Chopin: Étude Op. 25 No. 4 in A minor

Over three-and-a-half decades Maurizio Pollini has traversed the major works of Chopin as no other pianist of his time. Here is the legacy of this unique achievement, in a single box set for the first time. Including the complete Chopin recordings, from 1972 to 2008; the Études, Preludes, Polonaises, Sonatas, Scherzi, Ballades, and Nocturnes.

10CD boxed set collects all of Berezovsky’s recordings for both Teldec and Warner Classics.

Boris Berezovsky has established a great reputation, both as the most powerful of virtuoso pianists and as a musician gifted with a unique insight and a great sensitivity. He is regularly invited by the most prominent orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France and Philharmonia Orchestra (London). He will make his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in January 2012 With Teldec, Boris Berezovksy has recorded works of Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Medtner, Ravel and the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies. His recording of the Rachmaninov sonatas was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and his Ravel disc was recommended by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, BBC Music Magazine and Independent on Sunday. Boris Berezovsky also won the BBC Music Magazine Awards in 2006.

In October 2004, still with Warner Classics International, the Berezovsky Trio recorded the Shostakovich Trio n°2 and Rachmaninov Trio Elégiaque n°2, which were awarded the Choc de la Musique in France, the Gramophone Award in the UK and the Echo Classic 2005 in Germany. His Solo live recording of the Chopin/Godowsky Etudes, released in January 2006, received the Diapason d'Or and the RTL d'Or.

The complete recordings on Naïve of legendary Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov have now been collected into this specially-priced 10CD set. Included are critically acclaimed recordings of music by Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Chopin, Prokofiev, Scriabin, and Rachmaninov.

Samson’s early recordings, dating from the end of the 1940s, were mainly devoted to Frédéric Chopin, who already occupied a prominent position in his concert programmes.

The height of Samson’s art is probably to be found in the ballades (recorded between 26 and 28 October 1954, and first issued as an immensely successful 10" LP) and the dazzling interpretation of the nocturnes (recorded in May and June 1966).

In the ballades and the nocturnes Samson establishes an all-embracing colour with the aid of the loud pedal, although he modulates its power and creates a rainbow effect through the highly skilled, yet quite unpredictable use of the soft pedal. This alternation between the two pedals gives a breathless feeling to his approach. You will never find there the peaceful, semi-philosophical havens, nor the “landscaped” perspectives of neo-Classical pastoralism favoured by so many of his fellow artists, notably in the Fourth Ballade.

Samson strikes a balance between the visual and the narrative. The harmonic suspensions, which form the nub of the ballades, seem as if they are absorbed by this visionary ability, and all that preceded and all that followed could only be narration. Rarely have other pianists taken a similar view, and only Claudio Arrau – in his legendary first recording of the ballades made in 1953 – evolved within this perspective.

The nocturnes, recorded twelve years later, in 1966, possess the same burnished colour that characterises a Rembrandt background, despite the more analytical clarity cast by stereo sound. Once again it is Arrau, who, by voluntarily darkening his range of colours, seems to come nearest to this sultry vision of the nocturnes, while another leading interpreter of the cycle, the Polish pianist Stefan Askenase, was to fix his gaze obstinately in the direction of moonlight and the bel canto aesthetic.

If we are to go by the history of gramophone recording, no other pianist before him had discovered the personal, inimitable accent which Samson gives to the melodic pattern of these works, and which was not to be taken up by any other: over-intimate, perhaps, or over-rhapsodic, it is stylistically close to improvisation. If Samson still seems to be following a given declamatory scheme in the ballades, then the range of styles and expressiveness which he deploys for the abundant inventiveness of the nocturnes, has nothing to do with the innermost nature of the interpreter. For a good decade, Samson did not go back on his beliefs: he reinforced them.

Samson’s life was abruptly cut short in 1970 at a ridiculously early age – he was 46. Neither as pupil nor as teacher did he have any interest in pedagogy. Was this because he chose to keep his distance from all relationship or dependency? There is something of the stateless person in Samson’s pianistic style.

Furthermore, it seems very difficult to compare his art with that of other pianists. However, those French pianists of the new generation who have rediscovered Chopin (in large part thanks to Samson’s recordings), would seem to be in his debt.

Legendary Chilean-American pianist Claudio Arrau was born in 1903. During a career lasting over 60 years, he became one of the most admired instrumentalists of his generation. He was particularly revered for his performances and recordings of Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Brahms, but was also renowned for his interpretation of early 20th century music, especially that of Debussy. He died in Mürzzuschlag, Austria in 1991.

Claudio Arrau was born on 6th February 1903. Such was his prodigious talent that he gave his first public recital in Santiago at the age of five.

When he was nine he was sent, with support of the Chilean Government, to study in Berlin where he was a pupil of Martin Krause at Stern’s Conservatory for six years, he never went to another teacher.

He received many awards during his student days such that his name was already in circulation when he gave extensive tours in Germany and Scandinavia following his first recital in Berlin in 1914. He embarked on a tour of Europe after WW1. Conductors of the highest calibre – Nikisch, Mengelberg and Furtwängler amongst them – accompanied him.

After a successful return visit to his homeland in 1921 he visited London the following year where he appeared in a concert with Dame Nellie Melba and Bronislaw Huberman, the violinist who, at the age of 14, had won Brahms admiration for his performance of his concerto. In 1923 he toured the USA.

He joined the staff of Stern’s Conservatory in 1924 and taught there until 1940. In Berlin he played the complete works of Bach over 12 concerts but decided that the piano was not the instrument for these works and never played them in public again. Leaving Berlin in 1940 he returned to

Chile, where in its capital, Santiago, he founded a piano school. It was whilst on a highly successful tour of the USA during the following year that he decided to settle his family in New York.

Arrau’s reputation is built on his special affinity for the music of Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin and, above all, Beethoven whose complete sonatas he played in many major cities. His performances had all the virtuoso technique required but it was accomplished without the least ostentation; for him the music was what should remain in the audience’s ear and should not be disturbed by the flamboyance of the pianist in the audience’s eye.

Twenty years have passed since he departed but these recordings will bring back happy memories for all those lucky enough ever to have attended his concerts.