Krystian Zimerman Piano Concertos 1 & 2 – COMPACT DISCS

Description

Title: Piano Concertos 1 & 2
Artist: Krystian Zimerman
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Product Type: COMPACT DISCS
UPC: 028945968421
Genre: Classical
Release Date: 1999-11-02
Number of Discs: 2
Chopin’s two piano concertos have long been admired more as pianistic vehicles than as integrated works for piano and orchestra. But in his revelatory new recording, Krystian Zimerman suggests otherwise: The opening orchestral Tuttis have so much more light, shade, orchestral color, and detail, you wonder if they’ve been rewritten. Every gesture, every instrumental solo is so specifically characterized that by the time the piano makes a dramatic entrance, the pieces have become operas without words. One may wonder if Chopin intended that. In fact, he knew Bel Canto opera in his native Poland, but the more positive proof is that the music has so much more to say when treated this way. Some will find the performances disturbing: The interpretations are so much more about content than form, and there’s so much tempo and rhythmic flexibility, that the music sometimes seems unmoored and adrift. But upon repeated listening, the sense of fantasy is so beguiling that you wonder if you could ever go back to more conventional performances.
Tracks:
1.1 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in E minor, Op.11: Allegro Maestoso
1.2 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in E minor, Op.11: Romance – Larghetto
1.3 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in E minor, Op.11: Rondo – Vivace
2.1 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in F minor, Op.21: Maestoso
2.2 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in F minor, Op.21: Larghetto
2.3 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in F minor, Op.21: Allegro Vivace