Search - Artur Rubinstein :: Great Pianists 85

Artur Rubinstein
Great Pianists 85
Genres: Dance & Electronic, Classical

Track Listings (14) - Disc #1
1. Andante spianato, Op. 22
2. Grande Polonaise brillante, Op. 22
3. Nocturne In C Minor, Op. 48 No. 1
4. Nocturne In F Sharp Minor, Op. 48 No. 2
5. Polonaise In A, Op. 40 No. 1 'Military'
6. Waltz In C Sharp Minor, Op. 64 No. 2
7. Nocturne In C Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No. 1
8. Nocturne In D Flat, Op. 27 No. 2
9. Waltz In D Flat, Op. 64 No. 1 'Minute'
10. Berceuse In D Flat, Op. 57
11. Impromptu No. 1 In A Flat, Op. 29
12. Impromptu No. 2 In F Sharp, Op. 36
13. Impromptu No. 3 In G Flat, Op. 51
14. Scherzo No. 3 In C Sharp Minor, Op. 39
Track Listings (17) - Disc #2
1. Ballade No. 3 In A Flat, Op. 47
2. Trois nouvelles etudes, Op. Posth.: 1. In F Minor
3. Trois nouvelles etudes, Op. Posth.: 2. In A Flat
4. Trois nouvelles etudes, Op. Posth.: 3. In D Flat
5. Fantaisie-Impromptu In C Sharp Minor, Op. 66
6. Waltz In A Flat, Op. 34 No. 1
7. Waltz In A Flat, Op. 42 'Two-Four-Waltz'
8. Mazurkas, Op. 68: 1. In C
9. Mazurkas, Op. 68: 2. In A Minor
10. Mazurkas, Op. 68: 3. In F
11. Mazurkas, Op. 68: 4. In F Minor
12. Piano Sonata No. 2 In B Flat Minor, Op. 35 'Funeral March': Grave - Doppio movimento
13. Piano Sonata No. 2 In B Flat Minor, Op. 35 'Funeral March': Scherzo
14. Piano Sonata No. 2 In B Flat Minor, Op. 35 'Funeral March': Marche funebre. Lento
15. Piano Sonata No. 2 In B Flat Minor, Op. 35 'Funeral March': Finale. Presto
16. Ballade No. 4 In F Minor, Op. 52
17. Polonaise No. 6 In A Flat 'Heroic'

CD Details

All Artists: Artur Rubinstein
Title: Great Pianists 85
Members Wishing: 2
Total Copies: 0
Label: Polygram Records
Release Date: 11/10/1998
Genres: Dance & Electronic, Classical
Styles: Chamber Music, Forms & Genres, Ballads, Concertos, Etudes, Fantasies, Sonatas, Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830), Modern, 20th, & 21st Century, Romantic (c.1820-1910), Instruments, Keyboard
Number of Discs: 2
SwapaCD Credits: 2
UPC: 028945695525

Synopsis

Amazon.com

Few soloists have owned composers as definitively as Artur Rubinstein could claim Chopin. Rubinstein's delivery of the composer has struck many speechless for its clarity--assurance at once that this is extraordinary, complex music and that it's likable even to general audiences (who could be easily repelled by the music in a lesser pianist's hands). The more than 150 minutes of Rubinstein's Chopin collected here are stellar, from the seductive nocturnes (recorded in 1965) to Rubinstein's head-spinning read of the Piano Sonata No. 2 ("Funeral March"). Like so much here, the music seems to display virtuosity and a kind of sheer surface of undiluted emotion, through which one can sense agony and amazement, angst and agility. What makes this Chopin collection so commendable is its revelation of Rubinstein's split-second imagination, his long-form command of line and extreme detail in tone colors as well as his dramatic sense of when the pieces should blow wide open. Which they do. There is much familiar here, but in this form, the works (all recorded between 1959 and 1965) invite plentiful new moments of discovery. --Andrew Bartlett

CD Reviews

Incredible CD

Hiram Gomez Pardo | 05/31/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Rubinstein is undoubtedly the most incredible performer of Chopin I have ever heard. His Grande Polonaise brillante is simply breathtaking."

An approach which actually has been neglected and forgotten!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 02/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"According to the great romantic musical tradition and the marvelous coincidence of having born in Poland (without forget Paderewski) - an additional evidence which supports the romantic paradigm- , a true archetype has been made around the prestigious figure of this emblematic pianist.

Rubinstein indeed, belonged to that missed Romantic approach that emphasized the lyrical flight permeated with intention (and not a task by itself); the patriot, the man who would never return to his native country, oppressed yesterday and today, but inflaming the heroic conscious specially evidenced in the Polonaises and Scherzos.

Rubinstein was the embodiment of the romantic hero per excellence; and that fact was, apart his undeniable musical virtues, an invisible support which worked out in his favor around the world.

After him, Haraziewickz and Malcuzinski followed similar traces as so well the legendary Cziffra (from Hungary) and Vladimir Feltsman in the seventies fed the exile tradition, and in that sense we would have to write a book to describe similar behavior patterns in pianists, violinists, conductors, cellists, who emigrated from other latitudes.

Rubinstein `s Chopin most I love comes from the thirties. You can realize how his fortes sounded with such febrile intensity and sense of the span, and his ethereal pianissimos shaped a Chopin provided with luminosity, where the romantic vein coexisted with the epic, the virile musculature and the aristocratic flame. This last aspect seems to have been absolutely ignored in the last decades. Maybe Christian Zimmermann was the last exponent of that vision; and the reason is evident the aristocracy mood can not be assimilated or understood in those times by obvious reasons. That explains the reason why many critics deplore this vision, describing it as de mode, forgetting this element is one of the most important factors at the time to listen that chamber music.

If you listen this Chopin, you will realize how the approach changed after the WW2, where the emotion prevailed above the score; and the meditative atmosphere was substituted by the sentimentalism ( Malcom Frager `s Chopin is an excellent example that illustrates this argument).

Fortunately for all of us, Alfred Cortot, Dinu Lipatti, Samson Francois, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli demonstrated convincingly the other side of the moon in what Chopin concerns: the man and his circumstance.

"