Wednesday 29 September 2010

Chopin Piano Concerto 1 [Zimerman-Polish Festival Orchestra]

This is a lovely set of the Chopin Piano Concertos, Zimerman languishes in these recordings, in the end the two works can't be contained on a single disc, he spills over onto a second [but the price remains the same for a single disc, in a slimline case], Zimerman is also the conductor, and that means he has total artistic control over everything, and it shows in the final results, a truly superb engineered sound, the piano is to the fore, but not unduly so, a crystal clear piano sound, at times the gorgeous chimes of the piano take your breath away, one of the very best recorded piano sounds i've ever heard, slow and dreamy recordings.

Krystian Zimerman is of course Polish, born in 1956, he is now 53, i think this is one of the very last booklets to feature the big yellow DG banner, now they have smaller logos in the corner, a wise idea by DG, i like the booklet cover, Zimerman in action conducting.

I so much enjoyed the central Romance / Larghetto,

Here's Krystian Zimerman playing the second movement on YouTube, in an earlier recording.