Chopin: Mazurka No. 32 in C sharp minor, Op. 50 No. 3

“Min plays with the most ravishing piano tone I’ve heard in the last 50 discs I’ve listened to, at least! Her dynamic control is out of this world … anybody’s music would be served well by Min’s touch.”

Thus raved American Record Guide’s Stephen Estep in his review of a previous recording by distinguished Korean pianist Klara Min. With this release, Min brings her special touch to a seventeen-piece survey of her favorite Mazurkas – a unique “composer genre” from Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849): widely regarded as the most intimate, heartfelt, emotionally varied, and deeply personal music that this beloved “Poet of the piano” ever wrote. Loosely based on the traditional Polish mazurek dance-form, Chopin applied subtle classical sophistication and advanced (for his day) harmonic schemes to this mostly simple folk-form, elevating it into high musical art that is far better-suited to the concert stage (or classical recordings) than to dancing!

Klara Min – justly renowned for her championing of Korean composers as well as her overall versatility – applies her “ravishing piano tone” to these lovely and affecting works, as well as her rare interpretive acumen, technical wizardry, plus a deeply intuitive and soulful affinity for Chopin’s music.

Janina Fialkowski’s first Chopin recital received marvellous reviews and ATMA is delighted to release a second collection.

“This is some of Chopin’s greatest music and the playing is sheer bliss.” Sunday Times. “Her technical brilliance is matched by the vivid originality of her interpretations.” Independent – Album of the Week.

Anne Queffélec is among the most popular pianists of her generation, appreciated for the diversity of her repertoire, as her impressive discography testifies. In addition to the French repertoire, she has became particularly known for her performance of works by Mozart and Scarlatti. Her recordings include works of J.S. Bach, Scarlatti, Liszt, Chopin, Schubert, Mozart, Fauré and Debussy.

Critically acclaimed pianist Yevgeny Sudbin here presents a recital of music from Fryderyk Chopin.

Sudbin opens this disc with the expansive Fantaisie in F minor – sometimes described as the composer's 'grandest work' – continuing with a selection of pieces from three genres that are strongly associated with Chopin: Mazurkas, Nocturnes and the Ballades Nos 3 and 4.

Sudbin’s approach to Chopin’s music has been influenced by the composer’s own words regarding interpretation: 'Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties.'

In his own paraphrase of the composer’s Minute Waltz, entitled À la minute, Sudbin displays all of his skills that led Piano Magazine to describe him as 'a fearless technician with an all-encompassing command of his instrument; a musical dramatist of exceptional acumen and sophistication; a poet who moves seamlessly between unbridled rhetoric and extreme intimacy; a stylist who catches the particular spirit of everything he plays'.

Evgeni Bozhanov is a distinguished Bulgarian pianist carried by the temperament of great virtuosity from the late 19th and the early 20th century. He is the winner of the 2nd Prize in the prestigious Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium [Belgium, 2010] and has won awards in numerous piano competitions since 1996, including 4th prize in the 16th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw [2010].

This CD gives the listener the opportunity to savour the artistry of Bozhanov’s piano playing, as it illustrates well his interesting and individual approach to Frederic Chopin’s works.