DiscountDelight - Chopin: Nocturnes
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List Price: $33.98
Our Price: $26.44
Your Save: $ 7.54 ( 22% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028947757184
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon
Release Date: 2006-04-11
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Visionary fperformance
Comment: When I first purchased this recording, the rather austere interpretations disappointed me. I had been listening to the Pires earlier, and her much more traditional, romantic approach had made a deep impression(still a great accomplishment, better than almost all who precede her recording). However, after a few listenings, Pollini's incredible intellectual command and spiritual interpretation became evident. If someone has listened more romantic playing of these pieces such as Arrau's, then Pollini's may seem at first without any beauty or understanding of Chopin's intent because the doesn't linger of phrases, manipulate the tempo by rushing or slowing down in a dreamlike trance. Instead, Pollini finds the true essence in his perfect pianism and his visionary effort here. The sound of the recording is exemplary- I do wish they could have placed the microphones so as not to hear Pollini's occaisional and momentary gutteral utterances and breathing , but a small price to pay to hear Chopin's Nocturnes played with such insight, technique, and understanding. I rank this cd with his playing of the etudes, ballades, and preludes...all of the highest order.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: He's back!
Comment: These recordings represent something of a return to form for Pollini, whose recordings in recent years have often sounded as if the score had been programmed into that hi-tech Yamaha player piano. Here one senses a sophisticated musical intelligence constantly making judgments and decisions. And, of course, his technique is still highly impressive. His articulation is a thing of wonder and his structural sense is a real asset in these pieces which can often seem diffuse. Still, the performances often seem defined by what is NOT done rather than any individual touches. Rubato is at a minimum and agogic hesitations nonexistent. They are very "come scritto" in what might be considered the Toscanini tradition. As such, they would be an excellent introduction to this music for new listeners.
A number of recent recordings could be considered more individual and detailed - Ciccolini, D'Ascoli, Ohlsson, even Hewitt. Not to mention the older recordings of Arrau, Francois and the wonderfully mannered Moravec.
A note on the recording: I found is surprisingly substandard for DG - shallow and muffled. Pollini deserves better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: HOLY COW!
Comment: According to the DG website, this set was supposed to be released in Novemeber of 2005 -- and it came out 7 months later! What an awful, miserable wait... I wish Pollini weren't on their back-burner, I think he's the best thing they have! This set is ridiculously good, amazing, excellent.
These pieces have always been special and important to me. As a result I've bought many complete performances (Arrau, Moravec, Rubinstein, Rev, Pires, Barenboim, Vasary, Francois) and quite a few partial performances...
I am mad that I had to wait so long to get these discs. But that's the greed in me speaking. I would pay anything for these discs, wait any amount of time. I am glad and grateful to have them.
As for the performances, I don't really know what to say... Pollini has evolved and developed SO much as an artist. He could always terrify and excite me, take my breath away, but he rarely made me cry. Here, me makes me cry again and again. These aren't necessarily the most sentimental pieces, and they're anything but "soft." It's just that his touch has become so delicate, so sensitive -- and his technique is all still there. So detailed, soaring, I'd go so far as to say visionary... I hope Pollini lives forever! I can't wait, can't want, must-force-myself-to-wait for his forthcoming Bach!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Other worldly
Comment: After seeing the 5 star rating and 'Other worldly' description, you're probably waiting for me to gush about this double CD set. Well yes however, it didn't start that way. Please allow me to explain:
I have heard and am thoroughly familiar with the Barenboim, Ashkenazy and Claudio Arrau interpretations of these Nocturnes (and occasional versions by other pianists). So, I was curious to hear Pollini's version of these beautiful piano pieces. My first listens were, to say the least, unexpected bordering on uncomfortable. The interpretations sounded 'alien' as if Pollini was almost playing the wrong music or at least, the 'wrong way'. It was jarring to listen to and I was rather taken aback and upset that my money was wasted.
However, I decided to persist. To make a fair evaluation, my first dozen or so listens were without the music score and without comparison to any other pianist. And even with about a dozen listens, I had only warmed slightly towards his interpretations. At this juncture, I thought the time was right to compare him with other pianists....
