These two CDs are a treat for Chopin lovers although the more astute would have got themselves The Complete Piano Music of Fryderik Chopin with 15 Cds and performed by Idil Birit.
The Very Best… is splendid value at just Lm5.95. Some of the 24 pieces are performed by Idil Birit but for details you would have to go to the Naxos website.
There are 12 pieces on each CD and adoring as one is of Chopin there are inevitably favourites.
Let me be contrary and start off with the last piece on CD1: Piano Sonata No 2: Marche funèbre. The slow movement has tremendous drama and atmosphere so that the contrast of the absolutely magical central section is all the more telling. It is full of sensitive touches – like lace – and the contrast with the sweep and power of the Marche Funèbre is enormous. It was used in the state funerals of John F. Kennedy and those of Soviet leaders including Leonid Brezhnev. And of course it was played at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris at Chopin’s burial.
This is music for the intimate salon and not the wide arena. Another favourite in this CD is the Nocturne in E flat major which in Idil Birit’s hands becomes magical and poetic. There are another three Nocturnes: in D Flat Major, in C Sharp Minor and in F sharp minor. The Nocturne in C Sharp Minor was the theme in The Pianist. After seeing that marvellous film I played it on the CD I had so often that I had to abandon it, so I am very happy to have a new version of it which I can play again and again.
There is only one Etude, Op. 10 No 3: Tristesse; four and a half minutes of lyrical warmth. This is one of Chopin’s finest Etudes, and the tunes are even found in today’s pop music. And so onto the famous Scherzo No 2.
The second CD starts off with the formidable Etude Op. 10, No 12 in C minor, the Revolutionary, a technical feat and dedicated to ‘mon ami Franz Liszt’. It appeared around the same time as the November Uprising of Poland against Russia in 1831 – a failed uprising. Chopin was unable to take part in the uprising because of his physical frailty and instead poured his emotions in several pieces he was composing at the time. This is the best known study of all: dramatic and intense, it brings a rush of blood to the head of both player and listener.
The Fantasie-Impromptu in
C sharp Minor, Chopin’s most passionate Impromptu is on this CD. Hold your breath and then pour yourself a cold glass of wine.
Another virtuoso piece on this CD is the fourth track, the Grande Valse Brilliant in E flat Major. Then another favourite the Waltz in E sharp minor, so popular because of its memorable melodies.
There is so much beautiful music on these two CDs. Chopin was a poet and as a child he is said to have ended up in tears after listening to his mother play and sing. He lived the finest years of his short life in the Paris of Louis Phillipe at the height of the Romanic era. At his death in 1949 the Illustrated London News summed up his public standing in one sentence: “One of the greatest celebrities of this musical epoch has just expired in Paris: Chopin is no more.” A sensitive man, his music is an ebb and flow of emotional intensity and never fails to bring us joy and turn our emotions up-side-down.
Naxos CDs are solely available at D’Amato Music shop, Valletta.
Purchase five for the price of four.
Chopin Quotes taken from his Letters:
“All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here.”
“Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs about it; but only waltzes get printed.”
“Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!” - about Russia’s domination of Poland
“Here, whatever is not boring is not English.”
“The population here is ugly, but apparently good-natured. On the other hand the cows are magnificent, but apparently inclined to gore people.”- On Scotland
As this cough will choke me, I implore you to have my body opened, so that I may not be buried alive.” - Chopin’s last written words
“It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.”
“I have met a great celebrity, Mme Dudevant, known as George Sand... Her appearance is not to my liking. Indeed there is something about her which positively repels me... What
“I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness. And yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.”
“I am gay on the outside, especially among my own folk (I count Poles my own); but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams – or sleeplessness –melancholy, indifference – desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death…”
“But when he asked Chopin whether he was still in pain, we quite distinctly heard the answer: ‘No more.’ These were the last words heard from his lips.” - Charles Gavard, witness to Chopin’s death