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Track(s) taken from CDS44351/66

Waltz in A flat major, Op 34 No 1

composer
1835; published in 1838; sometimes called Grande valse brillante

Garrick Ohlsson (piano)
Recording details: November 1995
Performing Arts Center, Purchase College, State University of New York, USA
Produced by Adam Abeshouse
Engineered by Adam Abeshouse
Release date: November 2008
Total duration: 5 minutes 54 seconds

Cover artwork: Frédéric Chopin in concert at the Hotel Lambert, Paris (1840). Antar Teofil Kwiatowski (1809-1891)
Bibliothèque Polonaise, Paris / Archives Charmet / Bridgeman Images
 

Other recordings available for download

Stephen Hough (piano)
Stephen Hough (piano)
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (piano)
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York Bowen (piano)
Franz Xaver Scharwenka (piano)
Raoul Pugno (piano)

Reviews

‘Hyperion's big deal … Ohlsson is a powerful and committed player, and is afforded very good sound by the engineers … this is almost certainly how these pieces were played in Chopin's time’ (The Mail on Sunday)

‘This is an oustanding achievement, which any genuine Chopin lover and student of Romantic music should own … a landmark in the recording of Chopin's music … Garrick Ohlsson and Hyperion deserve the greatest success in bringing this important undertaking to such a consistently impressive conclusion’ (International Record Review)

‘An attractively priced box set … Ohlsson is in a class of his own’ (Pianist)

‘The collaborative works receive particularly rewarding performances … Ohlsson arguably offers more consistent artistry than Biret, Ashkenazy, Magaloff, and Harasiewicz’ (Classics Today)

‘Garrick Ohlsson’s complete survey of everything Chopin wrote for piano (including chamber music, songs, and for piano and orchestra) will delight the completist and the Chopin connoisseur. Ohlsson (who won the Chopin International Piano Competition in 1970) gives us accounts of this wondrous repertoire in weighty and commanding style, aristocratic and impulsive (but not lacking light and shade or contemplative contrasts) and, at times, very sensitive and searching. These vivid recordings were made in the second half of the 1990s and have previously appeared on the Arabesque label. They now sit very well in Hyperion’s catalogue’ (Classical Source)
With its opening fanfares the Waltz in A flat major Op 34 No 1 immediately recalls the ballroom, where its main theme, though harmonized in sixths, is clearly happy to be. One of the longest of Chopin’s waltzes, it develops a glitteringly scored episode from the fanfare before modulating to D flat major for a dreamy middle section, itself extensive enough to assume its own ternary form. The A flat material is recalled to be succeeded by a coda which seems to signal a conventionally brilliant exit but which actually proceeds to a subtly allusive ending.

from notes by Gerald Larner © 2009

Avec ses fanfares inaugurales, la Valse en la bémol majeur op. 34 no 1 rappelle d’emblée la salle de bal, où son thème principal est clairement content de se trouver, malgré son harmonisation en sixtes. Cette valse, la plus longue de Chopin, développe un épisode brillamment écrit à partir de la fanfare avant de moduler vers ré bémol majeur pour une langoureuse section centrale, elle-même assez étendue pour assumer sa propre forme ternaire. Le matériel en la bémol est rappelé, suivi d’une coda qui semble indiquer une sortie conventionnellement brillante mais qui se poursuit, en fait, jusqu’à une conclusion subtilement allusive.

extrait des notes rédigées par Gerald Larner © 2009
Français: Hypérion

Die Anfangsfanfaren des Walzers in As-Dur op. 34 Nr. 1 rufen sofort das Bild eines Ballsaals wach und auch das Hauptthema, obwohl es in Sexten ausgesetzt ist, fühlt sich hier sichtlich wohl. Es ist dies der längste Walzer Chopins und es wird eine glitzernde Episode der Fanfare durchgeführt, bevor eine Modulation nach Des-Dur und zu einem träumerischen Mittelteil hin stattfindet, der selbst lang genug ist, dass er in drei Teile gegliedert ist. Das As-Dur-Material wird noch einmal wachgerufen, worauf eine Coda folgt, die einen konventionellen, brillanten Schluss anzukündigen scheint, der sich dann aber als subtil und voller Anspielungen entpuppt.

aus dem Begleittext von Gerald Larner © 2009
Deutsch: Viola Scheffel

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The Piano G & Ts, Vol. 2 - Alfred Grünfeld, Raoul Pugno & Natalia Janotha
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Vassily Sapellnikoff & Xaver Scharwenka - The complete recordings
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York Bowen - The complete solo 78-rpm recordings
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