Recording
Title: The Nocturnes
Performer: Maria João Pires
Year: 1996
Length: 2 hours
Review
After a long interval we come back to Chopin, now that Schubert has left us. And we come back to some of his most famous pieces in a truly great recording by my countrywoman Maria João Pires. These are pieces meant to invoke the night, and the feeling that they give is actually quite homogeneous.
Taking into account the fact that the pieces were written through a long period of time, it is only natural that the listener will catch Chopin's evolution through the years, as each op. number changes so is the listener aware of a jump in Chopin's language.
This evolution does not, however, harm Chopin's congruity, the whole recording sounds like a unified piece. The merit if also of the pianist of course which is presenting these Nocturnes as consistent works. In the end, each of the 21 pieces, is pretty amazing in its own right, immensely expressive, sometimes almost to the level of being overly-emotional, but this is Chopin after all. Beautiful.
Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
He took the new salon genre of the nocturne, invented by Irish composer John Field, to a deeper level of sophistication. Three of Chopin's twenty-one Nocturnes were only published after his death in 1849, contrary to his wishes.
Op.32 no.2 :
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