Classical music reviews

Add the Conus to the list of forgotten russian violin masterpieces alongside the Miakovsky and Taneyev. This work has everything a music lover and violinist could ever want: moments of soaring lyrical melody morphing into dramatic displays of virtuosity. There simply is no finer recording of the Conus available thus far.

Mr. Heifetz is one of the best known soloists of the century and of course he handles this work with a fine staccato and for once I have to admit I really like his tone and vibrato. This is easily the best recording I have ever heard of Mr Heifetz's playing and Im in love with this concerto. His tone is what I describe as a white translucent sound, not as colorful as Oistrakh or Emlan but his sound is his own and projects well and balances well with the orchestra, when you hear Heifetz you know it is him, probably the most unique and distinctive of all soloists. His playing always has an edge and sense of agression and every note is so cleanly articulated, never is there any blurring togather of notes, truly Heifetz is easliy one of the best soloists the world has known and was able to maintain this level of consistency from about 1910 - 1970, an unprescidented 60 years of violin mastry unmatched by anoy other violinist for the 20th century. I can not help but to respect that fact.

While I find the sound quality and playing to be fantastic for a mono recording, I would love to hear a modern recording by someone like Repin, Oliveira, Kavakos, or Ehnes and this is a concerto that should be played alot more in the mainstream of soloists. Even still, if anyone out there is listening, this is a phenominal recording that deserves to be reissued.

For those of you who don't know, Wieniawski has always been the next best thing to Paganini who wrote the most elaborate music showcasing extreme technique while still containing melody with substance, make that fierce melody. Sadly, two of the finest recordings by Gitlis and Szeryng are simply not available. My opinion is that no one even came close to the amount of beauty that Rabin created while still keeping that intense level of agression, flawless intonation, and impeccable technique. The Heifetz recording is however the only other available recording I can listen to as a contrast. Somehow, on a personal level, I find the recordings of Perlman and Shaham to be full of great tone but lacking musically.

Max Bruch wrote music of undeniable beauty with more emphasis on musical maturity than pyrotechnics. His neglected second violin concerto is no exception. The Bruch 2 is not as appealing as the first or third concertos to me but is still an intensely melodic work filled with so much beauty that you can not help but to fall in love with it. For quality of tone, I seem to prefer Accardo and for an unparalleled level of expression and musicality I prefer Ehnes, but this serves as a great third opinion, being more of a true virtuoso-like performance.

This is easly a 5 star CD all the way, please reissue this soon.

These are not works that make you think. In the feast of the violin repertoire, these are lollipops. That said, Heifetz manages to cook up quite an impressive case for these small and, frankly, insubstantial works. The Wieniawski, undoubtedly the best known of these works, is dazzling in virtuosity, and its melodic lines are memorable in Heifetz's hands. Its second mvmnt Romance is unsurpassed on record. The Bruch, a forgotten son next to the G minor Concerto and Scottish Fantasy, is revealed to be full of mysterious lyricism and a bouyant finale. Jascha pulls its meandering melodies into a meaningful whole - brining perspective to its passionate sighs and outbursts. The Conus, the real find in this collection, is a suave and delightful gem, full of tunefull melodies and virtuoustic displays. Fun music well worth discovering. Or maybe its just Heifetz.

In these works for violin and orchestra Heifetz shows once again why he is so beloved. Heifetz was at the peak of his powers both technically and in his musical maturaty. The little known Conus violin concerto is played so that you find yourself asking why this work is not performed more often. It ends with such an exciting coda with Heifetz pulling out all his virtuosity and passion. The orchestra also does a good job in accompanying him. A very unique and good CD to add to your collection.

Kleiber was always one for tension over charm, tautness over relaxation. Keep that in mind when you listen to these galvanic but tense readings, marvels of conductorial control and orchestral unity, but not the gneial, smiling Strauss you might be used to--or desire. I respect this CD but rarely play it, preferring Karajan quite a lot over Kleiber in this material. But Kleiber's complete Fledermaus sweeps the field, as others have noted.

If possible, just listen LOOKING at the way Caelos Kleiber conducts it.

...when you are stranded on a lonely island, with a beautiful wom...

