically weak to play the last Waltz in A flat, Op. 34 No. 1, so it is included here from his commercial recording of a few months before.

Frédéric Chopin Year 2010 coincides with the 60th anniversary of Daniel Barenboim’s stage début, and as a pianist he has decided to devote this year to the great Romantic master of the keyboard.

Chopin was born on 1 March 1810 in a small village near Warsaw, and on the eve of the 200th anniversary of this date Barenboim gave this wildly acclaimed Warsaw recital as part of an extensive European tour.

The program comprised some of the composer’s best-known works, including the great B flat minor Sonata with its famous Funeral March, which sounded to many “as the composer may well have imagined it”.

While Chopin used to advise his piano scholars to take singing lessons, Barenboim, as an experienced conductor of operas is most familiar with the human voice as well. With his brilliant virtuosity, he lead the audience through a most colorful program, once again proving his talent for this composer.

Picture Format Blu-Ray: HDCAM 1080/59,94

Sound Formats Blu-Ray: DTS HD Master Audio PCM Stereo

Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Running Time: 90:45

Disc Format: BD 25

FSK: 0

Reissue Producer and Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

This volume continues the Naxos series of Rubinstein’s ‘middle period’ Chopin recordings, begun with the Piano Concertos (8111296) and followed by the Polonaises (8111346). Because the HMV/Victor catalogue already included Cortot’s complete traversal of the Waltzes (8111035), Rubinstein set down only two of them on shellac before making this complete recording in 1954. He had made previous recordings for RCA of two of the Impromptus (Opp. 51 and 66) before taping the four new versions heard on this disc.

SOMM has recently embarked on an extensive series of recordings with this pianist and this first release celebrates Chopin’s 200th anniversary. He begins his recital with the famous “Minute Waltz” and also includes Ecossaises Op. 72 and Four Mazurkas Op. 6.

Lang Lang has recorded the official soundtrack for the highly anticipated block buster video game Gran Turismo 5 for PlayStation®.

The game is launched on 24th November 2010.

All eleven tracks on the album have been newly recorded especially for this purpose.

All works on the album are part of the video game.

The 3rd movement of Prokofiev’s Sonata No.7 (track 10) is used in full length in the opening sequence of Gran Turismo.

Bach’s Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring (track 11) is featured in the final sequence.

The soundtrack consists entirely of very recognisable pieces of music.

Lang Lang’s extraordinary ability to reach out to a broad audiences and his affinity for new technologies make him the perfect artist for this project and give him scope to introduce classical music to a new and massive target group of gaming enthusiasts.

Drewnowski started playing the piano as a young child. In 1975 he recorded piano sonatas by Scarlatti and Leonard Bernstein was so impressed by his performances that he invited him to the Tanglewood Music Festival. These days he is professor of piano at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and the Academy of Music in Łódź, Poland. Here he performs on a Pleyel 1848 fortepiano.