Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
view the MP3 Album.
|
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
You cannot get much further from the conventional image of Chopin as a purveyor of attractive salon trifles than Pollini's various recordings of the Polish composer's works; Pollini was already making his name as an interpreter of twentieth-century music at its most radical, with his classic performances of Schoenberg and Boulez, and he brought to Chopin a tigerish approach that shakes up listener certainty. The Etudes were always one of Chopin's more startling productions, pieces which instruct and challenge the pianist with the technical problems they pose, but which also test innate musicality; each of them is in its different way a short passionate statement which has to be made to please the ear. Pollini brings a steely intensity to the more dramatic studies--the Revolutionary Etude, Op.10 No. 12, for example, or Op. 25 No. 10--and in the more lyrical ones is plangent without being tearstained. Even those listeners who like their Chopin more delicate and charming will find Pollini's approach a refreshing alternative, and those who tend to dismiss Chopin altogether will perhaps be persuaded entirely to reconsider. --Roz Kaveney
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
If any recording of Chopin can sit, unchallenged, in that marketing mans invention The Greatest Recordings of the Century, then this can. Don't be put off by those that quibble about Pollini playing the music 'straight'. There's nothing wrong with that and I, like many others, actually prefer him played that way.That is not to say that there is not plenty of excitement and interest in these readings. Go out and get the Polonaises and the 1st Piano Concerto as well! You will not be disappointed by playing of one of the great pianists of our time.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I really can't understand how anyone can give this recording less than 5 stars. Not only is Pollini's playing technically impeccable, but to say it lacks anything in passion or emotional impact is outright absurd: to listen to Pollini's performance of Op. 10, No. 12 and not feel the fire and urgency in his playing is to be incapable of feeling anything, period.
There are any number of performers who sacrifice all depth of feeling on the altar of showy virtuosity, but Maurizio Pollini on this particular recording is certainly not one of them. His handling of the Etudes makes, to my mind, for a healthy contrast with Martha Argerich's celebrated (but emotionally unsatisfying) rendering of Chopin's Preludes; Pollini and Argerich are both virtuosos, but where Argerich gallops through the preludes as if on a race to get somewhere else, squeezing all the feeling out of them in the process, Pollini does not let a desire to dazzle us with his abilities interfere with an interpretation of Chopin's compositions as the artist would have intended. In short, here is a recording which is about as far from "machine-like" as it is possible to get, and which proves that no choice need be made between getting things technically and emotionally correct.
There are any number of performers who sacrifice all depth of feeling on the altar of showy virtuosity, but Maurizio Pollini on this particular recording is certainly not one of them. His handling of the Etudes makes, to my mind, for a healthy contrast with Martha Argerich's celebrated (but emotionally unsatisfying) rendering of Chopin's Preludes; Pollini and Argerich are both virtuosos, but where Argerich gallops through the preludes as if on a race to get somewhere else, squeezing all the feeling out of them in the process, Pollini does not let a desire to dazzle us with his abilities interfere with an interpretation of Chopin's compositions as the artist would have intended. In short, here is a recording which is about as far from "machine-like" as it is possible to get, and which proves that no choice need be made between getting things technically and emotionally correct.
8 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This was the first recording of the Etudes I listened to. Since then, I have ploughed through the offerings of Berezovsky, Ashkenzay (the earlier version), Cortot and Zayas. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the finest recording of these pieces is by Juana Zayas (an unknown argentinan pianist). Pollini plays these pieces 'straight' and if you want to add on the extras frills in your imagination then this CD may be to your liking. Cortot plays the notes he wants to, and I've never liked his playing (!), while Berezovsky offers (in general) a more lyrical view of these pieces. Pollini gets 5 stars but get Zayas's recording...
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
![Double Decca [3]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jE42-0GsL._AA60_.jpg)
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
