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Chopin Mazurka Cycle Madness Part 2 · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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This is Jed Dissler, and welcome to the Piano
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Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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And we are continuing our journey through numerous
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recorded cycles of the Chopin Mazurkas, or keeping
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to pianists who recorded either the standard
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51 Mazurkas, or pianists who recorded all of
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the Mazurkas, which include posthumously published
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pieces, most of which date from Chopin's childhood.
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I just realized that I didn't talk about the
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Mazurka genre in the last episode, so I thought
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it might be helpful for listeners who were just
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getting into this repertoire. To paraphrase a
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popular 1960s cigarette television advertisement,
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you can take Chopin out of Poland, but you can't
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take Poland out of Chopin. Although Chopin left
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Warsaw for good when he was 21 years old to settle
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in Paris, Polish melodies and dances always remained
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central to Chopin's musical DNA. In fact, the
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Mazurkas outnumbered Chopin's works in all other
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genres. And he wrote Mazurkas from his early
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childhood up to his final illness. In Chopin's
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Mazurkas, the basic rhythm and phrase scantions
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embrace traditional Polish dance forms, such
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as the Mazur, the Obereck, and the Kudziewiak.
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while at the same time, they give free rein to
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this composer's extraordinary harmonic gifts.
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And in every period of Chopin's brief life, his
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mazurka writing consistently altered between
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works that were either simple or complex or charming
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on the surface, but also quite audacious on the
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surface. And if you were to put all of the Mazurkas
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in your music playback device, and if you push
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the random play button, you never know what you
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would get as far as mood or style. The analogy
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is like sampling a sort of chocolates, you know,
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they all look the same, but once you take a bite,
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You never know if you're gonna get smooth milk
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chocolate or pepper infused chocolate or marzipan
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or nuts, you know what I mean. We left off the
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last episode talking about Aleksandr Brylowski's
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Chopin Mazurkas. Here's another Polish pianist
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from a much younger generation, obviously, the
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pianist Ewa Poblowska. And her cycle was recorded
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in the studios of Polish radio in 1999. And it
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was released on a label called Bearton, B -E
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-A -R -T -O -N. That's the name of the label.
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And good luck trying to find this cycle. It's...
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kind of impossible to source. But I wanted to
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mention it because it's a terrific cycle. And
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what I love about Eva Poblowska's playing is
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that in the... introspective mazurkas she digs
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really deep and she takes her time to savor details
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but in the more upbeat extraverted pieces she
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tends to go for broke and she goes for dynamic
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extremes but not in an exaggerated way and she
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always always plays with affirmation so if you
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happen to find these recordings grab them wherever
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you can find them And of similar temperament,
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but a little more old school. And equally wonderful
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is the Mazurka Cycle, recorded in 1989, I believe,
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by Halina Czerny -Stefanska. She was a terrific
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pianist, and she shared first prize with Bela
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Davidovich in the 1949 Warsaw International Chopin
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Competition. Czerny Stefanska had recorded Mazurkas
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for various labels, but her 1989 cycle for the
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Japanese Canyon label is definitely worth checking
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out. Also, a deep thinking and serious and thoroughly
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idiomatic Chopin mazurka player was the late
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Tatiana Sheppanova. Now, she recorded only the
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mazurkas that bear opus numbers, including opus
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67 and 68. And she recorded all of these back
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in 2008. And these were part of a box set on
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the ducks label, the Polish ducks label. which
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was called The Complete Solo Works of Chopin
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in Opus Order. And then she recorded another
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Chopin cycle, but this time on a period instrument.
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These recordings were made between 2007 and 2010.
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And on this 14 -disc set, the first 12 discs
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follow a more or less chronological order of
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Chopin's output. So you get the Opus 67 and Opus
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68 works, plus a few other early selections.
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But the Opus 67 and 68 pieces are not grouped
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together, because remember, we're dealing with
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musical chronology. But clearly, Tatiana Shebanova
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was equally comfortable on both a period instrument
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and a modern concert grand. And these are just
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marvelous recordings. Now we get to one of the
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most eccentric Chopin -Mazurka cycles ever issued.
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And this features pianist Russell Sherman. This
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was issued on the Avi label. His interpretations
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are usually possibly fussy and overloaded. And
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I don't feel that he plays the music so much
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as he plays at the music, with a lack of simplicity
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that yields choppy, discontinuous, and occasionally
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undisciplined results. I often find that his
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playing is pockmarked by skewed relationships
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between melodies and accompaniments, or exaggerated
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articulations that distort rhythms when they
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should be straightforward. I often liken Russell
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Sherman's Mazurka playing to a comedian who knows
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more jokes than anyone else, yet he has absolutely
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no sense of comic timing whatsoever. But sometimes
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Russell Sherman holds your attention, even though
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he plays as if he's totally distracted by trivia.
