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The Chopin Mazurkas with Arthur Rubinstein · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  Hello friends, welcome to the Piano Maven podcast. My name is Jed Distler and the
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  Piano Maven is your friendly guide to piano recordings. Last time we were
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  talking about Arthur Rubinstein and his 1964 Moscow recital, which is one of the
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  great piano recitals ever preserved in any form. It's available on video and in
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  audio form. And it got me thinking about what I said about how Arthur Rubinstein
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  tended to be more careful in the recording studio than in his live
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  performances. But I sometimes find that the care and attention to detail that
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  Rubinstein brought to a studio work does benefit certain repertoire like the
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  Chopin Mazurkas. These are pieces that count among Chopin's most personal as
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  well as most experimental compositions. They run the gamut from earthy
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  elementalism to folk-like simplicity to exquisite harmonic refinement and
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  contrapuntal rigor. And probably more than in any other genre that Chopin
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  composed in, the Mazurkas seem to lend themselves to the widest range of
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  interpretive possibilities. You have, for example, Ignaz Friedman's epic and
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  larger-than-life approach to the Mazurkas, but then you have the total opposite of
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  that from very poetic and intimate Mazurka players like Marilia Llonas. Did I
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  pronounce her name right? Marila Llonas, somebody who's gonna correct me. Also
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  Guiomar Novaes is a very intimate Mazurka player in that sense. See, I
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  pronounced her name correctly because I used to speak Portuguese even though I
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  completely forgot how to speak Portuguese. Now when Arthur Rubinstein
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  was asked by the HMV label to record all of the Chopin Mazurkas in the late
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  1930s, at first he wasn't quite sure he wanted to do the project, but once he
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  started reading through the pieces, many of which were not in his repertoire, he
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  eventually acquiesced and probably because many of these Mazurkas were fresh
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  to Rubinstein, were brand new, he plays them with great abandon and rhythmic
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  elan and sometimes he can be a little cavalier here and there over details, but
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  the sense of spontaneity and exuberance always comes through in these late 1930s
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  Mazurka recordings, but then Arthur Rubinstein re-recorded the Mazurkas in
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  the early 1950s and here the piano is more closely mic'd and the sound lacks
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  some of the roundness of the HMV recordings which were made in the Abbey
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  Road studio, but the interpretations retain much of the, I guess, athleticism
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  of the 78 rpm versions, yet with a little more attention to detail and a little
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  bit more discipline this time. However, when Rubinstein remade, or I guess we say
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  re-remade, the Mazurkas for a third time in the mid 1960s in stereo, when he
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  remade these his approach had become more deliberate, I guess one could say more
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  Germanic, I don't know, but the thoughtfulness that he brings to these
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  later stereo performances are also more precise and thought out in terms of
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  ornamentation and there's a lot more care in how phrases take shape and move
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  from one to another, but the underlying Mazurka rhythm is almost always present
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  if not quite so robust and extroverted as in the earlier 78 and mono LP cycles. I
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  would say, I guess, that the second Rubinstein cycle, the 1950s mono
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  recordings, maybe they split the difference between the 30s exuberance and
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  the 60s thoughtfulness. Personally, I listen more to the spontaneous 1930s
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  cycle and the more thoughtful 1960s cycle more than I do the 1950s versions,
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  but honestly all three Arthur Rubinstein Chopin Mazurka cycles are worth hearing
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  and if I had to make just one choice though, maybe I'd pick the stereo cycle
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  because you get the combination of Rubinstein's innate feeling for the
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  Mazurka idiom and the attention to detail I mentioned earlier, but you also
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  get the ripeness and the maturity that yielded unique insights into certain
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  pieces and as much as I like the 1930s versions for their spontaneity and
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  effervescence, you do get these qualities with even more fervency and
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  bigness of conception in the Mazurkas that Ignaz Friedman recorded in 1930. He
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  just recorded a handful of Mazurkas, but they're absolutely amazing, but that's
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  not to say that Rubinstein in the 1930s in the Mazurkas was an inferior product,
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  far, far, far from that. One of these days, by the way, I want to take each and every
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  Mazurka from Rubinstein's three cycles and make careful comparisons between the
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  three different performances of the same Mazurka from each cycle, but you know,
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  I've been saying that for the last 50 years and you know, if my radio show
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  Between the Keys was on five days a week, I might consider doing such a comparison
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  on the air and then I'd invite a panel of listeners to join me and discuss what
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  they hear, but I guess if you did that you would need about seven one-hour shows
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  or maybe eight one-hour long shows to include enough time for music and
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  talking and since Between the Keys is on once a week, that would occupy two
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  months worth of programs. I don't know, what do you think? Do you think it's worth
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  giving two months over once a week listening to and comparing the three
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  Rubinstein Chopin Mazurka cycles? I actually posed that question to a very
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  well-known classical radio host and when he heard my idea of comparing all the
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  Rubinstein Mazurka cycles on many shows, he said, Jed, you're crazy, don't waste
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  your time, Rubinstein isn't worth your time. Oh, I was kind of surprised to hear
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  that, although I have to tell you that I did a program where I compared 22 or so
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  recordings of the finale from Chopin's Funeral March Sonata. There was also a
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  show where we compared 15 recordings of the C major prelude from Bach's
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  Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One. I'm going off way on tangents here, but anyway we
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  have three Arthur Rubinstein Chopin Mazurka cycles, all of them are worth
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  hearing. My first choice is the stereo one from the 60s, my second choice the
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  version on 78s, or maybe that's my third choice and my second choice is the mono
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  LP version from the mid-50s. I really shouldn't be so indecisive, but there are
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  links to all three cycles in the show notes and you can listen and compare for
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  yourself. All I'm asking you to do is enjoy Arthur Rubinstein's Chopin Mazurkas,
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  they are very very enjoyable. This is Jed Disler and you've been listening to the
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  Piano Maven podcast and please spread the good word about this program and I
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  will be with you next time. Happy listening!