May: Featured Classical Music CDs
STEFAN ASKENASE
P0364. The Complete 1950s Chopin Recordings, plus Liszt, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert & Smetana. (E.U.) 7-DG 477 5742, recorded 1950s. $69.90, the Set
“DG’s seven-CD tribute to Stefan Askenase is a reminder and a remembrance. You will not find his name among the glitterati who crowd the pages about pianists….Askenase…was one of those rare artists whose playing exuded a unique flavour, something ‘low in tone’ but at its finest marked by an inner warmth and vivacity that’s the opposite of flamboyant or sensational….his Chopin taken essentially by stealth rather than storm….Here is Chopin for connoisseurs and a conversational brio that suggests his kinship with the aristocratic world. Nothing is unduly pressured, and if others are more volatile, Askenase’s way is the epitome of civility….all these performances are refreshingly free from the egotism and brittleness that can so easily affect even the finest Chopin players….How is it possible to stand Chopin’s youthful poetry on its head, transforming it without a hint of narcissism or self-consciousness into something so wistful and elegiac….Allusive and elliptical, his controlled yet nonchalant and patrician artistry lives on long after other more earnest and strenuous playing is eclipsed.” - Bryce Morrison, GRAMOPHONE, June, 2006
P0364. The Complete 1950s Chopin Recordings, plus Liszt, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert & Smetana. (E.U.) 7-DG 477 5742, recorded 1950s. $69.90, the Set
“DG’s seven-CD tribute to Stefan Askenase is a reminder and a remembrance. You will not find his name among the glitterati who crowd the pages about pianists….Askenase…was one of those rare artists whose playing exuded a unique flavour, something ‘low in tone’ but at its finest marked by an inner warmth and vivacity that’s the opposite of flamboyant or sensational….his Chopin taken essentially by stealth rather than storm….Here is Chopin for connoisseurs and a conversational brio that suggests his kinship with the aristocratic world. Nothing is unduly pressured, and if others are more volatile, Askenase’s way is the epitome of civility….all these performances are refreshingly free from the egotism and brittleness that can so easily affect even the finest Chopin players….How is it possible to stand Chopin’s youthful poetry on its head, transforming it without a hint of narcissism or self-consciousness into something so wistful and elegiac….Allusive and elliptical, his controlled yet nonchalant and patrician artistry lives on long after other more earnest and strenuous playing is eclipsed.” - Bryce Morrison, GRAMOPHONE, June, 2006
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