Rondo à la krakowiak, Op 14 (Chopin) - from CDS44351/66 - Hyperion Records

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)

After opera and national airs, Chopin turned to folk dance for his third work for piano and orchestra, composed in the same year (1828) as the ‘Polish potpourri’. The Rondo à la krakowiak in F major Op 14 is the only work of Chopin explicitly in this Polish dance form (although as we have seen the finale of the E minor Concerto resembles it). The krakowiak is a lively dance in 2/4 time, indigenous to the region around Kraków (Cracow). Like its predecessors, it is a sparkling display piece though here the orchestral role is more telling. Though he played it frequently after its composition, Chopin seems never to have returned to it after leaving Poland.

Après les airs opératiques et nationaux, ce fut sur la danse traditionnelle que Chopin bâtit sa troisième œuvre pour piano et orchestre, contemporaine du «Pot-pourri polonais» (1828). Le Rondo à la krakowiak en fa majeur op. 14 est la seule pièce chopinienne à affecter explicitement cette forme de danse polonaise (même si, nous l’avons vu, le finale du Concerto en mi mineur lui ressemble) enjouée, à 24, propre à la région de Kraków (Cracovie). Voilà encore une étincelante pièce démonstrative, malgré un orchestre plus éloquent. Chopin la joua souvent après l’avoir composée, mais il ne semble jamais y être revenu après son départ de Pologne.

Nach der Oper und den Nationalmelodien wandte sich Chopin bei seinem dritten Werk für Klavier und Orchester, das er im gleichen Jahr wie das „polnische Potpourri“ komponierte, dem Volkstanz zu. Das Rondo à la krakowiak in F-Dur op. 14 ist das einzige Werk Chopins, das speziell in dieser polnischen Tanzform geschrieben ist (obwohl das Finale des e-Moll-Konzerts, wie wir gesehen haben, ihm sehr ähnelt). Der Krakowiak ist ein schneller Tanz im Zweivierteltakt und stammt aus der Umgebung von Kraków (Krakau). Wie seine Vorgänger ist er ein brillantes Paradestück, bei dem aber das Orchester eine etwas bedeutendere Rolle spielt. Obwohl Chopin das Stück, nachdem er es komponiert hatte, häufig spielte, scheint er nach seinem Abschied von Polen nie mehr darauf zurückgekommen zu sein.

Recording details: June 1997
National Philharmonic Concert Hall, Warsaw, Poland
Produced by Andrzej Sasin
Engineered by Andrzej Sasin & Andrzej Lupa
Release date: November 2008
Total duration: 14 minutes 23 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

Rondo à la krakowiak, Op 14

Garrick Ohlsson (piano), Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Kazimierz Kord (conductor)

Reviews

Introduction