Review By Gonzalo Pérez Chamorro ,Ritmo,September 2011
CHOPIN, F.: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Fantasy on Polish Airs / Rondo a la krakowiak (Nebolsin, Warsaw Philharmonic, Wit) 8.572335
CHOPIN, F.: Piano Concerto No. 2 / Variations on La ci darem / Andante spianato and Grande polonaise brillante (Nebolsin, Warsaw Philharmonic, Wit) 8.572336
DOHNANYI, E.: Variations on a Nursery Song / Symphonic Minutes / Suite (Nebolsin, Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta) 8.572303
LISZT, F.: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Totentanz (Nebolsin, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Petrenko) 8.570517
RACHMANINOV: Preludes for Piano (Complete) 8.570327
SCHUBERT, F.: Piano Sonatas Nos. 4 and 13 / Wanderer Fantasy (Nebolsin) 8.572459
Eldar Nebolsin comenzo grabando para Naxos en 2007 con los Preludios de Rachmaninov. Desde entonces ha recorrido Conciertos y obras para piano y orquesta de Chopin, Liszt y Dohnanyi, hasta llegar a su ultimo disco con el piano de Schubert, en el que ha vuelto a encerrarse solo sin mas compania que el mismo, como hiciera con aquel Rachmaninov, unos Preludios (Op. 3/2 y Opp. 23 y 32) de un colorido deslumbrante, ritmicamente intensos y con una capacidad expresiva emocionante. Para cualquier pianista proveniente de la antigua Union Sovietica estas obras son como una ducha diaria, practicamente estan en la “rutina” habitual de cada pianista. Nebolsin los escucharia por los pasillos de los conservatorios, pero esta familiaridad no ha convertido su interpretacion en una mas, pues la capacidad para extraer finas sensaciones de cada preludio es un acierto que no cae en la exhibicion sonora sin tener por que, como les ocurre a muchos pianistas con estas obras, que apabullan pero cayendo en el vacio robando su alma. Desde el Op. 23/6, un Preludio que Gilels adoraba y que en Nebolsin suena con una exquisitez creativa admirable, al Op. 23/10, cantado con una ternura maravillosa, todo el ciclo de la Op. 23 es de una belleza magistral, a la altura de las mas grandes recreaciones. La densa sonoridad de Rachmaninov, creada por una continuidad incesante de notas y una asfixiante armonia, es para el pianista uzbeko un reto que se convierte en claridad (Op. 32/1) y verdadera poesia (Op. 32/5).
La obra completa para piano y orquesta de Chopin conto con Wit y la elegante Filarmonica de Varsovia, en interpretaciones que rebosan placidez y elegancia, pura belleza sonora, con un punto de vista mas lirico que dramatico. Puede ser que la direccion sea menos “arriesgada” que otras recientes (Mehta, Nelsons, Fisch), con cierta correccion, pero el
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Review By Jordi Caturla González,Ritmo,February 2011
8.572335_Ritmo_012011_sp.pdf
Review By Juan Carlos Moreno,Scherzo,February 2011
8.572335_SCHERZO_022011_sp.pdf
Review By Dave Saemann ,Fanfare,January 2011
In 1992, Eldar Nebolsin won the grand prize and gold medal at the Santander International Piano Competition. A year later, still in his teens, he went into the studio to record his debut album for Decca, a program of Chopin and Liszt. He presents there consistently involving and imaginative performances, worthy of a pianist of much riper years. Unfortunately, a major recording career did not materialize for him. Though he studied with Dmitri, Nebolsin was not particularly photogenic and did not bang, two strikes against him in the popularity contest for young pianists. Happily Naxos, from which so many good things flow, has caught up with Nebolsin in his mid-30s and is recording him in a diverse repertoire. The present CD is one of two surveying Chopin’s complete music for piano and orchestra. Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic previously recorded the First Concerto with Olga Kern. Nebolsin’s set is the first to use the new Polish National Chopin Edition. To me, the most noticeable change from older editions is in the articulation of some of the tuttis in the opening movement of the First Concerto.
