Allegro de concert in A major, Op 46 (Chopin) - from CDS44351/66 - Hyperion Records

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‘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)

Drawing tangibly on material for the first movement of a concerto sketched in Paris in 1832, and tentatively on ideas for a concerto for two pianos discussed by Chopin in Vienna a couple of years previously, the Allegro de Concert in A major was completed in May 1841. References to its concerto genesis are found, overtly, in letters from Chopin’s father written in 1834 and 1835 (‘You don’t mention whether you have finished your third concerto’) as well as in Chopin’s own correspondence (where it is specifically identified as a ‘concerto’ in a missive to Fontana from early October 1841).

In this allegro, Schumann told his readers in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, ‘a fine middle melody is wanting, though the cantilena is rich in new and brilliant passages; but it floats past us too restlessly, and we feel the absence of a slow after-movement, an adagio – for the entire plan suggests a complete concerto in three movements. The idea of raising the pianoforte to the highest point of independence possible, and of rendering the orchestra unnecessary, is a favourite one with young composers, and it seems to have influenced Chopin in the publication of his allegro in this form; but this new attempt again proves the difficulty of the task, though it will by no means serve as a warning against future endeavours.’

L’Allegro de Concert en la majeur fut terminé en mai 1841. Il puise manifestement dans le matériel du premier mouvement d’un concerto esquissé à Paris en 1832, et de façon moins définie dans des idées pour un concerto pour deux pianos dont Chopin avait parlé à Vienne deux années auparavant. Des références à l’origine de ce concerto sont faites ouvertement dans des lettres que le père de Chopin lui écrivait en 1834 et 1835 («Vous ne dites pas si vous avez fini votre troisième concerto») ainsi que dans la propre correspondance de Chopin (qui l’identifie spécifiquement comme un «concerto» dans une lettre adressée à Fontana du début d’octobre 1841).

extrait des notes rédigées par Ateş Orga © 1992
Français: Alain Midoux

Das Allegro de Concert in A-Dur, das eindeutig auf Material zum 1832 in Paris skizzierten ersten Satz eines Konzerts zurückgreift und weniger deutlich auf Ideen zu einem Konzert für zwei Klaviere, die Chopin einige Jahre zuvor in Wien diskutiert hatte, wurde im Mai 1841 vollendet. Unverkennbare Hinweise auf seine Ursprünge im Konzert finden sich in Briefen von Chopins Vater aus den Jahren 1834 und 1835 („Du sprichst nicht davon, ob du dein drittes Konzert fertiggestellt hast“) und in Chopins eigener Korrespondenz (wo es in einem Schreiben an Fontana Anfang Oktober 1841 eindeutig als „Konzert“ identifiziert wird).

aus dem Begleittext von Ateş Orga © 1992
Deutsch: Anne Steeb/Bernd Müller

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Recording details: January 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: 12 minutes 20 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