Chopin: Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23

Arthur Rubinstein (1887–1982) was one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. After brief studies with Paderewski in Switzerland in 1903, Rubinstein moved to Paris, where he met Ravel and Dukas, and played Saint-Saëns’s G minor Concerto to the composer’s approval. He made his debuts in the USA in 1906 and London in 1912. He was a superb performer of Chopin and his 1960s recordings of nearly all Chopin’s solo piano music have been considered essential to any record collection since their release.

He was also a formidable interpreter of Spanish music.

Rubinstein became a naturalised American citizen in 1946, but he maintained residences in California, New York, Paris and Geneva. After the Second World War, he refused to perform in Germany, in response to the Nazi extermination of his Polish family. Rubinstein became a strong supporter of Israel with an international piano competition named after him in 1974. His honours included the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society of London, the US Medal of Freedom (1976), and membership of the French Legion of Honour.

This is a rare live recording of Rubinstein made by the BBC in 1963. It has only recently been discovered in the National Sound Archives.

It has never been issued before in any format.

The recital contains repertoire by composers that were closely associated with the pianist: Chopin, Ravel and Beethoven. Rubinstein’s temperament had sufficient fire for Beethoven but enough poetry for Chopin; his tempos and dynamics were always flexible, but never distorted.

Rubinstein’s recording of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No.2 on ICA Classics (ICAC5003) was a Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’, with Rubinstein’s playing praised for its ‘legendary charisma and indelible individuality’.

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!

Emil Gilels played a sonata by Scarlatti at his first public concert in 1929 and included them in his tours to the West in the 1950s. These recordings present a splendid group of the composer’s widely contrasting moods. Gilels was a true virtuoso in the Lisztian tradition, combining musical integrity with rarely equalled technique. The Fantasia was one of the works with which he won the First Soviet All-Union Competition in 1933, while his recordings of the Hungarian Rhapsodies and three works by Chopin are full of character and personality. A recently discovered notebook in which Gilels logged some of his recording sessions has made the dating of these recordings more accurate in this edition.

Ward Marston, audio restoration engineer

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.

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.

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).

This is the second installment of Géza Anda’s recordings from the archives of the SWR. His early reputation was built upon his unrivaled mastery of the great Romantic repertoire. His infallible sense of form, and understanding of the inner workings of the music and his brilliant, unsentimental performing style have influenced subsequent generations of pianists. These are recordings from 1950, 1951 & 1955.