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Track(s) taken from CDS44351/66

Polonaise in B flat minor, KKIVa/5

composer
published in 1879; based on an air from Rossini's La gazza ladra

Garrick Ohlsson (piano)
Recording details: August 1993
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 49 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

Nikolai Demidenko (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)
Polonaise No 15 in B flat minor was penned on the evening of 27 July 1826 – the day before Chopin’s departure for the spa town of Reinerz where he was to begin his summer holidays. He and a schoolfriend, Wilhelm Kolberg, had just been to a performance of Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra at the Warsaw Opera, an occasion recalled by the D flat trio (headed ‘Au revoir!’) which quotes one of Kolberg’s apparently favourite moments, the Act I cavatina ‘Vieni fra questa braccia’.

from notes by Ateş Orga © 1992

Chopin écrivit la Polonaise no15 en si bémol mineur pendant la soirée du 27 juillet 1826 – le soir de son départ pour Reinerz, ville d’eau où il devait passer ses vacances été. Il venait d’assister, avec son ami Wilhelm Kolberg, à une représentation de La Gazza Ladra de Rossini, à l’opéra de Varsovie. Des traces de cette occasion se retrouvent dans le trio en ré bémol (intitulé «Au revoir!») qui rappelle l’un des passages préférés de Kolberg, la cavatine de l’acte I «Vieni fra questa braccia».

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

Die Polonaise Nr.15 in b-Moll schrieb Chopin am Abend des 27. Juli 1826 nieder – also am Vorabend seiner Abreise nach Bad Reinerz, wo er seinen Sommerurlaub beginnen sollte. Er und ein Schulfreund namens Wilhelm Kolberg hatten soeben eine Vorstellung von Rossinis La Gazza Ladra am Warschauer Opernhaus besucht, ein Anlaß, an den das Trio in Des-Dur (mit der Überschrift „Au revoir!“) erinnert. Dort wird ein Moment zitiert, der Kolberg offensichtlich besonders gefallen hatte: die Kavatine „Vieni fra questa braccia“ aus dem I. Akt.

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

Other albums featuring this work

Chopin: Demidenko plays Chopin
CDA66597Download only
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