By BC94747
10-Jun-2010

A favorite Chopin instrument adds charm to the composer's music  

With the bicentennial of Chopin’s birth date has come a flurry of new releases and re-releases of the composer’s piano works. This recording distinguishes itself from the pack not least by virtue of the beautifully muted sound of its restored 1842 Pleyel grand piano, one made only a few years after the 1839 Pleyel Chopin is known to have owned; the composer apparently preferred Pleyel pianos above all. (Of the period-instrument Chopin recordings I have heard, I have found myself most drawn to the deeper, dusky tones of Erard pianos from the same period.) Edna Stern started out her career playing modern pianos, and my one quibble is that at times her approach to the antique instrument on this recording does not sound significantly different from what she might have employed on a Steinway grand. A sensitive interpreter of Chopin, Stern takes most pieces at a slow tempo and with an understated touch, emphasizing the music’s ruminative quality.
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