Frédéric

This montage from our Podcast Vault revisits a post from February 14, 2014. It can be found in our archives at  https://archive.org/details/pcast143

 =====================================================================

For the last three days, we shared past podcasts featuring works for piano and orchestra by Chopin. Today’s podcast vault selection is an all-Chopin montage, whose title comes from the classic song by Claude Léveillée – which closes the montage. The bulk of the montage contents were extracted from two albums.

Thomas May asked in a review “How can it be that a recording by one of today's indisputably unequaled pianists performing some of her prime repertory--made fresh within months of her triumph in the 1965 Warsaw International Chopin Competition--could languish for decades in the vaults before its official release?” Known as ”The Legendary 1965 Recording”, this rare performance sat in limbo for years for contractual reasons. To everyone’s delight it was finally released on CD in 1999, and to this day is still hot to the touch.

This is a unique piece of musical history. Much of the session done in one take including the demanding final movement of the the B- Sonata. Masterful performances full of raw energy from beginning to end define this CD and help dispell the myth that Chopin’s piano music is wistful and serves only as frilly background music.

The remaining Chopin tracks are from Vladimir Horowitz’s “Last Recording”, for Sony Classical, completed four days before his death and consisting of repertoire he had never previously recorded – including some of these Chopin gems. Horowitz had an autumnal last period in which he was constantly looking at new literature and playing it in a relaxed, charming manner. Gone were the neuroticism and outsize dynamics that could surge into his playing. In this kind of performance he gives the feeling that now he is no longer out to prove anything, that he is merely having a good time playing the piano.

As bonus tracks, here’s a YouTube playlist featuring the entire album.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6PHeC5f0TTctagwkme3VIv7TULYKVo6J

I think you will (still) love this music too.