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Track(s) taken from CDS44351/66

Impromptu No 2 in F sharp major, Op 36

composer
1839

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: 6 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)
James Rhodes (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)
The Impromptu in F sharp major, Op 36, embraces the extemporaneity that is characteristic of the genre, but in ways that distinguish it from the other three impromptus: the initial repeating bass figuration opens the way to a kind of variation technique in the melody that anticipates the Berceuse, Op 57, and moments of complex transitional harmony (as in the move out of the march-like central section and into the wrong-key reprise of the opening theme) give the impression of a pianist extemporizing chromatic chord progressions.

from notes by Jeffrey Kallberg © 2019

L’Impromptu en fa dièse majeur, op.36, épouse le côté improvisé caractéristique du genre, mais d’une manière qui le distingue des trois autres impromptus: la figuration initiale qui se répète à la basse ouvre la voie à une sorte de technique de variation de la mélodie qui préfigure la Berceuse, op.57, et des moments d’harmonie transitoire complexe (comme la fin de la section centrale comparable à une marche et le début de la reprise du thème initial dans la mauvaise tonalité) donnent l’impression d’un pianiste improvisant des progressions d’accords chromatiques.

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

Das Impromptu Fis-Dur, op. 36, macht sich das für das Genre charakteristische Stehgreif-Element zu eigen, jedoch in einer Weise, die sich von den anderen drei Impromptus unterscheidet. Die sich wiederholende Bass-Figuration des Beginns macht den Weg frei für eine Art von Variationstechnik in der Melodie, die die Berceuse, op. 57, vorwegnimmt, sowie für Momente von komplexen Übergangsharmonien (wie etwa die Überleitung von dem marschartigen Mittelteil in die Reprise des Anfangsthemas in der „falschen“ Tonart), womit der Eindruck entsteht, der Pianist improvisiere chromatische Akkordfortschreitungen.

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

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