Ok, seriously: Carlos Kleiber (God bless him!) was the best of all Johann Strauss conductors, actually in my opinion far better than Karajan (who's work I otherwise respect a lot). Kleiber brings a joy and a gaiety to these pieces that has found no match before or since.

At the same time, he does always have a little of typical viennnese melancholy present, largely through his delayed rythms, exactly like true viennese waltzes want it. They live from the interplay of the gaiety of the strings and the melancholy of the delayed rythm.

Kleiber understood this, many others, including Karajan, didn't.

This recording from the 1989 Neujahrskonzert is magnificient in every way. The sound quality, unusual for a live recording, is excellent, capturing the Wiener Philharmoniker in all their depth and detail, and it becomes soon clear, probably especially for the occasion with the hermitic mystic magician on the podium, that they were beyond just top form that evening.

Do not miss this! This is the summit. Look no further.

Much of this music is of classic-operatic quality. Notably, the overture to The Seventh Victim is really dynamic; it makes creative use of the RKO call-signal as a launch-pad to segue into the main theme, and never lets up.

Cat People-The Aftermath is also very moving, reminiscent of the best work of Prokofiev and Shostakovich (who also wrote movie-music).

A good introduction to the genre of popular film scores for those who prefer classics. Those who enjoy this should check out Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

The film music of Webb, a sort of budget (non-pejorative sense) Max Steiner, furthers Marco Polo's solid record for crackerjack re-recordings of classic and undervalued film music. The album's namesake, with its lyrical themes (including a traditional lullaby culled from Igor Stravinsky's "Berceuse du Chat") and sentimentality, is great music, though as a horror score its naivet� dulls the thunder and lightening. The other scores -- "Bedlam", "The Seventh Victim", "The Body Snatcher", and "I Walked With a Zombie" seem more assured. I do wonder when the hired vocalists will match the quality of the instrumental performances, but this is a minuscule puzzle, though increasingly annoying.

Of all the film music discs produced by Marco Polo and conducted by William Stromberg, this is, in my opinion, the most important. I am aware of only one other disc devoted to the music of Roy Webb and that was a release of original soundtracks on the Silva Screen label (CNS 5008). It is an essential buy but it contains only one extended suite (the marvelous Curse of the Cat People). Most of the cues last only a couple of minutes and offer a mere sampling of the work Webb was doing at RKO during the 1940s. The sound of these recordings is in mono but is excellent nonetheless. Aside from the Silva disc and a couple of re-recorded suites (Notorious on Varese Sarabande and The Seventh Victim on a long-out-of-print Decca album entitled Satan Superstar!), Webb's music has been largely ignored. Why this is may have to do with the nature of Webb's scoring which is unusually restrained when compared with that of his contemporaries. I've often noticed how a Webb score lurks in the background--an ominous presence more felt than heard.

What happens when you pull this music away from its source and bring it out into the light? To me the result is a revelation. Far from being just a series of chromatic chords and orchestral effects, Webb's music is multi-layered; relying on complex counterpoint, impressionist-like harmonies and thoroughly-worked thematic development for its effect. He's been described as a composer ahead of his time and I can understand why. His methods of scoring resemble those more commonly used in the 1950s and 60s when composers such as North, Friedhofer, Bernstein and Goldsmith were paring down the rhetoric and bombast that had afflicted so many scores during Hollywood's "Golden Age". Webb seems to have led the way in this regard and its sad that he has lingered in near obscurity for so long.

I should have known that John Morgan and Bill Stromberg would come to them rescue. They have similarly served other underrated composers such as H.J. Salter, Frank Skinner and Hugo Friedhofer and their discs devoted to these composers have been the highlights of the Marco Polo series. This new Webb disc is now my absolute favorite. Aside from the fact that the music is extraordinarily good, I also feel this disc features Bill Stromberg's very best and most sensitive conducting captured in sound that is superior to other issues in this series. That may be the result of a change of recording venues for this disc, along with the brilliant new recording of mystery and horror scores by Salter and Skinner, was recorded using the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra rather than the usual Moscow Symphony Orchestra. The war in Serbia evidently made it impossible for Morgan and Stromberg to get to Moscow at the time these recordings were made. I was initially disappointed when I learned that Marco Polo had chosen Bratislava and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra because I haven't been too impressed with that orchestra's playing on other Marco Polo discs - especially those conducted by Adriano. Here they sound completely in sync with Webb's idiom. I can only guess that the combination of the music and Stromberg's inspired musical leadership drew from them their very best playing.

