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This album contains piano music by Chopin, presented by Piano Classics, a label of Brilliant Classics. Get Chopin’s sheet music in our Library.
Composer: Frédéric Chopin Artist: Hubert Rutkowski (piano).
The first concert Frédéric Chopin gave in Paris (the city which would be his new home town) was in 1832 playing a new Pleyel piano. The press, in the person of the influential Francois-Joseph Fétis, was enthousiastic, he praised the “spiritualized melodies, the fanciful landscapes and uniqueness in all”. Chopin himself was in love with the instrument, with “the lightness of touch and the songful singsong tone”. From then on his instrument of preference would be Pleyel.
In his search for the ideal Chopin tone pianist Hubert Rutkowski studies the writings and recordings of the students of Mikuli, who himself was a student of Chopin. Notably Moritz Rosenthal and Raul Koczalski are the greatest inspirations, in their refined artistic ease, fanciful rubato and a perfect legato. Hubert Rutkowski chose a representative program, in which all facets of the Pleyel instrument and Chopin’s unique pianism are presented: Ballade, Scherzo, Mazurkas, Nocturnes, Polonaise, Etude, Waltz, Fantaisie-Impromptu. He plays a magnificent Pleyel instrument from 1847. He is the winner of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Hannover in 2007.
Tracklist:
0:00:00 Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23 0:09:06 Mazurka No. 2 in C Major, Op. 24 0:11:56 Étude No. 5 in G-Flat Major, Op. 10 0:13:49 Nocturne No. 2 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 48 0:21:22 Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 66 0:26:55 Mazurka No. 4 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 24 0:31:58 Scherzo in B Minor, Op. 20 0:42:39 Mazurka No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 7 0:45:10 Nocturne No. 1 in D-Flat Major, Op. 27 0:51:08 Polonaise in B-Flat Major, Op. 71 0:58:24 Mazurka No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 68 1:01:50 Waltz No. 1 in D-Flat Major, Op. 64
Pleyel et Cie., pianos
Pleyel et Cie (“Pleyel and Company”) was a French piano manufacturing firm founded by the composer Ignace Pleyel in 1807. In 1815, Pleyel’s son Camille joined him as a business partner. The firm provided pianos to Frédéric Chopin, and also ran a concert hall, the Salle Pleyel, where Chopin performed his first – and last – Paris concerts. Pleyel’s major contribution to piano development was the first use of a metal frame in a piano. Pleyel pianos were the choice of composers such as Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, de Falla and Stravinsky and of pianists and teachers Alfred Cortot, Philip Manuel and Gavin Williamson. Nineteenth-century musicians involved in the company’s management included Joseph O’Kelly and Georges Pfeiffer.
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