I decided today to finally compare the various sets of Chopin Preludes that I have acquired over the years. I did this survey about a year ago so I'll thought I'd share it here: All these mentioned are only a tiny fragment of the myriad versions recorded over the years. So, I enjoy most all of them and learn from each about varying approaches to this 24. There are just so many recordings of the 24 Preludes, it's really difficult to place one's finger on the so-called "best" ever. I was not impressed with Ivo Pogorelich's (DGG), nor Martha Argerich's (DGG) though I am one of her biggest fans in most repertoire. Rafal Blechacz's DGG account is one of the finest contemporary recordings I've heard of the 24. Also Alicia de Larrocha's account brings a lush sound with technique abounding (Decca). We don't think of Rudolf Serkin as a Chopinist, but I find his is a more "studied" view as issued on Sony Classical, recorded in 1976. (This may be on Ivory Classics currently.) Cyprien Katsaris's account on Sony Classical (maybe now on Piano 21 - ?) gives a generally fiery account in his inimitable manner. Earl Wild's complete recording is another one most worthy of consideration. Russian pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky recorded all 24 Preludes in concert on the Russian SMC label, but in inferior sound his performance left me cold. Moravec was a Chopinist par excellence (I think of his recording of the Chopin Nocturnes, for example). Ivan Moravec's (VAI) account stands right up there with the best of them for me as well. I much preferred Claudio Arrau's account, recorded live at the Prague Spring Festival in 1960 (private recording) to his later Philips issue where everything seems so much more calculated the "abandon" isn't there. Pianist Leonard Pennario recorded a fine version for Capitol Records, which was committed to CD by Rediscovery. RCA's piano sound at the time these were recorded does not do justice to the pianist's tone. It's a pity he didn't re-record these gems when at the peak of his career in the late 1950s and 1960s. ![]() Artur Rubinstein, of course, would also be very much at the top of the list. Vlado Perlemuter also offers a supremely valid account of the 24. Then there is Benno Moiseiwitsch and Egon Petri, both two more favourites in this music. For me, however, I would add another great almost totally forgotten pianist by the name of Robert Lortat, a fine French pianist whose lighter sound seems to be, perhaps, more representative of what I believe Chopin may have heard in his mind, this particular "lightness" of touch. His is the kind of pianism that has long vanished in the architecture of presenting these 24 pieces, but more, the kind of sound he created, a certain luster and naturalness. For me, Alfred Cortot is among the top of the list. Frederick Niecks says that the prelude "rises before one's mind the cloistered court of the monastery of Valdemosa, and a procession of monks chanting lugubrious prayers, and carrying in the dark hours of night their departed brother to his last resting-place.I couldn't quibble with most pianists mentioned herein. Peter Dayan points out that Sand accepted Chopin's protests that the prelude was not an imitation of the sound of raindrops, but a translation of nature's harmonies within Chopin's "génie". 15, because of the repeating A flat, with its suggestion of the "gentle patter" of rain. Sand did not say which prelude Chopin played for her at that time. His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds." He protested with all his might – and he was right to – against the childishness of such aural imitations. He was even angry that I should interpret this in terms of imitative sounds. ![]() Heavy drops of icy water fell in a regular rhythm on his breast, and when I made him listen to the sound of the drops of water indeed falling in rhythm on the roof, he denied having heard it. In her Histoire de ma vie, Sand told how one evening she and her son Maurice, returning from Palma, Majorca, in a terrible rainstorm, found a frantic Chopin who cried, "Ah! I knew well that you were dead." While playing his piano he had a dream: Some of the Preludes were written during Chopin and George Sand's stay at a monastery in Valldemossa, Majorca in 1838. It is known for it's repetitive raindrop motif. It sounds like raindrops to many listeners. The prelude is famous for its repeating A-flat. 15, by Frédéric Chopin is known as the "Raindrop" prelude. ![]() Measures 1-4 of Chopin's Prelude in D-flat Major, Op.
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