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XR-remastered and reissued here for the first time
Notes on the recording: Le Club Disque du France was launched in the summer of 1953, and lasted for some fifteen years. It appears to have used a simple sequential numbering system for its LP issues, with this disc being number 71. At the time of writing we have scant further dating information and nothing regarding the recording venue - there are no sleevenotes on the LP cover, the pianist's name is mis-spelt, and the only additional information other than the track listing is the indication that a Pleyel piano was used. The low release number and the size of the disc (ten inches rather than twelve in diameter) leads us to speculate that this was probably one of the earlier issues of this label, most probably between 1953 and 1955. The recording itself was reasonably well made for its day, though technically not in the top rank, and the disc surface had been reasonably well-preserved. The main difficulties in restoration lay with defects typical of the early days of LP pressings and familiar to anyone who is well acquainted with the LP's shellac predecessor - a certain tendency to high frequency swishing and a slight coarseness of surface noise. That said, it did not suffer from the bane of many piano recordings of the era - high frequency blasting or distortion. If you're a piano-phile, or lover of Chopin, this is at times one of those idiosyncratic performances which you'll either love or hate. Paul von Schilhawsky (b. 1918 Salzburg, d.1995 Paris), who did not make many recordings, was quite highly regarded in his day as both a pianist and conductor, and also as a teacher. He was Director of the Salzburg State Theater, and later Head of the Directorate of the Mozarteum and the International Summer Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg. We would be grateful for any further information about the performer and this recording.
Notes on the 24-bit download: Please see this page for test files and further information regarding this format. Although restoration work is done at a sample rate of 44.1kHz, we have upsampled the final 24-bit master to 48kHz for additional replay compatibility of our FLAC download. Our twenty-four bit FLAC downloads can be replayed in full quality using a standard DVD video player, a DVD writer and an inexpensive piece of PC software - see here for more information about replay from Video DVD discs.
The Music of Chopin notes from Wikipedia
Chopin, according to Arthur Hedley, "had the rare gift of a very personal melody, expressive of heart-felt emotion, and his music is penetrated by a poetic feeling that has an almost universal appeal.... Present-day evaluation places him among the immortals of music by reason of his insight into the secret places of the heart and because of his awareness of the magical new sonorities to be drawn from the piano." It is very difficult to briefly characterise Chopin's œuvre. Robert Schumann, speaking of Chopin's Sonata in B-flat minor, wrote that "he alone begins and ends a work like this: with dissonances, through dissonances, and in dissonances," and in Chopin's music he discerned "cannon concealed amid blossoms." Franz Liszt, in the opening of his biography about Chopin (Life of Chopin), termed him a "gentle, harmonious genius." Thus disparate have been the views on Chopin's music. The first systematic, if imperfect, study of Chopin's style came in F.P. Laurencin's 1861 Die Harmonik der Neuzeit. Laurencin concluded that "Chopin is one of the most brilliant exceptional natures that have ever stridden onto the stage of history and life, he is one who can never be exhausted nor stand before a void. Chopin is the musical progone of all progones until now." Chopin's music for the piano combined a unique rhythmic sense (particularly his use of rubato), frequent use of chromaticism, and counterpoint. This mixture produces a particularly fragile sound in the melody and the harmony, which are nonetheless underpinned by solid and interesting harmonic techniques. He took the new salon genre of the nocturne, invented by Irish composer John Field, to a deeper level of sophistication. Three of Chopin's twenty-one Nocturnes were only published after his death in 1849, contrary to his wishes. He also endowed popular dance forms, such as the Polish mazurek and the Viennese waltz, with a greater range of melody and expression. Chopin was the first to write ballades and scherzi as individual pieces. He also took the example of Bach's preludes and fugues, transforming the genre in his own Préludes. Chopin reinvented the étude, expanding on the idea and making it into a gorgeous, eloquent and emotional showpiece. He also used his Études to teach his own revolutionary style, for instance playing with the weak fingers (3, 4, and 5) in fast figures (op. 10, n° 2) and playing black keys with the thumb (op. 10, n° 5). Several of Chopin's pieces have become very well known—for instance the Revolutionary Étude (op. 10, No. 12), the Minute Waltz (Op. 64, No. 1), and the third movement of his Funeral March Sonata n° 2 (op. 35), which is often used as an iconic representation of grief. Chopin himself never named an instrumental work beyond genre and number, leaving all potential extra-musical associations to the listener; the names by which we know many of the pieces were invented by others. The Revolutionary Étude was not written with the failed Polish uprising against Russia in mind; it merely appeared at that time. The Funeral March was written before the rest of the sonata within which it is contained, but the exact occasion is not known; it appears not to have been inspired by any specific personal bereavement. Other melodies have been used as the basis of popular songs, such as the slow section of the Fantaisie-Impromptu (op. posth. 66) and the first section of the Étude op. 10 No. 3. These pieces often rely on an intense and personalised chromaticism, as well as a melodic curve that resembles the operas of Chopin's day — the operas of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and especially Vincenzo Bellini. Chopin used the piano to re-create the gracefulness of the singing voice, and talked and wrote constantly about singers. Chopin's style and gifts became increasingly influential. Robert Schumann was a huge admirer of Chopin's music, and he used melodies from Chopin and even named a piece from his suite Carnaval after Chopin. This admiration was not reciprocated. Franz Liszt was another admirer and personal friend of the composer, and he transcribed for piano six of Chopin's Polish songs. However, Liszt denied that he wrote Funérailles (subtitled "October 1849", the seventh movement of his piano suite Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses of 1853) in memory of Chopin. Though the middle section seems to be modeled on the famous octave trio section of Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major, op. 53, Liszt said the piece had been inspired by the deaths of three of his Hungarian compatriots in the same month. Brahms and the younger Russian composers, too, found inspiration in Chopin's examples. Chopin's technical innovations also became influential. His Préludes (op. 28) and Études (op. 10 and op. 25) rapidly became standard works, and inspired both Liszt's Transcendental Études and Schumann's Symphonic Études. Alexander Scriabin was also strongly influenced by Chopin; for example, his 24 Preludes, op. 11, are inspired by Chopin's op. 28. Jeremy Siepmann, in his biography of the composer, lists pianists whose recordings of Chopin are generally acknowledged to be among the greatest Chopin performances ever preserved: Vladimir de Pachmann, Raoul Pugno, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Moriz Rosenthal, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alfred Cortot, Ignaz Friedman, Raoul Koczalski, Arthur Rubinstein, Mieczysław Horszowski, Claudio Arrau, Vlado Perlemuter, Vladimir Horowitz, Dinu Lipatti, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, Murray Perahia, Krystian Zimerman, Evgeny Kissin. Arthur Rubinstein said the following about Chopin's music and its universality:
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frédéric_Chopin
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