Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 2 – Mazurkas – Berceuse – London Symphony Orchestra – Adolfo Barabino – Vol.4 – CR6021

Description

Piano Concerto No. 2, Mazurkas, Berceuse

Chopin’s concertos are regarded as the pinnacle achievements of the “Warsaw” period of his oeuvre, his childhood and his youth until his departure from Poland in November 1830. Both concertos became widely renowned from the moment they were written, and still today they hold a firm place in the pianistic canon among the most celebrated Romantic works of this genre. The F minor Concerto Op. 21, his favorite, first composed but published as the second, is regarded as the more lyrical even intimate and delicate. It was linked to the “style brilliant”, characterised by great bravura, brilliance and technical display, as well as a fondness for tuneful, sentimental themes.

Particularly famous is its second movement (Larghetto), a temple of love and peace, seen as a musical confession of feeling, written during the period of Frédéric’s first love for Konstancja Gladkoska. The Allegro vivace finale includes a stylisation of Mazurka elements, here treated with exceptional virtuosic bravura.

Chopin performed this concerto in public at the Theatre Narodowy in Warsaw, in March 1830. The combination of his personal individual style, kept in balance with a light and delicate accompaniment of the orchestra, made of Chopin a composer considered one of the most promising pianists and creative geniuses of his time.

The origins of the “Berceuse” are probably linked to Chopin’s delight at the eighteen-month-old daughter of his friend, the singer Pauline Viardot. The little Louise won his heart and may well have inspired the composer to write a lullaby-style piece.

Here he produced one of the most extraordinary works, composed in an exceptionally refined and masterful way. The work is based on a four-bar theme, followed by a series of sixteen variations. Throughout virtually the entire piece, the right-hand part is accompanied by a fixed bass formula in the left, purposely static, which create unusual and innovative colouristic and tonal-harmonic effects, at times prefiguring musical impressionism. In keeping with the demands of a true lullaby, the “Berceuse” adheres to a piano and pianissimo dynamic.

Chopin’s Mazurkas would not exist without Polish folk dances and Polish folk music. With his Mazurkas, Chopin could convey his intimate love for his homeland along all his life. At the same time they demand of the pianist an almost naive freshness and a mature mastery…. an elegance and lightness….

In these pieces, Chopin made direct reference to three folk dances, which he knew well from numerous visits to the Polish countryside: the “Mazur”, the “Kujawiak” and the “Oberek”.

The “Mazur” is lively and temperamental in character, in a quite brisk tempo, with a tendency towards irregular accents; the “Kujawiak” in a slow tempo, with a tuneful melody and the “Oberek” is lively dance in a quick or very quick tempo, with a cheerful, or even exuberant, character. The Mazurka, Op. 68 No. 4 in F minor, written in the summer of 1849, is the last composition that he wrote.

The interpretation of Chopin’s music should go towards emphasizing its delicacy and elegance, incorporating the smallest of nuances, which mostly occur in a range of very slender sound. All these shades allow him to express his deepest feelings and his most intimate sensations.’’  This is what is really fascinating in Chopin’s music.

Although he often improvised his compositions we know that he often took several weeks putting them to paper. A perfectionist, Chopin chose each note with the same accuracy and thoroughness as a poet could elect one single word.

When Chopin died in France in 1849, his body was buried in Paris but his heart was returned to his beloved Poland. On his tombstone in Paris’ Pere Lachaise Cemetery is engraved the image of Euterpe, weeping over a broken Lyre. The compositions on this recording are the real mirror of his pure and elegant soul.

© 2015 Adolfo Barabino

Musical Opinion Review Feature

For many record collectors, the notion that a small independent company could, in the quality of recorded sound it produces, be consider not only the equal of, but in some instances superior to, results we associate with the largest and most widely acclaimed companies in the world would appear far-fetched.

But in some instances, it is true. Music lovers, over the years, may have come to associate the biggest and most powerful of companies as necessarily the ‘best’ in the business’ as the saying has it, and of course, in many ways, the finest orchestras and artists, recorded in the best equipped studios or in the acoustically acclaimed best-known performance venues, will often be found to have been captured in recorded sound quality that is consistently fine. That is as it should be.

So fine, in fact, that we have become used to it – used to assuming that the sound we hear on compact disc after compact disc, as they flow from the companies, is the ‘proper’ or the best’ sound we can have. At times, it has reached the point when a record collector, someone whose main experience of music is through the medium of the gramophone, has been shocked on going to a concert and hearing an orchestra, or chamber ensemble or singer or solo instrumentalist, ‘live’ – the shock being that in reality and in many venues, the musicians in reality do not sound as they do on commercial recordings.

Claudio Records, founded and driven by the commitment of Colin Attwell, has been ploughing a lonely furrow for a number of years, but the company has built up a relatively extensive catalogue of recordings covering a wide range of music, from medieval manuscripts to music of the present-day. In the course of this journey, Attwell has supported many young musicians – as well as some not so young, in the latter instance established artists whom the larger companies have tended to bypass.

The result has been for Claudio Records a catalogue of diverse and uncommonly interesting material with performances that often compare favourably with the finest and most acclaimed issues from the larger ‘majors’.

Which brings us back to our opening observation, for the latest recording to have come my way from Claudio Records features Adolfo Barabino with the London Symphony Orchestra, in Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, together with a group of solo piano pieces, mainly Mazurkas, a disc on which – in the Concerto – the recording quality and balance of the piano and orchestra is well-nigh perfect. Indeed, it is so natural and so convincing that I do not think I have ever heard a technically better recording of a concerto for piano and orchestra. In that regard, credit must naturally be extended to the conductor, Lee Reynolds, a name I confess I had not encountered prior to hearing this disc.