As is usually the case with these old scores, Morgan had to rely on piano reductions and his extraordinary ears to reconstruct the music. Webb's scoring is much more subtle and chamber-like and Morgan has resisted the temptation to beef it up. There were only a few places where I felt a fuller string sound would have helped such as in the main titles for Bedlam and The Seventh Victim, otherwise the reconstructions sound note perfect to my ears. Morgan had literally hundreds of Webb scores to chose from when compiling this disc but he selected a few that Webb wrote for RKO producer Val Lewton. It was the perfect choice. The Lewton/Webb partnership is one of the less lauded but most significant in the history of film. Lewton's films are frequently described as psychological horror films and almost all contain a "walk" or long stretch during which one of the characters travels through some ominous landscape to escape danger or resolve a conflict. The most famous example may be the walk through the sugar canes in I Walked With A Zombie or little Teresa's evening journey to buy flour in The Leopard Man. These segments are devoid of dialogue. A less sophisticated composer may have papered such delicate scenes with layers of music but not Roy Webb. His scoring, when it's used, is subtly integrated into all the other elements of the scene in a way uncommon with film scoring during that time. Lewton was extremely fortunate to have had access to a composer whose understated style so beautifully reflected his own.

This disc contains extended suites from Cat People and The Seventh Victim and shorter suites from Bedlam, The Body Snatcher and I Walked With A Zombie. It's a generously filled disc (70 minutes) and Morgan has done his usual masterful job in putting the suites together. I'm especially pleased that he has given us so much of the score for The Seventh Victim. It is an absolute masterpiece and the highlight of this disc. The film itself is Lewton's darkest and Webb's score is mesmerizing in the way that it is manages to be both eerily beautiful and deeply unsettling. Listen to the cues "The Palladists' Trial", "The Chase" and "Desirous of Death" and you'll hear Webb's art at its absolute zenith. His use of instrumental color is as original as Bernard Herrmann's but a good deal more subtle. His use of whirling counterpoint disturbed by occasional flashes of harsh dissonance is typical as is the emphasis on harmony and instrumental sonority. In this regard, Webb's music sounds very impressionistic but he is more of the English than French school, I believe. Webb's music does at times remind me of the music of Arnold Bax, Frank Bridge and John Ireland and I like to think that hearing these scores gives us some idea of what those masters might have written if they had ever composed music for a horror film.

My only complaint about this Seventh Victim suite is that it omits the tender music for the scene where Jason and Mary view the search light outside his apartment window. It was included in Christopher Palmer's much briefer suite recorded by Stanley Black but that recording is long out of print. I suspect there was enough time available to include it here but its absence is sorely felt.

We do get a lengthy suite from Cat People and that music has its moments of menace but the overall tone is tragic for it expresses the conflicted emotions of the film's protagonist, the haunted Irena, so beautifully played by the great Simone Simon. Also beautiful is the score for I Walked With A Zombie. Morgan assembled a small chorus of basses for the "Zombie Chant" and their inclusion is indicative of the care and attention given to recreating these scores for recording. They've also included the street beggar's ballad from The Body Snatcher sung by Maria Knapkova. Her diction is a little awkward but she captures the spirit of the song and it adds immensely to the suite. I hope Morgan and Stromberg can be convinced to give us the complete score to The Body Snatcher for it is another masterwork and there is much great music not included in this suite. I would recommend Webb's score for Curse of The Cat People as a companion. I'd love to hear what Morgan and Stromberg would do with that gorgeous music.

The Slovak orchestra plays these scores with tremendous sensitivity. Bill Stromberg captures the atmosphere and mood of the music without allowing it to become staid or monotonous. He has really developed into a fine conductor and I'm delighted to see him branching out into recording concert music as well. I can't imagine his performances of this music ever being bettered and I suspect Roy Webb would have been thrilled if he had lived long enough to hear it. I hope having more of his music available will bring about a renewed interest in his music for he was one of the greatest and most original practitioner in his field. This disc receives my highest possible recommendation.

