Chopin: 51 Mazurkas by Rubinstein (2021 Remastered, London 1938-1939)

Chopin: 51 Mazurkas by Rubinstein (2021 Remastered, London 1938-1939)Chopin : 51 Mazurkas Rubinstein (2021 Remastered, London 1938 1939) 2 disc(s) 51 track(s) Total length: 01: 59: 00 Arthur Rubinsteins innate ease had allowed him to acquire a vast repertoire and perform it with flair and vitality. However, the fact that he had never undergone prolonged study under a great piano master led his interpretations to become erratic, even thoughtless, and his brilliant technique to grow inconsistent. In 1932, however,

Chopin : 51 Mazurkas

Rubinstein (2021 Remastered, London 1938-1939)

2 disc(s) - 51 track(s)
Total length: 01:59:00

Arthur Rubinstein’s innate ease had allowed him to acquire a vast repertoire and perform it with flair and vitality. However, the fact that he had never undergone prolonged study under a great piano master led his interpretations to become erratic, even thoughtless, and his brilliant technique to grow inconsistent. In 1932, however, Rubinstein finally married and settled in Paris. It was time to pause and reflect.

He re-studied his repertoire, adding and subtracting elements, and rebuilt his technique. This was a heroic undertaking for an artist in his forties, especially “an artist who had already enjoyed considerable public success.” And it was fully justified, for in time it became evident to connoisseurs, critics, and fellow musicians that Rubinstein’s astonishing interpretive and performing powers were finally being used to their fullest potential. Thus, he began to be recognized as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.

The entire long series of Mazurkas, recorded in 1938–39, reveals a balance—almost unique to this pianist—between spontaneous feeling and mature reflection embodied in these performances. Rubinstein’s communicative fire remains ever apparent, in the rich and always personal tone he produces in the Mazurkas, capable of great nuance. There would be no mazurkas without Polish folk dances and music.

With his mazurkas, Chopin forged an unrivaled model of musical stylization of traditional, national, and authentic folk repertoire. Chopin composed mazurkas throughout his life, from around 1825 (at the age of fifteen) to 1849. These miniatures became an important collection of the composer’s most personal musical utterances—a lyrical “diary” of his life. Perhaps more than in any other works, it is in the mazurkas that Chopin invites the listener into his “sanctuary of the heart.”

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