Chopin: Andante spianato & Grande Polonaise, Op. 22

Dominic Piers Smith was the winner of the Yamaha International Amateur Pianist Competition in 2008. As part of his award he performed at the Royal Festival Hall in February 2009 with the LPO, playing Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto. He received a standing ovation and excellent critical comment for his performance.

In his non-musical career, Dominic is the lead aerodynamics engineer for Mercedes Grand Prix – previously Brawn GP (and to the end of 2008 were Honda GP), who won the Formula 1 Constructor Championship in 2009 (as well as the World Driver Championship with Jensen Button). The team have high expectations for their 2010 car - the season restarts in March, together with their new driver, seven times world champion, Michael Schumacher. Whatever happens this year in the GP world, Dominic and Mercedes are sure to be at the forefront.

This debut CD was recorded late in 2008 with support from both Yamaha and Honda GP. Comprising two CD’s – one of Chopin and one of Liszt, the repertoire features both familiar and lesser known pieces of varying degrees of complexity, which ably demonstrate Dominic’s musicality and tremendous talent.

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 Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor Alfred Cortot is regarded as one of the greatest 20th century musicians, especially renowned for his poetic insight into the Romantic period piano works and is particularly associated with those of Chopin. A must for enthusiasts of piano music and great performances.

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