However, I do not believe that anyone bough a concerto record because who the orchestra was, and those connoisseurs of pianism who have been following Barabino’s traversal of Chopin’s piano music on the Claudio label (this is announced as Volume 4) will welcome this outstanding new disc with the greatest pleasure. I have no doubt that this performance will give the most lasting satisfaction. Barabino’s performances of the Berceuse and the group of Mazurkas are also in the highest class. Make no mistake, this is an outstanding recording in every way.

© James Palmer

Music Web International Review

A definite step up. Whilst admiring the recording quality I was underwhelmed by Barabino’s performance in the previous volume (review). This issue, Volume 4, impresses me much more. I found the Mazurkas engaging and subtle, the Berceuse very affecting indeed: beautifully considered playing that holds one’s attention. The major work here is the second of Chopin’s piano concertos to be published, though actually the first to be written. He was not a natural composer of orchestral music and the role given to the orchestra is very much as accompaniment to the solo piano, the which has virtually all the meaty stuff to play. The reticence of the oboe, the flute and the other occasional wind soloists is Chopin’s own. The orchestra do not play the significant role they do in the concertos by Schumann or Liszt. In some ways this is a pity because so much effort has gone into perfecting the recorded balance between piano and orchestra. Barabino’s own notes on the background to the concerto and the solo pieces emphasizes the intimacy and delicacy that Chopin was seeking. I must say this is splendidly achieved in all the music on this disc. I am intrigued by the bell-like tones Barabino extracts from his Steinway. A much more emphatic sound normally comes from such an instrument. Interpretatively Barabino is well away from the old-timers like Rubinstein who treated this concerto to a more swashbuckling approach, swinging into the rhythms wherever possible and providing a much less introverted impression. Given that this concerto, especially the larghetto, is ‘Chopin in love’ (when was he not?) I have to agree more with Barabino’s slow and introspective performance. He actually takes well over two minutes longer than Rubinstein’s famous old Living Stereo recording and given Lee Reynolds’ undemonstrative way with the orchestral accompaniment Barabino’s loving approach is allowed free rein. This might be unwise in the hands of someone less able to extract such refined tones from the piano but here it provides much pleasure.

Since this issue is on an unusual format, DVD-Audio, further comment is appropriate. Recording Engineer Colin Attwell has gone into a lot of detail in the pro-audio magazine Resolution explaining the complex background to this project. Perhaps all that matters to the listener is that this sound is achieved with just two microphones. To put that in context, the standard recording session involves at least 40. As Colin says, “we are all delighted with the warm and beautiful sound that minus 38 microphones can make.” How this comes over on a domestic system is intriguing and in one way unexpected. As mentioned, the piano has a strikingly bell-like sound in both venues (see above), but the Henry Wood Hall, used for the concerto only and a well established recording space, seems to have an ungenerous reverberation time and to be somewhat boomy; certainly it does not give much assistance to the otherwise very natural sound-picture. The instrumentalists are all clearly placed and in the case of the winds sound quite close to the microphone pair. One must ask what this team would make of a bigger acoustic. From the front centre of the arena during the Proms the Royal Albert Hall sounds both clear and spacious. How about a simple microphone set-up at that point?

© Dave Billinge

**Musicweb-International Website

The American Record Guide Review

I don’t know anything about this pianist except that he must realize that Chopin listened a lot to Bellini. This is bel canto playing. It is never “masterful”, as if to show us what a genius the pianist is. It is quiet and sweet and humble (and reminds me of Moravec), but always songful. The pianist wrote the notes, where he uses words like “pure”, “light”, and “elegant”. His playing is all three.

Mark Koldys reviewed this pianist’s Chopin (Sept/Oct 2014) and said, “There is great nuance and sensitivity in his touch, and he can create hushed pianissimos that are almost mesmeric.” He also commented on the “sumptuous sonorities” and the gorgeous recorded sound. And all that applies to this recording, too. It was made with only two microphones almost unheard of these days.

I think the pianist must be Italian, but I cannot find out whether he was born in England, though he lives there. The conductor is young and English.

The only added comment must be that the wind soloists are wonderful, as you would expect from this orchestra; and the 2014 sound is excellent.

I think this has to join the best Chopin recordings ever made.

© Donald VROON

The American Record Guide page 86-pdf

InfoDad-Florida Review 

There is an underlying gentleness to Italian pianist Adolfo Barabino’s performances of Chopin, and it permeates his fourth release on Claudio Records – even in the Second Piano Concerto, which it can certainly be justifiable to interpret in more dramatic fashion than is heard here. Barabino opts for a lyrical approach, bringing out the warmth and lucidity of the music and in so doing making this early work (the first of Chopin’s two concertos to be composed, although the second to be published) more forward-looking than it usually appears to be. There is a certain meandering quality to the interpretation, both Barabino’s and that of the London Symphony Orchestra under Lee Reynolds: the music is never exactly directionless, but it does not have as much get-up-and-go as in other readings. The result is a pleasant but not exceptional recording – and a disc on which the solo piano music is more attractive than the piano-and-orchestra offering. In the Berceuse recorded here, and the six Mazurkas, Barabino’s laid-back style is more effective. In these short works he brings out all sorts of nuances, voices and emotional expressions, keeping the rhythms fluid and the pacing sensitive and sensible. The Chopin recordings by Barabino present a not-always-coherent mixture of pieces, as this volume shows: the discs seem to be aimed at people who are, or will become, fans of Barabino, and simply want to hear how he handles Chopin. They are not for listeners interested in a single disc with the two concertos, or a disc focusing on the mazurkas, and so on. This makes them of limited appeal to all the listeners who already have recordings of Chopin by the many fine interpreters of his music. Barabino’s offering here is mainly interesting for the warm, singing quality he imparts to these disparate works.

Infodad-Website