I "discovered" Malcolm Watson at an art show in Michigan. It was the end of the day, and suddenly we heard this wonderful violin music. My 6 year old son and I went over, and watched this odd man in a white tuxedo dance under the roof of a gazebo...bare foot. He seemed to be completely in love with his work. We purchased the Catharsis CD. This CD makes me want to learn the violin, just so I can come home after a rough day and experience the release that must occur when one coaxes such beautiful music from a man made instrument. Hell, I want to learn how to make the instrument that makes this music. It has that kind of an effect on me. If I could choose the theme song for the story of my life, it would be number 11, "Autumn". Highly recommended!
--TJM

I had the unexpected pleasure of first hearing Watson as he preformed on Pearl Street in Boulder, CO. Watson was dressed in a light colored suit and danced barefoot as he played on the street in the shadows of the Flat Irons on an Indian summer Sunday afternoon. His light steps kept perfect rhythm with his bow. I highly recommend this CD if you want to enjoy being consumed by music that will take you on a journey you have never been on before; and will not want it to end.

I had the unexpected pleasure of first hearing Watson & Edge as they preformed on Pearl Street in Boulder, CO. Watson was dressed in a light colored suit and danced barefoot as he played on the street in the shadows of the Flat Irons on an Indian summer Sunday afternoon. His light steps kept perfect rhythm with his bow. I highly recommend this CD if you want to enjoy being consumed by music that will take you on a journey you have never been on before; and will not want it to end.

I'm not a fan of cecilia bartoli, however I find this
compilation enjoyable.
I love bartoli's rendition of sussana's "deh vieni non tardar" which is normally sung by sopranos.
the other mozart arias, the rossini arias and the songs
for voice and piano are also very good.
I can't stand bartoli's rendition of "naqui allaffanno...non piu mesta". she sings it in such an exaggerate manner, in "non piu mesta" she sounds like a strangled parrot!

'Cecilia Bartoli, A Portrait' featuring the very same mezzo-soprano, Cecilia Bartoli is, after reviewing about a half dozen of her other albums, the best introduction to her art. It is not my favorite. Oddly enough, this is her album of French songs, which I prefer to her many collections of Italian pieces. But, this collection, at a very nice 76 minutes and change does a very good job of selecting operatic pieces with good choral and orchesteral backings.

I am not an experienced music or voice critic, but to my ear, compared to the likes of Anne Sophie Von Otter and Renee Fleming, Mme. Bartoli is a pleasantly different take on the operatic genre. She is not quite as powerful as Maria Callas, but then, who is?

"A Portrait" is a collage of recordings from Ms. Bartoli's career. The highlight for me (from the many enjoyable numbers) is her "Bel raggio lusinghier" from "Semiramide." I highly recommend this fine CD.

What a mix of pieces of which to compare and contrast. Through it all, Steven Isserlis takes us on a wide and varied journey! He truly is one talented artist. Well worth the money. Get a copy and give thanks!

I was just listening to anything "interesting" in cello music & just took this like any other cd. I was hooked from the onsert.The tone of Isserlis is awesome, Beethoven's "Andante con Variazion" with harpschord accompanyment is just great. I continued to listen and things started hitting up when I heard a sorrowful soprano voice by Felicity Lott in Berlioz's "La Captive" song & the piano, cello move around it Oh! my God then & then I decided to purchase it, actually i had decided to purchase "Folk Cello" by Rautio & Ylonen(not available on Amazon, US)then i ended up using my last penny for Isserlis CD.The soprano returns again on Taverner's "The child Lives" with the same impact Wow !what a voice.This was very good for me because I like opera very much & to find it in this setting with the cello & piano was a bonus.ALL tracks in this cd are the greatest ever with a variety of styles from different composers but one song that really captured my imagination was Leonard's "Donkey & Driver" especially at the end. According to the story (as written by artist):there was this donkey trotting merrily along the road when its driver decides to sing a very beautiful sorrowful song well this is said to be a very busy donkey with people to see & their cultures clash then who wins? well listen to the song especially the last part when the cello mimics the sound of the donkey a rebelious one at that.All songs background are also included, the interpretations of the soprano songs in English are also included. Also check out the last song which was enhanced by isserlis when he says he was "hooked" by Carl vine's "Inner world" as played by David Pereira the dedicatee of the work.This is one of the most trilling cello renditions I like the warmth, the tone that is almost humanically lyrical.Well I guess if u love cello & u dont have this then u are missing out.

