GREAT RECORDINGS phase 19

CHOPIN
Nocturnes etc

Artur Rubinstein

5 09668 2 (D&T)
5 09667 2 (Angel)

Mono
ADD
Recorded 1928 -1937
2:34:26 (2CD)

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These recordings were made between 1928 and 1937. Though unsurprisingly they show Rubinstein – then in his 40s – as a prince among Chopin players, they actually straddle a divide in his career, in 1934, when ‘he practised intensively and undertook an overhaul of his technique’. Stephen Plaistow goes on to note in the booklet that, ‘as recorded here, the scherzi and the Berceuse, from 1932, are by the unreconstructed Rubinstein, and the complete Nocturnes by the later’.

Included here are the first two, test recordings Rubinstein made in 1928 for HMV’s Fred Gaisberg: the F sharp Barcarolle and the Waltz in A flat Op.34 No.1 – and whatever the nature of the events of 1934, they show a player fully in control. By contrast, the four scherzi, set down over two consecutive days, are fiery and dashing, hurried even.

As with the Busch set, this new state-of-the-art remastering by Abbey Road 78 expert Andrew Walter improves greatly on the recordings’ previous appearance on Références.

Awards: 10 de Répertoire; Ritmo (Spain)