Great Pianists Of The 20th Century, Vol. 74

Ignacy Jan Paderewski - piano

This is the best volume in the Great Pianists of the 20 century series. The playing is a revelation, exquisite, lyrical, and always profound. Each piece is played with a unique sensitivity and disregard for virtuosity. Only having heard of Paderewski, almost as a legend, it is breathtaking to finally behold this "ultimate pianist". It is even more breathtaking, when one realizes every recording was done in one take, years before modern tape editing techniques. (A modern CD of one hour may actually be made from many hours of tapes and remixed, creating marvelous recordings that never really happened, something more like sculpture than musical performance.) The beauty of tone even on these somewhat "hissy" older recordings is a wonder to hear. The Chopin selections makes one seem to hear their beauty again for the first time, more beautiful than any modern recording. The Liszt selections are fantastic. The famous Liszt second rhapsody is done in a lyric non-virtuosic cantabile style that is ravishing with meaning and beauty in every note, a new color every second. It is the ultimate second rhapsody done with pure musicality and avoiding technical excesses. He plays the music, not just Lisztian cadenzas with stuff in between like most modern virtuosos. He makes a beautiful Hungarian tone poem, not a virtuoso exercise in octaves and velocity. Paderewski always strives for beauty of tone and expression and seems to be uninterested in modern pyrotechnics. This is really a must for anyone who loves piano music, a real sojourn back to the days of Liszt and Chopin. Music like it was supposed to be.