reposted from: http://www.calendarlive.com/music/cl-ca-
recordings3aug03,0,5406103.story?coll=cl-home-more-channels

reposted by: Michael Sayers
http://www.geocities.com/mjsayers

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Coming down with the Chopin wobbles

Andrew Rangell disorients with the composer's mazurkas

August 3, 2003


In his liner notes to this complete edition of the mazurkas, Rangell
writes with understanding about Chopin's sometimes bizarre
variations on the form, requiring "an almost perpetual modulation of
tempo" from the performer. Then he proves his point with a brittle
set that seems to lurch and stagger out of the piano. Dynamics are
sometimes observed, sometimes not; the rubatos rarely make any
organic sense. Although some of the pieces lend themselves to this
often fractured playing, many others cry out for consistent pulse
(after all, isn't the mazurka a dance, or is that just an idle
rumor?). Rangell does expand the traditional number of the canon
from 51 to 57, including some rarely heard juvenilia and even a
lengthened alternate version of Op. 68, No. 4 (purported to be
Chopin's last composition). But most of this two-CD set leaves the
listener wobbly, even disoriented.

— Richard S. Ginell