Well, this is where the tide turned (and rather drammatically at that!!). I started listening to various other pianists and it dawned on me why I found Pollini's set so jarring. Thru generations of pianists, I had been conditioned to listening to the Nocturnes a certain way. Give or take a little, most pianists seem to play the Nocturnes in a similar type manner and that is, with layer upon layer of varnish and rubato which has become so ingrained, that we've partially lost the sight of the music that lays at its core. I was so conditioned to listening to the music this way that I didn't think there was any other way to play them.
Well, there is! Pollini has stripped away most of the excessive layers of 'varnish' to reveal the essence of the music again (and, as it was meant to be played!). And comparisons with other pianists, scream this difference! The overly exaggerated turns and phrasing and rubatos of other pianists are like eating candy floss - yummy at first but sickening by the end. This is brought home further when you read the musical score with Pollini's version and then the other pianists. Pollini takes very few liberties (if at all) and if so, rather subtly and discreetly. He aims to convey the musicality and essence of the piece without the pianist distorting it to his own ends.
Pollini has a knack of making his versions of music the standard of reference (take his versions of the Chopin etudes and Prokofief's seventh sonata)....and guess what, he's done it with these pieces as well.
Pls note the recording is excellent but a little forward which sometimes may accentuate some notes as sounding a little 'severe'. An Amazon reviewer has mentioned ' background noises' like someone is brushing on the microphone. I know the noises he is referring to but they are only of Pollini's breathing. He is inhaling/exhaling in a slightly exaggerated manner often at climactic points of the pieces. I personally don't feel they are intrusive and they don't happen that often. However, I can't understand why they weren't filtered out (esp. considering technical know how these days)
If you buy this set, I implore you to give it many listens (preferably without comparison otherwise you will go back to those interpretations you know well). Once you have thoroughly familiarised yourself with Pollini's version, then go back to the ones you know...do side by side comparisons.
And let me say, I'm not dismissing those other versions, they will always have a place in my heart but for something 'otherworldly', Pollini's set of Chopin Nocturnes will be the ones I return to!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Probing to the heart of Chopin's mystery
Comment: An ambitious second-year piano student can negotiate several of Chopin's Nocturnes, which eschew formal and technical complexity, giving us pure mood and melody. Simplicty can be the greatest artistic challenge, and that proves true for the Nocturnes, where success depends on an intuitive communion with the composser--his apparently careless improvisation must become yours. Studied performances fail, as does "personal" styling from a celebrity pianist.
Pollini manages to thread the needle and find a way to solve the mystery. The eloquent reviews below say a great deal about what makes this recording almost beyond praise. Yet strangely enough, the usually reliable Bryce Morrison in the Gramophone was tartly dismissive, finding these readings cold, testy, an act of duty instead of love. Pollini told a New York Times interviewer that his love of Chopin grows more intense every year, and I think that's the key: here is intense love communicated by the most emotionally reserved of pianists. All the intensity is masked, and yet we feel it anyway. Supported by Pollini's incomparable ability to balance chords and phrase with liquid simplicity, this set of Nocturnes will become one of the legendary ones. By comparison, a fine set like the one by Pires seems all thumbs and halting stabs. I heard Pollini play four Nocturns in Carnegie Hall last week (the highlight being the Op. 48 pair), and it's a joy now to have all the rest. Pollini playing Chopin is hte convergence of two mysteries that years of listening will never fully comprehend. (The recorded sound of the piano, by the way, is marvellously full and natural--by far the best of any Pollini Chopin disc.)
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Editorial Reviews:
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Pollini's traversal of Chopin's 19 Nocturnes (he leaves out the pair of posthumous ones) is one of his finest recordings in years. His long-lined yet detailed performances are comparable to the very different ones that have long stood at the pinnacle of recorded sets. Not as serene as Artur Rubinstein's, not as philosophical as Claudio Arrau's, nor as warm as Ivan Moravec's, Pollini's interpretations have their own allure. One is the way he shapes the melodies with a natural flow enhanced by his tonal beauty, less lean and streamlined than his usual way with Romantic music. Another is his careful attention to dynamics, as in the subtle gradations of tone found in Op.9 No.1, Op. 15 No 2, and others in the set. Yet another is his detailed articulation that yields trills of feathery lightness and brings out inner details without unduly spotlighting them. His pianissimo playing is radiant, pearly runs are seamlessly strung together, and climaxes like that in Op. 37 No.1 ring out boldly. And this paragon of the objective modern style indulges in discreet rubatos that bring life to the musical line and make you feel the music behind the notes. --Dan Davis
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