Chopin's two piano concertos are almost always paired with each other on recordings, but this Naxos release, with Uzbek-born pianist
Eldar Nebolsin and the
Warsaw Philharmonic under
Antoni Wit, offers a more inventive and even more illuminating program of early
Chopin pieces. The Fantasia on Polish Airs, Op. 13, actually predated the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, and it's quite rarely performed. In this context it's a gem, showing something of the milieu from which
Chopin's individual style emerged while he was still in Poland. It is suffused with national melodic flavors and rhythms, and one of the themes is not by
Chopin at all but by Warsaw Opera conductor Karol Kurpinski. The work lacks the characteristic chromaticism of
Chopin's later music, but unmistakably shows his bent toward profound pianistic elaboration of essentially light genres. Here and in the Piano Concerto No. 1 pianist
Nebolsin achieves distinctive performances, with a lyrical, slightly languid tone that fits both pieces beautifully. He turns on the power (which he displayed in abundance on an earlier Liszt release) in the second subject of the concerto's first movement, in the final "Kujawiak" movement of the Fantasia on Polish Airs, and on the concluding Krakowiak, Grand Rondeau de Concert, Op. 14, a work that captures as well as any other the moment at which
Chopin broke through to international stardom. Definitely worth adding to a well-stocked
Chopin shelf. The recording is billed as the first "to use the new Polish National
Chopin Edition," although the booklet notes (in English only) don't discuss which pieces that applies to and what the main import might be.