Chopin: Étude Op. 10 No. 5 in G flat major 'Black Key'

IRENE SCHARRER, though perhaps the least remembered of the major Matthay pupils, was the earliest to record, beginning in 1909 at the age of 21.That in itself is a credit to her early fame, which she established through an extrovert, but always musical, virtuosity.

She excelled in such works as the Chopin Etudes, nine of which she recorded, and in other brilliant pieces such as those here by Scarlatti and Liszt, but the poise and refinement of her Chopin nocture or the slow movement of the Mozart sonata reveal another side to her playing that is sadly underrepresented on disc. Her final recording, of the Litolff Scherzo, was also her most famous; in its day it was a best seller and was responsible for putting that work on the musical map. This set reissues for the first time all Scharrer’s electrical recordings and also an example of every work she recorded in the acoustic era (pre 1925) that was not later remade as an electrical recording. For completeness, a discography of all her other acoustic recordings is also included.

Chopin‘s oeuvre is extraordinarily manifold. It contains the whole spectrum of feelings that can stir the human soul: from the most subtle and profoundly personal emotions in the nocturnes and mazurkas to those grandiose feelings reflecting the epic of a whole nation in the polonaises and sonatas. Listening to his music is for us like experiencing a miracle. For a born Chopin interpreter is not someone who plays a lot of Chopin, but someone who finds that special “Chopin quality” in his own soul which enables him to discover in his interpretation of Chopin what no-one has discovered before him, but what is in harmony with Chopin’s world, Chopin’s poetry. Pianist Boris Bloch has a very familiar relationship to Chopin: “Today Chopin represents for me that ivory tower where I seek refuge in these troubled times in which we live.”

Hardy Rittner regularly creates sensations with his interpretations.

He has won several Echo Klassic prizes.

These performances are on an 1835 Conrad Graf Piano.

…dedicated to Chopin, with all my respect and love. I wish that I could have cooked these recipes for him. I wish that he could have given me his reactions, even if he were to pronounce the idea insane, or were to comment that he never would have chosen fish for Opus 25 Nos. 4 and 5…" Evelyne Brancart

The brilliant pianist Evelyne Brancart, for the past ten years head of the prestigious piano department at Indiana University, has enjoyed a lifelong love affair with Chopin's 24 Études. Her workshops and master classes on the Études are popular events. When she's not performing or teaching, she makes a specialty of creating scrumptious French cuisine. Now these two passions are joined in a unique project, Chez Chopin.

Chez Chopin offers a live performance of the 24 Études — full of spontaneity, subtlety, abandon, joy and insight. Listening to such a delightful performance of these pieces, one can't help recognizing what fun they can be to play. Each Étude is paired with a detailed recipe, accompanied by mouth-watering illustrations of the finished dish.

Brancart says: "Gathering together in the presence of brilliant music to share a magnificent meal feeds both brain and body… I am modestly but joyfully celebrating Chopin’s Études by associating them with color, taste and smell. I hope that you find this collection pleasurable. Chopin; a lot of flavor; food for the soul."

A musical feast — a new way to experience the Chopin Études.

The package includes a CD-ROM, with printable recipes and color photos.

Each recipe on the CD-ROM has a soundtrack — its corresponding Étude.

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.

This fourth volume of late Cortot completes APR’s survey of the post-war recordings which the pianist made for EMI in the UK. We are now entering the era of tape recording, and apart from the Deutsche Ländler of 1951, all the other titles, which date from 1953-54, were recorded in this new medium. This gave the artist new freedom, as he was not restriced to the length of a 78rpm side for each take, and Cortot tackled much of his ‘big’ repertoire again. Sadly, by this time his failing health meant that many works remained unissued as they did not meet the standards of his earlier magnificent versions, however some old warehorses did stand the test of time, as can be heard in the Carnaval featured here. His playing may have become technically more fallible but the performances fully support the claim of the late Thomas Manshardt, one of Cortot's last pupils, that this period of Cortot's career "is his greatest in thought and warmth and mastery’.

The booklet contains a discography of all Cortot’s HMV sessions from 1953 to 1955.

The Argentinian pianist Nelson Goerner, whose Chopin playing has prompted Gramophone to describe him as ”a player of exalted poetic verve”, celebrated the bicentenary of Chopin’s birth with a major series of performances of his music, including this Wigmore Hall concert last October. His recital begins with Chopin’s last large-scale work, the Polonaise-Fantaisie, one of Goerner’s favourite pieces by Chopin, which he regards as among his greatest and most visionary works. “This is one of the peaks of Chopin’s last years, belonging to the series of masterpieces he wrote towards the end of his life when he was at his most daring and harmonically imaginative”, Goerner says.

He ended the first part of this Wigmore Hall recital with the Grande Polonaise, which Chopin wrote in 1830 during his final months in Poland, adding the Andante spianato five years later to play at one of his concerts in Paris. Chopin composed his Études Op. 10 around the time of the Grande Polonaise, when he was in his early twenties.

For his encores Goerner turned first to another composer with whose music he is particularly associated, Sergei Rachmaninov, who was such a great admirer of Chopin and was strongly influenced by his music. The second encore returns to Chopin and the last of his Preludes, the D minor, once famously described as ‘blood, voluptuousness and death’.

The name Nelson Goerner is already firmly established as one of the most remarkable pianists of his generation. Following a meeting with Martha Argerich, he received a scholarship which enabled him to travel to Europe, where his meeting with Maria Tipo - the other key influence on his musical life - took place. Since then, Nelson Goerner has given recitals in the world’s most prestigious concert halls; he has been invited to many festivals including Lucerne, La Roque d’Anthéron, La Grange de Meslay (where he replaced Sviatoslav Richter at a moment’s notice), BBC Proms, Aldeburgh and Salzburg. Future appearances include return invitations to the Verbier and Schleswig-Holstein festivals, as well as recitals in Paris, Geneva, Warsaw and Buenos Aires.

CONCERT REVIEW:

“Everything about Goerner’s playing of the Opus 10 set revealed his finely balanced, secure and non-showy musicianship [and] his formidable technique... This was very impressive playing – flawlessly even arpeggios in No.1, a wonderful legato and unusual sense of perspective in No.3, fantastically rapid and defined finger work in No.4, a surprising outburst of high spirits to rival Cortot (but without the mistakes) in No.8, and a fearlessly tempestuous ‘Revolutionary’. “Goerner’s range of colour and touch, allied to clarity of technique and discretion of temperament, puts him on a par with the great Chopin pianists.” Classical Source, October 2009

Sensational: a first recording by Géza Anda of Chopin’s 12 Etudes Op. 10. He once said of Op. 10 No. 1 that you have to have been a pianist for 25 years before you can play it. The Hungarian pianist Géza Anda (1921–76) was a celebrated interpreter of classical and romantic repertoire. Particularly noted for his performances and recordings of Mozart, he was also a tremendous interpreter of Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Bartók. In his heyday he was regarded as an amazing artist, possessed of a beautiful, natural and flawless technique that gave his concerts a unique quality. But since his death in 1976 at the age of fifty-four, his high reputation has faded somewhat from view.