Helene Grimaud Plays...
Label: BRILLIANT CLASSICS Catalog: 92117 Format: CD Helen Grimaud - pianoWorks by Rachmaninov, Ravel, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms. Hélène Grimaud made her first five CDs for the Denon label, when the pianist was in her mid-teens through early 20s. Brilliant Classics has reissued them as a super-bargain boxed set. Even in her formative years, Grimaud's world-class pianism and first-rate musical mind seemed fully sprung. Listen as she fearlessly tears through Rachmaninov's Second Sonata, or notice the way she brings out the symphonic underpinnings of the same composer's Op. 33 Etudes-Tableaux and Liszt's Dante Sonata and you won't doubt that a mature artist is at work. She makes Chopin's G minor Ballade colorful and exciting by playing it as the composer intended, rather than re-writing his dynamics, phrasings, and ritards. Sonically, her 1992 Rachmaninov Second scores over her later traversal on Erato, while fans of her terrific Erato Ravel Concerto should find the earlier Denon version equally incisive and commanding.
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