Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21

Shura Cherkassky (1909–1995) enjoyed a long career of over seventy years, rising to the forefront of internationally acclaimed concert pianists, first in America (where his family emigrated to escape the Russian Revolution), and after 1961 in London, where he lived until his death in 1995.

A pupil of the legendary Josef Hofmann at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Cherkassky made his concert debut in Baltimore at the age of eleven, touring Australia and South Africa in 1925, and thereafter building up what was almost an obsession for foreign travel as he satisfied an incessant demand for festival appearances, solo and concerto recitals. He moved to California in the 1940s, appearing at the Hollywood Bowl with Sir John Barbirolli and Leopold Stokowski, and after the war, he developed his second, European career, scoring an outstanding success in Hamburg in 1946 and in London, following his acclaimed Wigmore Hall recital in March 1957.

Although he had an enormous repertoire stretching from Bach to Berio, the highpoints of Cherkassky’s career for many remain his interpretations of the concertos of fellow Russian composers like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, and he is now classed alongside Horowitz and Rubinstein as a legendary and sensitive re-interpreter of the nineteenth-century Romantic repertory.

Cherkassky’s phenomenal virtuosity, colour range, imagination and spontaneity made him the ideal Chopin interpreter, though he never commercially recorded the two Chopin Concertos, so this is an important addition to his CD discography.

These live performances from the 1980s present Cherkassky at his most spontaneous and charismatic. As Robert Orledge has written in his booklet notes, “but if purists may now view some of his interpretations as idiosyncratic, there is still no denying that we are in the presence of a first-rate musician who understood better than many pianists what Chopin’s harmony and voice-leading were about, and who could make what are early works sound like monuments to his mature genius.” Superbly remastered in excellent stereo sound.

A Liszt recital on Sony Classical last year was Khatia Buniatishvili’s critically acclaimed debut as a recording artist. After the great recognition of this first album, she is now following this up with an album that encompasses five works by Frédéric Chopin. This album marks her debut concerto recording with orchestra.

Khatia Buniatishvili has been described by The Independent as “the young Georgian firebrand”. At the age of only 24 years, this Tblisi-born pianist has already achieved an exceptional maturity of interpretation and a distinctive artistic approach that make her playing unmistakable.

In the current season she is the “rising star” in Vienna at the Musikverein and Konzerthaus, is giving recitals in Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam and Paris, as well as at the Wigmore Hall, is a guest at the festivals in Schwetzingen, Lucerne and Verbier and is making her first appearances with the Munich Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony.

Two releases on Deutsche Grammophon will be devoted to Chopin: a solo recital recorded in Warsaw, with deeply-felt Waltzes, a Polonaise, a Fantasia, a Nocturne and the B flat minor Sonata, as well as Chopins two Concertos, accompanied by the Berlin Staatskapelle under Andris Nelsons, captured live at the Ruhr Piano Festival in July 2010.

To mark the bicentenary of Chopin’s birth, two leading Russian pianists tackle the great Romantic composer’s two piano concertos: Evgeny Kissin plays the F minor Concerto op. 21, a key work in Chopin’s output, while Nikolai Demidenko performs the E minor Concerto op. 11, a virtuoso display vehicle of the first rank. They are accompanied by the Warsaw Philharmonic under the direction of Antoni Wit. Enthusiastically acclaimed by the audience at Warsaw’s Philharmonic Hall on 27 February 2010, this memorable concert has been captured in first-class sound and picture quality.

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

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

Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Running Time: 96:54 min

Disc Format: BD 25

FSK: 0

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.