'Cello World' is a model recital disc, conceived as a recreation of a typical turn-of-the-20th-century programme of short 'encore pieces'. Naturally, the bulk of the pieces privelege the essence of the cello, its deep, meditative, wistful melancholy - Schumann's sleepy 'Intermezzo', Villa-Lobos' evocative 'Song of the Black swan', Dvorak's romantically sad 'Romantic Piece no. 4', Rachmaninoff's rich 'Lied', Scriabin's atypically accessible 'Romance'.

this low-key mood is interleavened with moments of pure play - Beethoven's mischievous 'andante con Variazioni', a delightful tussle between (transcribed) cello and harpsichord that evokes a blithe aristocratic 18th century world rather than the composer's usual Romantic intensity; Popper's impish 'Dance of the Elves', Seiber's lovely Kreisler pastiche 'Dance Suite'.

There a couple of musical jaw-breakers to 'enlighten' the conservatism of the presumed audience - Tavener's sub-Gorecki 'The Child Lived', and the galloping epic 'Inner World' by Carl Vine, actually played by David Pereira, recorded on amplified CD, full of distorted computer echoes, and a lot more exciting and accessible than it should be.

Most cherishable for me is a little Francophone section near the start - Debussy's unexpectedly sprightly '(Nocturne et) Scherzo'; Berlioz's lyrically lilting 'La Captive', sung by Felicity Lott, for today at least the most beautiful song ever written; Faure's characteristically soulful 'Morceau de concours' (written as a Conservatoire sight test!); Leonard's deliciously funny 'Donkey and Driver', the cello playing the obstinate animal; and Saint-Saens' 'The Swan', a watery dream that defies over-familiarity.

Artists rarely declare their satisfaction with a performance and the fact that Rubinstein did so makes this recording all the more important. Chopin excelled in many formats for the piano but he is usually thought of as a miniaturist. No better example of this exists than this recording of the Mazurkas.

One must remember that the Mazurkas were originally Polish dances, thus their odd yet similar rhythms. They vary in both length and depth but each is a poignant poem, dedicated not only to friends but also, silently to his birthplace, Poland. He wears his patriotism on his sleeve - something unthinkable today - and emptied his sould into his music.

About the playing there is nothing much to add to the other reviewers. It seems as if Rubinstein gathered all his artistic energy for this recording and it is impossible to imagine one Mazurka standing alone. They MUST be heard as a group to get the true import of the music. Each idea is quickly explored and then completed, preparing the way for the next one. A few lengthen to several pages and they provide nice breaks in the quickly moving pace. For all the criticism of the performer's rhythmic style one can find no hint of affectation or exaggerated rubato with this set. This recording is perfection.

Rubinstein. Chopin. Mazurkas. Perfection. The impeccable Rubinstein rubato shines most when he plays the works which invite overindulgence, like the dance forms, or the easily sentimentalized nocturnes. His rhythmic restraint is admirable. These recordings are quirky yet authoritative enough to make me wonder whether only a fellow Pole can play Chopin with such multifariousness of movement within the staff. I've heard other recordings of the mazurkas, mainly individual performance pieces in compiliations, but none sparkle like the way Rubinstein makes them sparkle. Sublime.

I love the Mazurkas and have played quite a number of them enthusiastically (and badly!) over the years. Two artists stand out for me; Fou Tsong and Rubinstein. The Fou Tsong has an immediate, haunting appeal but the more you try to play them yourself, the more you realise just what an achievement the Rubinstein performances were. With two or three exceptions he seems to explore every nuance of the music. It grows on you with each listening whilst the Fou Tsong, with its occasionally overdone delicacy, fades a little. Listen to the little Mazurka number 13, which can't quite decide if it is in C major or A minor. I bet you hold your breath whilst you listen to Rubinstein

When one thinks of Chopin the first thing that comes to many people's mind is a composer of soft, gentle music with lovely melodies. True, much of his music was soft, some of it gentle and the melodies are the greatest ever created. But beneath the gentle exterior beat the heart of a patriot and warrior. He expressed his passion to his piano - his alter ego - and nowhere is it more apparent than in these eight works.

