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Track(s) taken from CDS44351/66

Impromptu No 1 in A flat major, Op 29

composer
1837

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 21 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

Angela Hewitt (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)
When Chopin returned to composing impromptus, he circulated them more conventionally through publication. Two of these published impromptus hew closely to the model established by Op 66. Indeed, the Impromptu in A flat major, Op 29, and the Impromptu in G flat major, Op 51, resemble each other closely enough that we may suppose Chopin modelled the later piece on the earlier one: the decorative shapes and animated rhythmic profiles of each principal theme, and conventionally song-like melodies of their central sections all seem cut from the same cloth.

from notes by Jeffrey Kallberg © 2019

Lorsque Chopin recommença à composer des impromptus, il les diffusa de manière plus conventionnelle en les publiant. Deux de ces impromptus publiés se rapprochent tout à fait du modèle établi par l’op.66. En effet, l’Impromptu en la bémol majeur, op.29, et l’Impromptu en sol bémol majeur, op.51, se ressemblent assez pour que l’on puisse supposer que Chopin modela ce dernier sur le premier: les formes décoratives et les profils rythmiques animés de chaque thème principal, comme les mélodies conventionnellement chantantes de leurs sections centrales semblent faits de la même étoffe.

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

Als Chopin später zum Komponieren von Impromptus zurückkehrte, verbreitete er sie in konventionellerer Weise, indem er sie veröffentlichte. Zwei dieser publizierten Impromptus orientieren sich stark an dem Vorbild von op. 66. Das Impromptu As-Dur, op. 29, und das Impromptu Ges-Dur, op. 51, ähneln einander sogar so sehr, dass man annehmen darf, dass Chopin das spätere Stück dem früheren nachempfand—die verzierten Konturen und lebhaften rhythmischen Profile der jeweiligen Hauptthemen und die konventionellen liedartigen Melodien der Mittelteile scheinen alle aus demselben Holz geschnitzt zu sein.

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

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This album is not yet available for downloadSACDA67371/22CDs Super-Audio CD — Deleted
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