Ah yes...the Famous Chopin Piano Works. Out of a giant oeuvre of solo piano literature, how difficult it must be to select one album's worth of the most "famous" to be a representative sample. While this album does an adequate job of covering most of the styles in which
Chopin composed, there's definitely a notable form absent: the waltz. The performances on the CD are as adequate as the program selection: nothing egregiously poor, but also nothing truly exceptional, making this album useful primarily for a listener seeking a very cursory introduction to
Chopin. The first nine tracks were recorded in 1983 by pianist
Andreas Pistorius and feature everything from mazurkas, scherzos, and nocturnes.
Pistorius' technique is generally solid, but there are too many small instances of sloppy passagework and messy ornamentation. The recorded sound of his instrument is also very dull and lacking in resonance; this is particularly noticeable in the Op. 10, no. 2 C minor Etude. The final six tracks were recorded in 1990 by pianist
Elfrun Gabriel and consist only of preludes. The seven years that passed between the two recordings did not advance the recorded sound quality, however, and
Gabriel's piano sounds even more distant than
Pistorius and substantially lacking in bass resonance.