Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor; Piano Sonata in B flat minor

Rubinstein played Chopin like nobody else. His sheer panache is captivating, while the grand scale of his conceptions is always tempered with humanity and tenderness. He has a particular solidity of rhythm which, far from being rigid, gives the music plenty of space for breath. The A major Polonaise, for example, is played with fabulously grand flair. The Concerto No. 2 is weaker, plentifully sprinkled with wrong notes. Sound quality inevitably varies, since the disc is cobbled together from numerous recordings made between 1958 and 1965. Jessica Duchen

Our rating

4

Jessica Duchen

Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:39 pm

COMPOSERS: Chopin
LABELS: RCA Red Seal Twofer
WORKS: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor; Piano Sonata in B flat minor
PERFORMER: Artur Rubinstein (piano)Symphony of the Air/Alfred Wallenstein
CATALOGUE NO: 74321 34175 2 ADD

Rubinstein played Chopin like nobody else. His sheer panache is captivating, while the grand scale of his conceptions is always tempered with humanity and tenderness. He has a particular solidity of rhythm which, far from being rigid, gives the music plenty of space for breath. The A major Polonaise, for example, is played with fabulously grand flair. The Concerto No. 2 is weaker, plentifully sprinkled with wrong notes. Sound quality inevitably varies, since the disc is cobbled together from numerous recordings made between 1958 and 1965. Jessica Duchen

Journalist and Critic, BBC Music Magazine

Jessica Duchen studied music at Cambridge University and was the classical music correspondent for The Independent from 2004 to 2016. She has also written for The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, BBC Music Magazine and the JC, among others. Jessica Duchen has written librettos include numerous choral works and operas for the composer Roxanna Panufnik, including Silver Birch, commissioned by Garsington Opera and shortlisted for an International Opera Award in 2018. Two more works based on stories by Oscar Wilde were commissioned for Garsington’s Youth Company, The Happy Princess with composer Paul Fincham (2019) and The Selfish Giant with John Barber, which fell victim to lockdown, this has been postponed to 2021.