Nebolsin performs the first movement of the concerto at a moderate, almost measured tempo that really allows the music to sing. He has beautiful articulation and a liquid tone. His passagework is especially clean. Although Nebolsin’s technical skill is outstanding, his playing is so lyrical that you don’t think about his chops. The orchestra supports him with a luminous tone; the solo horn plays especially well. The second movement is a true romanza. Nebolsin spins out the main melody most operatically. He plays very affectionately here, but never too delicately. In the last movement, Nebolsin doesn’t hurry. He relishes every bit of filigree phrasing. The Polish dance rhythms are especially pointed. Nebolsin’s runs are gorgeous, never breathless. All in all, this is a highly accomplished version of the concerto.
In the Fantasia on Polish Airs, Nebolsin allows himself greater license than in the concerto. The work is more openly a virtuoso showpiece than the concerto, and Nebolsin proves very comfortable with its rhetorical flourishes. The orchestra handles the work’s folk-music elements beautifully, contributing a dark, brooding sense of melancholy. The performance of Krakowiak has considerable brio. Nebolsin treats the opening highly evocatively, leading to a subtle rendering of the dance rhythm in the main theme. Much of the piano writing in the work is dense, and Nebolsin provides considerable sonic heft when required.
Naxos’s sound engineering is excellent, full and well balanced. Interestingly, they did not use one of their regular engineers, but instead turned to the Polish label CD Accord for theirs. I think anyone should be happy to add this CD to their library, particularly at Naxos’s price. I am happy to have Eldar Nebolsin back again in Chopin. It has been a long time coming.
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Review By David Mellor,Mail on Sunday,December 2010
And my best bargain choice has to be the two separately available Naxos CDs devoted to Chopin’s music for piano and orchestra, splendidly played by Eldar Nebolsin and idiomatically accompanied by the Warsaw Philharmonic under the doyen of Polish conductors, Antoni Wit
Review By Bill,The WSCL Blog,November 2010
It’s hard to go wrong with Chopin’s music in the hands of Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic. Eldar Nebolsin is featured in this disc of three piano-and-orchestra works by Chopin.
Review By International Record Review,November 2010
A brand-new version of the same concerto comes from Naxos, with Eldar Nebolsin and the Warsaw Philharmonic under Antoni Wit. Initial impressions are unpromising: the opening tutti sounds glutinous, but things improve significantly. Nebolsin is a poetic player as well as an agile one and Wit accompanies sensitively. The slow movement is lyrically done, though Nebolsin becomes a shade mechanical in the arpeggios near the end. The finale shows his playing at its most refined, though the orchestra sounds plummy in big tuttis. The couplings are the Fantasia on Polish Airs, Op. 13 and Krakowiak, Op. 14. Both are attractively done, especially Krakowiak, where the orchestral sound seems brighter than in the concerto.
Review By James Manheim,Allmusic.com,November 2010
Chopin’s two piano concertos are almost always paired with each other on recordings, but this Naxos release, with Uzbek-born pianist Eldar Nebolsin and the Warsaw Philharmonic under Antoni Wit, offers a more inventive and even more illuminating program of early Chopin pieces. The Fantasia on Polish Airs, Op. 13, actually predated the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, and it’s quite rarely performed. In this context it’s a gem, showing something of the milieu from which Chopin’s individual style emerged while he was still in Poland. It is suffused with national melodic flavors and rhythms, and one of the themes is not by Chopin at all but by Warsaw Opera conductor Karol Kurpinski. The work lacks the characteristic chromaticism of Chopin’s later music, but unmistakably shows his bent toward profound pianistic elaboration of essentially light genres. Here and in the Piano Concerto No. 1 pianist Nebolsin achieves distinctive performances, with a lyrical, slightly languid tone that fits both pieces beautifully. He turns on the power (which he displayed in abundance on an earlier Liszt release) in the second subject of the concerto’s first movement, in the final “Kujawiak” movement of the Fantasia on Polish Airs, and on the concluding Krakowiak, Grand Rondeau de Concert, Op. 14, a work that captures as well as any other the moment at which Chopin broke through to international stardom. Definitely worth adding to a well-stocked Chopin shelf. The recording is billed as the first “to use the new Polish National Chopin Edition,” although the booklet notes (in English only) don’t discuss which pieces that applies to and what the main import might be.
