Search - Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, George Frederick Handel :: Piano Masters: Maryla Jonas

De Pachmann's Successor

John Atherton | CINCINNATI, OHIO United States | 12/06/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"... and there is no higher praise.

Vladimir de Pachmann was lauded in the late 19th century for rescuing Chopin from Lisztian virtuosi and restoring him to the charm, intimacy and mystery of the salon (although De Pachmann managed to make his confessional tone carry in the largest halls).

More recently, the salon aspects of Chopin have been disparaged and pianists like Rubinstein were praised for giving us more masculine, literal performances. But Rubinstein, who spent more time training in Berlin with Joachim and his circle than he ever did in Poland, always struck me as being more sympathetic to Brahms than he was to Chopin. Indeed, it took many years and a changing aesthetic for Rubinstein's Chopin to be hailed by the same audiences who considered Toscanini and Heifetz to reign supreme.

Which brings us to Maryla Jonas. She was Polish through and through and somehow, like the Russian De Pachmann, channeled what I sense was Chopin's own capricious, witty, nostalgic and nocturnal poetry.

It speaks well for Rubinstein that, though his compatriot's playing was so different from his own, he helped bring Jonas back to the piano after the broken woman was forced to flee to Brazil to escape the Nazis. Sadly, Maryla Jonas was too ill to build a major carreer and died at just 48.

These 78's, lovingly restored by Roger Beardsley, are a precious link to the Chopin of his own time."