Chopin: Nineteen Waltzes
May 25, 2016The consummate aristocrat with a huge technique at his diposal, Magaloff despatches stylish and glittering performances of the complete Chopin Waltzes.
The consummate aristocrat with a huge technique at his diposal, Magaloff despatches stylish and glittering performances of the complete Chopin Waltzes.
The best of Chopin’s solo piano works – selections from his Polonaises, Waltzes, Mazurkas, Ballades, Preludes – in performances that have been praised time and again over the years from such celebrities as Nikita Magaloff, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Joseph Cooper, Peter Katin and Julius Katchen.
Chopin raised the pedagogic ‘study’ (étude) to entirely new levels with his Opp. 10 and 25. Virtuoso studies, testing the technique of any pianist, they are also incredibly poetic works. Here they are unforgettably played by Nikita Magaloff. The ‘Trois Nouvelles Études’, three tiny gems that were posthumously published, complete this oeuvre.
Three wondrous Schumann piano works on a single CD. Gulda’s iridescent ‘Fantasiestucke’ was issued in the early days of the compact disc. Haebler’s beautifully-shaded account of ‘Papillons’ receives its first release on CD (outside Japan, where it is also currently unavailable) and likewise Magaloff’s ‘Etudes symphoniques’ (only ever issued in France, and no longer available).
Chopin’s mazurkas are unique in that they occupied him throughout the course of his career. He wrote nearly sixty of them. The first was written when he was still a teenager and the last was written in 1849, the year of his death. By the time he had completed the four mazurkas that comprise Op. […]
The two books of ‘Goyescas’ constitute Granados’ best and most durable as well as his best-known, music. Subtitled ‘Los majos enamorados’ (Young men in love), they are highly imaginative transcriptions into music of the tapestries and pictures of Francisco Goya (1746-1828), the wild and demonic genius who with Velasquez is usually thought of as one of the […]