Frédéric Chopin - Nokturny (Steinway) (Đặng Thái Sơn)

Information

Composer: Frédéric Chopin

1. Nocturne No. 21 in C minor, WN 62
2. Nocturne No. 16 in E flat major, Op. 55, No.2
3. Nocturne No. 12 in G major, Op. 37, No. 2
4. Nocturne No. 11 in G minor, Op. 37, No. 1
5. Nocturne No. 10 in A flat major, Op. 32, No. 2
6. Nocturne No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1
7. Nocturne No. 5 in F sharp major, Op. 15, No. 2
8. Nocturne No. 3 in B major, Op. 9, No. 3
9. Nocturne No. 7 in C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1
10. Nocturne No. 9 in B major, Op. 32, No. 1
11. Nocturne No. 19 in E minor, Op. posth. 72, WN 23
12. Nocturne No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 9, No. 2
13. Nocturne No. 15 in F minor, Op. 55, No. 1
14. Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor, WN 37: Lento con gran espressione

Đặng Thái Sơn, piano (Steinway Model D)
Date: 2009
Label: Fryderyk Chopin Institute
http://en.chopin.nifc.pl/institute/publications/musics2/id/1724

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Review

PERFORMANCE: **** / SOUND: ****

Winner of the 1980 Chopin Competition – when he became the first Vietnamese pianist to triumph in a major international competition – Dang Thai Son has maintained close connections ever since with Chopin and Warsaw musical life. So it is fitting that his disc of Nocturnes should be one of the earliest releases in the Frederyk Chopin National Institute’s new ‘white label’ series, a projected collection of the composer’s complete works on modern instruments designed to complement the ‘black label’ series on pianos of Chopin’s day. Recorded on a Steinway, he gives us a very personal selection of 14 of the 21 Nocturnes (19 with opus numbers, plus two posthumously published).

Framed by the posthumous pieces, Dang Thai Son’s programme opens with the late, 1847 Nocturne in C minor and ends with the famous C sharp minor piece, which already in 1830 was able to offer a montage of self-quotations. Rather than structuring his sequence according to opus number or key, the pianist takes us through various expressive categories – a reminder that these works, though they share a twilit spirit, are all very distinct. His pianistic sound is based on warm singing lines, but he never stresses the bel canto inheritance at the expense of deeper musical substance. This recital is not just well-groomed Chopin playing: such episodes as the unusually stormy middle section of the Op. 55 No. 1 in F minor also demonstrate the pianist’s individuality.

-- John Allison, BBC Music Magazine

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Frédéric Chopin (22 February or 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation". Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest superstars, his association (if only indirect) with political insurrection, his love life and his early death have made him a leading symbol of the Romantic era in the public consciousness. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying degrees of historical accuracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin

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Đặng Thái Sơn (born July 2, 1958 in Hanoi, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese Canadian classical pianist. He was discovered by Isaac Katz, who helped him pursue his training at the Moscow Conservatory with Vladimir Natanson and Dmitri Bashkirov. He was the Gold Medalist of the Tenth International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland in 1980. It was the first time that a top international competition was won by an Asian pianist. Dang has received particular acclaim for the sonority and poetry in his interpretations of music of Chopin and the French repertoire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90%E1%BA%B7ng_Th%C3%A1i_S%C6%A1n

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