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Track(s) taken from CDS44351/66

Waltz in A flat major, Op 69 No 1

composer
1835; Waltz No 9, sometimes called Valse de l'adieu

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: 4 minutes 36 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)
Pavel Kolesnikov (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)
An act of social generosity may have prompted Chopin’s initial foray into the impromptu genre, but this was not the only genre in which he was motivated to behave in this way. He particularly enjoyed giving manuscripts of his waltzes as gifts, and because of this withheld from publication more than half of the waltzes that he composed. Chopin presented manuscripts of the three waltzes on this recording to multiple acquaintances (we know of at least three manuscripts of Op 69 No 1, and two each of Op 70 No 3 and the Waltz in A flat major, KKIVa/13). He initially gave a manuscript of the Waltz in A flat major, Op 69 No 1, to Maria Wodzińska, to whom he was briefly engaged. The chromatically decorated melodies of this waltz convey an air of melancholy that is easy to associate with personal loss, but whatever personal memories may have been attached to the origins of the work did not prevent Chopin from later giving manuscripts of it as gifts to Eliza Peruzzi and Charlotte de Rothschild.

from notes by Jeffrey Kallberg © 2019

C’est un geste de générosité en société qui suscita l’incursion initiale de Chopin dans le genre de l’impromptu, mais ce n’est pas le seul genre dans lequel il fut incité à se comporter de cette manière. Il aimait particulièrement donner des manuscrits de ses valses en cadeau et c’est la raison pour laquelle il refusa de publier plus de la moitié des valses qu’il composa. Chopin offrit les manuscrits des trois valses enregistrées ici à de multiples personnes de sa connaissance (on connaît au moins trois manuscrits de l’op.69 n° 1 et deux de l’op.70 n° 3 et de la Valse en la bémol majeur, KKIVa/13). Il donna d’abord un manuscrit de la Valse en la bémol majeur, op.69 n° 1, à Maria Wodzińska à qui il fut brièvement fiancé. La décoration chromatique des mélodies de cette valse traduit une certaine mélancolie que l’on peut aisément associer à un chagrin personnel, mais quels que soient les souvenirs personnels liés aux origines de cette œuvre, ils n’empêchèrent pas Chopin de la donner plus tard en cadeau à Eliza Peruzzi et Charlotte de Rothschild.

extrait des notes rédigées par Jeffrey Kallberg © 2019
Français: Marie-Stella Pâris

Zunächst war es seine Großzügigkeit, die Chopin zu dem Genre des Impromptus führte, doch zeigte er sich nicht nur hier so generös. Es bereitete ihm besondere Freude, Manuskripte seiner Walzer zu verschenken, weshalb er über die Hälfte seiner Walzer nicht veröffentlichen ließ. Chopin vermachte die Manuskripte von drei hier eingespielten Walzern an mehrere Bekannte (es sind mindestens drei Manuskripte von op. 69 Nr. 1 überliefert, sowie jeweils zwei von op. 70 Nr. 3 und von dem Walzer in As-Dur, KKIVa/13). Maria Wodzińska, mit der er für kurze Zeit verlobt war, erhielt als Erste ein Manuskript des Walzers As-Dur, op. 69 Nr. 1. Die chromatisch verzierten Melodien dieses Werks vermitteln eine gewisse Melancholie, die sich durchaus mit persönlichem Verlust in Verbindung bringen lassen. Welche Erinnerungen jedoch mit diesem Werk für Chopin zusammenhängen mochten, sie hinderten ihn nicht daran, Manuskripte davon später sowohl Eliza Peruzzi als auch Charlotte de Rothschild zu schenken.

aus dem Begleittext von Jeffrey Kallberg © 2019
Deutsch: Viola Scheffel

Other albums featuring this work

Chopin: Impromptus, waltzes & mazurkas
Studio Master: CDA68273Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
Chopin: The Complete Waltzes
CDH55381 Piano albums for £8.00
Chopin: The Complete Waltzes
CDA67849
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