Murray Perahia - Chopin 4 Ballades Perahia (12 tracks) +Album Reviews +Used CD available for Swap

Too Perfect?

C. Pontus T. | 02/27/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have tried hard to like this recording as much as other reviewers, but I can't quite muster the same enthusiasm. Perahia plays with amazing accuracy, sensitivity and beauty of tone. The recording is gorgeous -- full bodied yet detailed. Yet when I listen to large chucks of this recital I find myself daydreaming, even dozing. Can music be too beautifully played? I tried an experiment last night: after not making it through the Perahia disk once again, I put on some of Samson Francois' Chopin. Francois is not one of my favorite pianists, and I find his Chopin odd, quirky, sometimes even ugly. But by God I was riveted to every note, and it was worth it because ever so often he would transport me to Heaven. I don't think Perahia ever quite manages that on this recording. In the Ballades I prefer Zimerman. The Waltzes are wonderful performances, but after that the energy level drops off -- too many slow Nocturnes, Mazurkas and Etudes in a row. Since Perahia plays with so much tasteful understatement -- he never gets rowdy and bangs out the beat like Friedman in the Mazurkas -- the effect is soporific."

A must-have for any Chopin lover!

05/07/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have gotten to know Murrray Perahia better through his wonderful CD on Schuberts Impromptus. My listening to Chopin was more directed towards Rubenstein and Michelangeli. This CD is an eye-opener to the artistic diversity and capacity of Murray Perahia. The Ballads show depth, sensitivity, and drama. The CD has instantly earned its place among my favorites."

A virtuoso performance

Davey Jay | 01/27/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Ballades are played with technical flawlessness, energy, and brilliance. However, in some passages his playing seems to lack sufficient emotion. Perhaps some would consider this restraint and dispassionateness a virtue. But I tend to favor a more Rachmaninoffian emphasis on melody lines. Chopin, after all, was a Romantic composer. On the whole, though, highly recommended."

(+) Not for the Ballades, but for the Filler Recital

C. Pontus T. | SE/Asia | 01/01/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"INTRODUCTION: 'One has to go back to Hofmann, recorded in 1937, to find a more searching or poetic account of the G minor Ballade than Murray Perahia's.' 'This is surely the greatest, certainly the richest, of Perhia's many exemplary recordings. Once again his performances are graced with rare and classic attributes and now, to supreme clarity, tonal elegance and musical perspective, he adds an even stronger poetic profile, a surer sense of the inflammatory rhetoric underpinning Chopin's surface equilibrium.' Reading these raving Penguin Guide and Gramophone quotes, respectively, one is destined to believe we are faced with the perfect account of the four Chopin Ballades--something that in itself would be quite spectacular to say the least as they make up the most perfect condensate of musical and pianistic refinement in the entire piano oeuvre.

REFERENCES: Demidenko (Chopin: Ballades; Third Sonata); Ohlsson (Garrick Ohlsson - The Complete Chopin Piano Works Vol. 3 - Ballades)

In addition to the above quotes, this disc was awarded a Penguin Guide Rosette, a Gramophone Award, and even an inclusion in Gramophone Magazine's 100 Greatest Recordings. Allow me to break it to you right away: the collective professional British reviewers have been wrong before, and this time they are to completely talking through their hat when it comes to the Ballades. The 'filler recital' is indeed a keeper--especially the two Waltzes (Opp 18 & 42), where Perahia's effortlessly brilliant but somewhat superficial playing feels just right for the music, but also the three bouncing Mazurkas. However, in the main attractions, the four Ballades, Perahia too seldom reaches beyond the face value of the notes.

His First Ballade may well be both 'poetic' and 'elegant'; it is though not nearly as dramatic as Demidenko's or as profound as Ohlsson's. The Second is rushed and largely robbed of its vast contrasts between its disparately nocturnal and etudeian sections. The Third is well paced and jolly enough, thus most apt of the four to the lightness of Perahia's pianism. The Fourth Ballade, whose inward elegiac beauty makes it one of the supreme piano masterpieces, most evidently exposes Perahia's shortcomings.

Even if the recorded sound cannot be faulted, so can the alleged perfection of Perahia's Ballades traversal--which I would rank firmly behind not only the above-stated references but also those of Kissin, Zimerman and Moravec. As a matter of fact, the very perfection is what lets Perahia's Ballades down, quite simply being too nice, buoyant and pleasing to penetrate the depths of these bottomless masterpieces.

TIMINGS: Ballades--8:49, 6:39, 6:54, 9:46; Waltzes (Opp 18 & 42)--5:02, 3:37; etc"

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