Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35 ('Funeral March') In B-Flat Minor: Grave - Doppio movimento
Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35 ('Funeral March') In B-Flat Minor: Scherzo
Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35 ('Funeral March') In B-Flat Minor: Marche funebre: Lento
Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35 ('Funeral March') In B-Flat Minor: Final: Presto
Impromptu No. 3, Op. 51In G-Flat
Artur Rubinstein was a Chopin specialist and recorded the composer's work often throughout his very long career. But he only recorded the complete 24 Preludes once, in 1946, and that is the recording we have here. (All the... more » other material on the CD was recorded the same year, albeit at different times.) The Preludes are wonderful little works, none longer than four and a half minutes. Rubinstein is particularly masterful in the popular Nos. 19 and 20, which can sound too familiar; he makes us hear them anew. I also wouldn't want to be without the fiery No. 8 or the elegant No. 11, and elsewhere there are fine details to be found as well. As for the other works, the big Sonata, op. 35, is a gem, with its oft-heard but always gripping Funeral March and its overt theatricality, which Rubinstein takes full advantage of. He may have added more depth (and the sound is certainly fuller-bodied and clearer) in his later recordings, but his energy and brilliant technique were never better than they are here. --Robert Levine« less
Artur Rubinstein was a Chopin specialist and recorded the composer's work often throughout his very long career. But he only recorded the complete 24 Preludes once, in 1946, and that is the recording we have here. (All the other material on the CD was recorded the same year, albeit at different times.) The Preludes are wonderful little works, none longer than four and a half minutes. Rubinstein is particularly masterful in the popular Nos. 19 and 20, which can sound too familiar; he makes us hear them anew. I also wouldn't want to be without the fiery No. 8 or the elegant No. 11, and elsewhere there are fine details to be found as well. As for the other works, the big Sonata, op. 35, is a gem, with its oft-heard but always gripping Funeral March and its overt theatricality, which Rubinstein takes full advantage of. He may have added more depth (and the sound is certainly fuller-bodied and clearer) in his later recordings, but his energy and brilliant technique were never better than they are here. --Robert Levine
Hank Drake | Cleveland, OH United States | 09/03/2000
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Arthur Rubinstein was the 20th Century's most influential exponent of Chopin's music. But genius doesn't operate on an assembly line basis, and Rubinstein's gift for Chopin largely escaped him when these recordings were made.Rubinstein was generally more at home in the larger Chopin works, where broad narrative sweep and Rubinstein's instinctive understanding of musical architecture served him well. The shorter pieces, such as the Etudes and Preludes, were more tricky for him--perhaps the reason why there are no authorized recordings of the Etudes (except the Trois Novelles Etudes) and only one complete recording of the Preludes. In this recording, from the late 1940s, the Preludes are dispatched in a rather perfunctory fashion, with very little individuality or poetry. Music lovers looking for these small masterpieces on CD are best advised to obtain recordings by Bolet, Argerich, Cortot, or Cherkassky. The Sonata, Op. 35, is played well enough here--although Rubinstein tends to pound in outer sections of the Scherzo. The pianist's 1961 stereo remake is to be preferred here. There is an equally fine recording by Horowitz (1962, Sony) and the mightiest version of all, Rachmaninoff's (1930, BMG).The other performances on this CD are fine, but the stereo versions are still to be preferred. The mono sound throughout is rather hard and airless."
Ignore the 1 stars
J. Zhu | toronto | 04/04/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"apparently the people who voted one stars don't know jack about historical recordings... this recording sounds how it's supposed to sound: 1940's but the sound doesn't take away from the good performance given by rubinstein here. my five star is to counter those two one star votes... if we still treasure schnabel's 1930's traversal of beethoven sonatas, there is no reason to ignore this because of sound... sound mavens u can stay away because obviously you do not care about a good performance."
Self-recommending Rubinstein Chopin and a listening tip
Robert J. Cruce | Muskogee, OK United States | 02/25/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I waited years for reissues of historic Rubinstein recordings and am grateful for this one especially. It is the only complete set of the Preludes. When I put this disc on I heard the noise, too. But I have been down this road before and suggest one should turn down the treble drastically. Won't that make the sound "muffled"? Not at all. Try it on someone who has never heard the CD before and see if they don't think the recordings sound fine. The remastering is wonderful, but BMG is not tampering too much with the source material as was so often done in the bad old days. You are being shown respect as a record buyer. Try sound tailoring of this special kind on historic recordings when necessary."
It's still Ruby
Kevin McManus | Milan, MI Italy | 09/04/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This CD is best suited for Rubinstein's fans; other listeners have no reason to prefer these recordings of the Sonata, the Impromptu, the Berceuse and the Barcarolle to the later stereo versions. The Preludes are a strange case in Ruby's carreer: though being the best performer of Chopin ever, Rubinstein never found the key to the heart of these pieces; anyway, it's still Ruby, and you can feel it in that particular mixture of passion and noblesse that surrounds, for example, n. 6, n. 15 or n. 16, or in the beautiful tone of n. 1 and n. 21. Sound quality is quite bad, but I don't think that's enough for a one-star review, right?"
Track Listings (31) - Disc #1