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Now, another pianist who likes to micromanage
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details and probe in between the lines, or so
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may feel that he obliterates the lines, is Alessandro
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D 'Aljavan. criticized his Chopin etudes for
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being overdone and overripe. And indeed, his
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complete Mazurka cycle almost overdoses on Roboto.
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And he comes up with more inner voices than Joseph
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Hoffman ever served up in his lifetime. And they're
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constant changes of color. But I find that his
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effetuoso style is not so overdone, certainly
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in comparison to Russell Sherman. And I can give
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you one example. In the E minor mazurka, opus
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17, number two, not one phrase in the opening
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section transpires in the same tempo, yet there's
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always an unexpected yet ultimately inevitable
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sounding accent or nuance that grabs your attention.
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And when I reviewed Alessandro Deliavan's Mazurkas
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cycle, I said that if you played these recordings
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but added some 78 RPM surface scratch, you might
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play it for a collector obsessed with dead pianists
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and the collector would say, oh my God, maybe
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this is an unpublished Ignaz Friedman or it's
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Rosenthal recording, but it's Alessandro Deliavan.
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Now at the opposite, end of this pianist is Ronald
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Smith. You know, the British pianist and scholar
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who made numerous recordings and he probably
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was most celebrated for being a big advocate
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for the music of Alkan. Ronald Smith recorded
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a Chopin mazurka cycle for EMI in 1975. It's
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an interesting but a really uneven cycle. He's
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great when he comes to keeping contrapuntal textures
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clear and well delineated, but I think he...
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just basically lacks a feeling for the quintessential
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Mazurka rhythm. And his emphatic phrasing and
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punchy accents often lurch against the music's
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melodic logic. It's kind of like a singer who
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breathes in all the wrong places while mispronouncing
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many words. I think Ronald. Smith just fidgets
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too much, and he rarely gets out of his own way.
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Similar to Russell Sherman, but let's say basically
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Russell Sherman is diarrhea to Ronald Smith's
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constipation. How's that for an analogy, folks?
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Perish the thought. But there is a British pianist
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who really gets the Mazurka idiom, and she has
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something to say in each and every work, and
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usually very convincingly so. And that's Joanna
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McGregor. Sometimes she can be a little dry or
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rhythmically twitchy, as if she feels that she
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has to be compelled to do something all the time.
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But her genuine involvement with the music and
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her genuine sense of inquiry comes across. These
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recordings have grown on me over the years and
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you can find them as downloads or on streaming
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platforms. The physical discs are not easy to
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find, nor are the physical discs easy to source
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for a Mazurka cycle issued by Harmonia Mundi
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with the pianist Frederick Chu. But you can find
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this cycle of Frederick Chu to download, and
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you can stream it also. And actually, if you
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look on archive .org, someone posted MP3 files
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of the whole cycle for free. So grab these while
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you can. When I first heard the cycle and reviewed
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it, I found Frederick Chu's interpretations somewhat
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underplayed at times and often lacking in scintillation,
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but I've come to understand that Frederick Chu
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is genuinely realizing his conceptions and intentions
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to a very refined degree, and that he does what
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he does because he specifically wants it so.
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And I've come... to like this cycle more and
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more. It's grown a lot on me over the decades,
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and perhaps I was rushing to judgement when I
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reviewed this 20 -odd years ago. That happens
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sometimes, but give it a listen. However, I'm
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going to close out this episode by recommending
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a truly intriguing and stimulating Mazurka cycle.
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This one is on the Ondine label with the pianist
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Peter Jablonski. Maybe I'm prejudiced because
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Peter is a good friend and we have performed
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together four hands, but he brings a fresh spin
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to many of these pieces without ever exaggerating
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or being different for differences sake. For
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example, listen to his F minor, opus seven number
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three interpretation. He brings these startling
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hesitations and dynamic surges that illuminate
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the music. agitated character. And in that little
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C major, opus 24, number two, mazurka, he holds
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back in the outer sections in order to create
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a real sense of surprise in the trio. I never
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would have thought of that kind of conception
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for this piece myself. And in the nocturne -like
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C minor, opus 56, number three, mazurka, we'll
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hear Peter stares the music's dark corners right
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in the eye. And there are so many surprises and
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delights throughout his cycle. And his playing
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really gives you pleasure, but it also makes
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you think. Also, the engineering is just gorgeous,
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but that's. typical for Andean. You expect nothing
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but the best sound in the world from this fantastic
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label. We will continue on in our next episode
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with more Chopin mazurkas cycles. And I'm also
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going to talk about collections of selected mazurkas
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that belong in every piano maven's library and
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by the end of the episode you will learn my top
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choice for a mazurka cycle my however choice
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some of you may already have guessed what it
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might be based on the recommendation that I made
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in my friend Ben Laudy's Chopin podcast. But
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tune in next time because we have a lot of mazurking
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left to do. This is Jed Dissler and you've been
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listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast
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guide to piano recordings. Take good care and
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I look forward to being with you next time.