While the Nocturnes are languid, the Mazurkas quirky, the Polonaises military and the Etudes tours de force of technical skill, the Ballades and Scherzos are emotional paydirt, the core of the real Chopin. Although he was a minituarist, his skill at structuring the plot of the medium length piece (6-10 minutes) is as remarkable as that for the small work.

The Ballades are hard to define. One finds arching melodies, spectacular story lines and feverish, intense drama. They are like reduced symphonies and Rubinstein is the best conductor around. His interpretations have been criticized as too light, too airy, too " " (fill in the blank). I've heard better performances of individual Ballades (Cliburn, Horowitz, Kissin) but as a group, there is no equal.

The first Ballade - the only one I ever learned to play - rises and falls as the competing melodies vie for attention. The finale is extremely difficult and requires an extraordinary set of hands. The Fourth, my favorite, is quintessentially Chopin. Rubinstein handles the Presto con Fuoco at the end remarkably well which is rare since this is usually a mishmash of hurried notes.

The Scherzos are dramatic in the extreme. They have earned enormous praise that is richly deserved. Under Rubinstein's direction, the only word is "masterful". They never spin out of control yet maintain the fervor throughout. One rarely notices Chopin's organization of material but this is as important to his music as the creation of melodies or quixotic chord combinations. In this instance, the four have a similar but varying structure in which the theme is reprised through successive forays into secondary and tertiary themes. The C Sharp Minor is as all time favorite and Rubinstein carries just the right vigor.

Yet another splendid addition to the "Chopin Collection"

I�m not short of versions of the ballads and the scherzos so I have compared the Rubinstein�s to many other (Ashkenazy, Pollini, Rachmaninov, Argerich, Janis, Kissin etc.). For the ballads I put Rubinstein and Ashkenazy in a special place. Ashkenazy has a better sound (thick and deep bass sound which is familiar in his recordings) and his playing he is exstremely powerfull. Rubinstein�s sound is a bit flat but has no hiss or that kind of stuff. The playing is clean, every note is heard and the fantasy-feeling gets perfectly through. For the scherzos I put Rubinstein in the first place. In the 2nd I also like Argerich�s powerfull approach and Kissin�s playing in this schrezo is also superb. But for me no one gets the 3rd better than Rubinstein. Just listen to the "raindrops" in the right hand! I like the 4th very mush but find the Ashkenasy best. So after all I think that this must be the recording if you are looking for the ballads and the schrezos on one recording.

Ever since reviwes have been made on Rubinstein he has been accused of "tighting up" a little too much in a studio. Even though there is some truth in this comment when you compare his live performances of Beethoven against his studio recordings, in Chopin and in this album this thought simply does not hold on. Here you get passionate Rubinstein in warm, articulate, logical performances of Chopin at his boldest. Please, listen carefully to the details in the Ballade No.4. It just keeps on building climax after climax, and the conclusion seems inexorable. And yet this is always Rubinstein letting music do all the talking.

I'm not giving Wasowski's recording of the Nocturnes five stars just because I studied with the Maestro for four years, but during those four years, I listened to Wasowski play just about everything Chopin ever wrote, and I have never heard live or in a recording anyone who can match the touch and heart that Wasowski had for Chopin's music. In my four years of study with him, while working on my Bach. Degree in Music, I learned more about music from him than in any classroom studies I had to take. My only regret is that he really never had the chance, because of the war and what the Communists did to him and his family in Poland and the ferocity of trying to find a country to make a home for his wife, Maria, and two children, that he never had the chance to become a world known pianist. Time Magazine called him the world's greatest interpreter of Chopin and Henryk Szeryng concurred. The world lost one of music's greatest pianists, and so very few people know that. It's very sad. David Whittacre

Wasowski -- a Polish aristocrat -- went beyond nostalgia. This is ghostly Chopin, Chopin for a Strindberg play or a Bergman movie, the hypnotic Chopin Arthur Symons found in the playing of Vladimir de Pachmann. True, Wasowski in his mazurkas lacks the rustic bouyancy of Friedman. He lacks the balance of Rubinstein and the cosmopolitan polish of Michelangeli, who gave us a Chopin one could believe was devoted to Mozart and to Bach. No, Wasowki's Chopin is Polish through and through, so Polish that the Russians, when they captured him during the war and had him play for their troops and prisoners, refused to let him play Chopin. Wasowski may have blown out the candle, as the Amazon reviewer insists, but if you love the Chopin of moonlit summer nights, you will not curse the darkness.

