His music, so fastidiously wrought and emotionally generous, rewards faithful interpretations while also embracing idiosyncratic approaches youвЂ™re spoiled for choice across a vast temperamental range. 3 and several shorter works show, he is more intent on finding the musicвЂ™s poetry than its attention-grabbing (and ovation-inducing) sparkle.Д«ALLADES, OTHER WORKS Piotr Anderszewski, pianist (Virgin Classics 6 86370 2 CD).Д¬HOOSING just five recordings to represent most composers poses a challenge, but doing so for Chopin is especially daunting. But as his shapely performances of the Sonata No.

This young Chinese pianist (now calling himself simply Yundi) is in some ways the anti-Lang Lang: his technique is as formidable as that of his superstar countryman (and in many ways more reliable), and he is by no means averse to pointing up the drama in this music. AshkenazyвЂ™s performances can be found in Yundi LiвЂ™s Chopin as well. Many of the qualities that distinguish Mr. AshkenazyвЂ™s performances are passionate and fiery, but an important part of this pianistвЂ™s appeal has always been that finger power is only half the story you always have the sense of a keen intellect at work, even in pieces (like the вЂњBlack KeysвЂќ and вЂњWinter WindвЂќ Г‰tudes) that may appear to exert a purely visceral appeal. Rich in coloristic variety and hard-driven as these technique-testing works must be, Mr.

It also beautifully captures the Bolet sound, with its rich basses and crystalline trebles.ДЄmong the many dazzling accounts of the Г‰tudes, I find myself returning most often to Vladimir AshkenazyвЂ™s traversal. His 1986 recording of the Ballades, the Barcarolle and the Fantaisie is a superb example of his Chopin playing: pensive and powerful, with an inarguable ebb and flow. Jorge Bolet embraced the grand Romantic approach to pianism that prevailed in the first half of the 20th century, but he tempered the impulse toward showy display with a probing interpretive style that kept his performances from devolving into empty virtuosity. Ax uses to the advantage of both the delicate and the assertive extremes of the concerto, and the less frequently heard Variations on вЂњLГ ci darem la mano.вЂќ The sound of the Г‰rard is closer to that of the modern piano than to that of the fortepiano, but it has a distinctive, slightly glassine tone that Mr. AxвЂ™s performance of the First Concerto on a restored 1851 Г‰rard piano with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment combines the textural transparency that makes period-instrument recordings so appealingly fresh and the deeply considered, poetic phrasing that has always characterized Mr. Tharaud gives each of these little pieces a painterly and often dramatic reshaping, toying with tempos and coloration, and reconceiving the set as a sort of Chopin-esque вЂњPictures at an Exhibition.вЂќД®manuel Ax is hardly an early-musicker, and the Chopin concertos are hardly early music. Inspired at least partly by SchumannвЂ™s description of the Opus 28 Preludes as вЂњeaglesвЂ™ pinions, wild and motley pell-mell,вЂќ Mr. IF you think that works as familiar as the Chopin Preludes cannot sound fresh, compelling, even revolutionary, listen to the live-wire traversal by the French pianist Alexandre Tharaud. Г‰TUDES Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist (Decca 414 127 CD). Even in the sprightly mazurkas his playing is subtly melancholic and mystical. I especially love his later recordings of the 51 Mazurkas, made in 19, when he was nearly 80. And as a proud Polish artist playing ChopinвЂ™s mazurkas, which evoked a Polish dance form, he was unrivaled. In that context he was a model of refinement and taste, with no loss of rhapsodic fancy and imagination. He emerged when the use of expressive rubato and Romantic liberties in Chopin was rampant. The pianist who has won the broadest consensus for his exemplary Chopin is probably Arthur Rubinstein. The performance has been reissued many times, here in a release that also offers Horowitz in various live Chopin performances, all fascinating, recorded between 19. The way he will gently nudge a crucial left-hand note to anticipate some harmonic turning point is awesome. Horowitz gives an uncannily articulate and beguiling performance, dispatching the right-hand runs with breathtaking fleetness and delicacy, and lending bounce and crispness to the dancing accompaniment. Then, with a fanfare flourish of leaping chords, the piece breaks into an exuberant, shamelessly showy polonaise. In the opening andante, a tender, songful melody is spun over a rippling accompaniment. Though perhaps not top-drawer Chopin, this piece is a knockout.

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