CHOPIN: Ballades & Nocturnes

Schooenderwoerd, Arthur

Alpha 147

In the middle of the celebrations for the Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn Years, the 200th birthday of Frédéric Chopin next year is casting its shadow. But even without the specific occasion of this anniversary, Dutch fortepiano expert Arthur Schoonderwoerd presents a highly interesting interpretation of the four ballads as well as some nocturnes. The recording is convincing because of its richness of colour and gives new insights into the seemingly so old-fashioned repertoire. The second star of this recording is the excellent grand piano by Ignace Pleyel from 1836, which gives us the original sound of Chopin. The four ballads composed between 1835 and 1842 have a special place in the composer's oeuvre. In contrast to the small forms based on dances, such as the waltzes or the mazurkas, a new, almost revolutionary genre appears here, whose epic breath is characteristic of the developments of the romantic age. It is not without reason that the cover of the recording is decorated with an excerpt from the famous painting Liberty Leads the People (1830) by Eugène Delacroix. The painter, who was a friend of the composer, succeeded in expressing the heroic spirit of his time in his paintings, and in a similar way Chopin developed the musical narrative flow in the ballads. The selected nocturnes, which round off the album, form a calm counterpart to this. As in the case of the Beethoven piano concertos Schoonderwoerd recorded for ALPHA, this recording will again cause quite a stir and will be greeted enthusiastically by Schoonderwoerd's steadily growing fan base in Europe.

CD x 1

Alpha

5/7/09

3760014191473