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Review By Jeremy Nicolas,Gramophone,October 2010
Scintillating pianism that can rival the greats in this repertoire
Nebolsin, after his superb recording of the Liszt concertos, proves himself a scintillating and persuasive Chopinist, alive to every detail and, indeed, subtly highlighting a few that are generally ignored, such as the underpinning by the left-hand at 2’22” et seq in the concerto’s last movement. This Rondo is, for me, the highlight of the disc, nonchalantly fleet-fingered, beautifully phrased and conveying a real joy of shared music-making. The Fantasia and Krakowiak are no less successful, rivaling Rubinstein’s 1968 version of the latter (and in better sound) and outfacing Arrau’s overrated 1972 recording of both. With any luck, Nebolsin and Wit will organise with the other two (non-concerto piano and orchestra works) and the Second Concerto.
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Review By Giv Cornfield,The New Recordings, Cliffs Classics,September 2010
Youthful ardour permeates these overly-familiar early works of Chopin. There is no gainsaying Eldar Nebolsin's mastery of the keyboard. But the fire that burned so brightly in his recording of the Liszt piano concertos is almost absent (nor does this music actually require such temperament). These are fine renditions, and anyone who does not own this music on disc would not go wrong in acquiring them. For the first time in many years, Naxos deviated in this case from its standard format of cover art - a not unwelcome move.
Review By John J. Puccio,Classical Candor,August 2010
For practically as long as I can remember I’ve loved the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, by Frederic Chopin (1810-1849). Not that I think it’s the greatest music in the world, just among my favorite[s]. Chopin was primarily a pianist and composer for the piano, so most of what he wrote was for solo piano. The orchestral accompaniment he provided for his two piano concertos can at times seem almost like an afterthought. No matter, with melodies so lovely and memorable.
Perhaps, then, you can understand my bias in liking almost every recording of the Concerto that comes along, including this new one from pianist Eldar Nebolsin on Naxos...Chopin wrote the Piano Concerto No. 1 within a year following his Piano Concerto No. 2 but published No. 1 first. So if No. 1 seems the more mature of the two, well, by a few months it actually is. Chopin described the second movement of No. 1 as “reviving in one’s soul beautiful memories.” In Chopin’s case, he composed the piece when he was about nineteen or so and smitten at the time with a beautiful young student, Constantia Gladkowska, at the Warsaw Conservatory. Although he barely talked to her and she soon married somebody else, he probably had her in mind when he wrote both of his piano concertos, as well as a few other works.
Of course, the piano parts dominate both piano concertos, the better to showcase Chopin’s virtuosity with the instrument. Yet with the Piano Concerto No. 1, the piano doesn’t even enter the picture until after a fairly lengthy orchestral introduction. Go figure. Maybe the composer intended the prolonged preamble to make the piano’s entrance all the more grand. It certainly works that way. Anyhow, Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic open big but not as dramatically as some conductors and orchestras do. Whatever, it sets a tone for the intimacy to follow in the main theme. Then Nebolsin enters about five minutes in and dominates the rest of the show.
Nebolsin can be quite extrovert one moment and quietly introspective the next...Nevertheless, Nebolsin does create more tension and sheer excitement than most others invoke, which in part makes up for any lack of poetry elsewhere.
Nebolsin actually seems more at home in the Romanza, where he caresses the keyboard lovingly...Finally, Chopin appears to have added the last movement just to round out the piece...It’s a zippy little Rondo that at least Nebolsin and Wit have fun with.
Coupled with the Piano Concerto we find Chopin’s Fantasia on Polish Airs, Op. 13, which the composer wrote while he was still in school. It’s in four short movements and, while generally charming, doesn’t amount to much. The second movement Air is probably its most-delightful component, and Nebolsin makes the most of it.
The program concludes with Krakowiak, Chopin’s Grand Rondeau de Concert, anoth
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