This is the kind of Chopin that I've wished for all this while. I certainly enjoy Rubinstein, Moravec (just nice, but I would love a bit more rubato), Arrau, Ashkenazy (rather heavy-handed at times) etc. but this is special...it speaks to my heart more than the rest. Must buy, especially if you collect Chopin. This is my 6th set and favourite. What a ridiculous review by Amazon.com. Hats off to the late Wasowski!

Wendy Chen studied with Leon Fleisher at Peabody in Baltimore, and others. She has won numerous young artist and other music competitions, and is getting an active concert career under way. There is another Wendy, Wendy Fang Chen - she, too, deserves your attention even if she is not this Wendy. This Wendy has apparently been growing from strength to strength, ever since she debuted with the L.A. Phil under then music director Andre Previn.

Her keyboard wizardry is strong, poetic, and entirely magical. I am picky about the Chopin Ballades, since their brevity entirely belies their mysterious depths. How the composer could say so much in small pieces that last ten minutes or less is a lesson for all of us in life, even for composers now working in modern idioms that seem far removed from the high Romantic Era.

For unknown reasons, this CD programs the Ballades exactly in reverse order, starting with four, then three, then two, then one. The less often heard Bolero by Chopin initiates this recital, with the equally infrequent Barcarolle helping to wrap things up. Ms. Chen ends with the Andante spianato and grande polonaise, solo piano version.

Her tone is unfailingly big, round, and rich. The stereotype of women pianists, usually something to the effect that they can only manage a dainty pallette and must express their musical thoughts in scaled down dynamics because of their physical limitations, has no place here. Part of this lovely tone no doubt has to do with the worth of the instrument that Ms. Chen plays on this recording, as well as the success of the engineer in capturing that piano sound with enough air to remind us of the piano's Romantic heritage as a dramatic and singing instrument. Sadly, the CD notes fail to identify either the piano or the venue. The label is a specialty label that hints at being based in the Los Angeles, USA, region; so maybe that's where this excellent recital was recorded.

Ms. Chen has much more to offer than just a big tone. She can carry herself up the keyboard and down the keyboard with high accomplishment and not a little aplomb. She sounds like a young adventurer who stakes her flag on high hills where we get glimpses of wide windswept vistas, and in leafy valleys where we suddenly understand repose from spiritual as well as physical perspectives.

All this drama, with all this light and shade, brings her Chopin to vivid life without a split second's doubt or hesitation. Her rubato is flexible, like a great singer's phrasing; and nothing she does strikes your ear as misjudged. Counterpoised with the typically Chopinesque Romantic drama so necessarily declaimed in the Ballades, Ms. Chen also unfolds these musical narratives with an uncommon sense of almost casual, offhand intimacy. In some moments, you may find yourself thinking that you are seated in a small audience in a room at George Sand's Nohant estate, where you could be listening to Chopin himself or a prized student ... probably a baroness or a countess ... help pass the evening hours with new and old works.

Listening to this and other discs ... do a search for Wendy Chen ... you will be very glad this poetess didn't have to move to Europe to pursue her genius. A fresh and beguiling performance of the Grieg and Schumann concertos is available on a budget disc. Lately, she has teamed up with outstanding young Canadian violinist James Ehnes, to record some French violin sonatas. If you can, catch her live. In any case, you probably won't be sorry if you also buy her recordings, this one included. Five stars. Welcome, Ms. Chen. We hope you will have a long and rewarding career, with plenty of chances to record mainstream repertoire, as well as nooks and crannies of music whose composers interest you.

I have had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Chen perform in person (Ravel's Piano Concerto). I had listened to this CD before hand, but to hear her in person is totally amazing. She has a passion that she brings to her playing that I haven't heard with anyone else. This is brought through even on a recording. You almost feel like she is playing just for you.
She is only going to get better as she gets older--keep track of this young lady's performances, I think you will be happy you did!

Under Miss Chen's performance, you see Chopin living at the present time, with multi-tasteful expressions and..... of course, dramatically sensitive and deadly romantic.