Artur Pizarro "Chopin: Piano Sonatas" SACD

Artur Pizarro "Chopin: Piano Sonatas" SACD

$19.99 Sale

Artur Pizarro's second Chopin album, following on from his hugely successful Reminiscences album. Pianist magazine named it the 'Chopin Album of 2007'.

5 stars 'A brave decision but one with spectacular results.' Metro

5 stars 'Something special, clearly, was going on. And it continues in his latest Chopin collection, which includes the second and third sonatas.' The Herald

'Romantic music comes naturally to Pizarro; his delicate touch and sense of lyrical line in the second and third sonatas are as elegant and assured as these wonderful works demand.' The Observer

Internationally acclaimed pianist Artur Pizarro releases his second album of Chopin piano music, which together with his celebrated recording of Beethoven Piano Sonatas, continues his successful partnership with Linn.

Pizarro's recording of two of Chopin's finest sonatas is a natural progression from his Beethoven recordings, as the musical modifications Chopin made to the sonata form clearly built upon the formal boundaries that Beethoven had extended. Chopin introduced multiple changes of rhythm and tempi, often even within individual movements and, like Beethoven, rearranged the movements to include a scherzo as the second movement and a slow third movement. The French pianist Alfred Cortot saw the most important shift from Beethoven's to Chopin's sonatas as the shift from inspiration by the ideals of universality to the suffusion of the music by the composer's personal feelings and emotions.

The famous 'Funeral March' earned the Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor the approved title of 'Sonata fùnebre', however more unkind titles were also attributed to it by Anton Rubinstein who named it the 'Death Poem' and Robert Schumann who referred to it as 'four of Chopin's maddest children under the same roof'. It has been suggested that this sonata was modelled on Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12, Op. 26 in A flat major, also subtitled 'Funeral march', which Chopin often played and taught.

Written five years after the Second Piano Sonata, the Piano Sonata in B minor was written in times of tranquillity and relatively good health. The largest of all of Chopin's works for piano solo, it represents the apotheosis of his creativity.  

Tracklisting

  1. Variations brillantes on "Je vends des scapulaires" from Herold's Ludovic, Op. 12
  2. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35, "Funeral March": I. Grave
  3. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35, "Funeral March": II. Scherzo
  4. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35, "Funeral March": III. Marche funèbre
  5. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35, "Funeral March": IV. Presto
  6. Barcarolle in F-Sharp Major, Op. 60
  7. Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: I. Allegro maestoso
  8. Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: II. Scherzo
  9. Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: III. Largo
  10. Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: IV. Presto non tanto