[.ca] Chopin: The Four Ballades; Berceuse, Op. 57; Barcarolle, ...

Amazon.com essential recording:
Ever since the start of his career as a sensational child prodigy, Kissin has displayed a strong affinity for the music of Chopin, in concert and on numerous records. Here he performs a program of substantial pieces: the four ballades, written several years apart and not conceived as a group, which nevertheless complement one another through their contrasts as well as their shared narrative and descriptive atmosphere; the lovely, peaceful berceuse; the swaying, rocking barcarolle; and the brilliant, witty Scherzo No. 4. Throughout, Kissin's effortless virtuosity, his beautiful, singing tone, his command of voicing, dynamics, touch, color, and legato are phenomenal; cascades of notes flow from under his fingers with the speed and glittering lightness of dancing waters; his build-ups achieve orchestral sonorities. Musically, he seems to have lost some of his irresistible earlier spontaneity; the dramatic nature of the ballades encourages exaggeration, and the liberties sound a bit planned. However, the berceuse is a simple, expressive lullaby; the barcarolle surges to a grand climax; the scherzo sparkles with humor--its middle part projects a plaintive, ardent yearning. --Edith Eisler

From Amazon.co.uk:
The Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin here plays Chopin's profounder. and less well-known works for piano: the four Ballades; the. Scherzo No. 4; the Berceuse; and the Barcarolle.. Kissin has a brittle, exciting touch which is never afraid to be robust. but is soft and shimmering at its most beautiful. The Ballades are Chopin's autobiography. They are substantial works each containing a pair of his most beautiful and naturally flowing themes, sometimes announced with outrageous grade two simplicity, at others times wrapped up in the most contorted swathes of passionate piano writing that one could give one's whole life to practising and still never master Nothing is more restful than the Berceuse, which rocks like a sophisticated nursery rhyme for five pages over an unchanging bass The Barcarolle laps at the keyboard like the Rialto at Venice Under Kissin's fingers, one of the loveliest musical depictions of water in the literature has a silver, steel-edged glint. The Scherzo is not often performed because it is so difficult, but Kissin plays its supersonic chord changes with supreme control. What others only plod at is for him light hearted and almost throwaway. --Rick Jones

incredible - but be careful...:
Kissin is a dazzling performer, and his versions of the ballades is essential for anyone building a library of classical piano music. However, Kissin, I'm going to venture to say here, is as unpianistic as Glenn Gould was. If Gould put everything under a microscope, Kissin approaches everything in panorama. Both are extremes, and both are perverse (which does not mean Gould wasn't a genius). Both pianists freely compromise a composer's intentions to fit their personal styles. Kissin has a fluid, liquid-silver tone, and a dynamic range obviously geared to the concert hall. He makes things sound big and spacious. His technique is so sophisticated that he has driven himself permanently to some misty, rarefied plateau in the sky. The result is that sometimes you feel nothing at all has happened. His performances never touch the ground. Having said that, it IS a lovely place when you're up there with him. But it's impersonal. People that buy this album that don't own any other version should equip themselves with something a little more standard while they're at it. I have an affinity for Arrau's ballades. With Kissin, you miss the close Chopin, the dear Chopin. Anyway, No. 2 is absolutely frightening. Sometimes you wonder if he's playing the same music... -Selah

There is better:
There are numerous reviewers saying that Kissin "opened their eyes to Chopin's unique talent" and such. Well, if Kissin could do that with this set of recordings, buy Horowitz's Favorite Chopin volumes and let your mind be boggled. This is how I feel whenever I perform a piece . . . mushy, condensed, unclear. The unknowledgeable audience does not have any idea that the performance could have been better, but it could have! Let me tell you, Kissin is fantastic technically, but absolutely incomparable to Horowitz or even many others. Buy this if you really want to. Kissin's G Minor Ballade is restrained, something entirely unacceptable in Chopin.

The line between pianism and interpretation:
Kissin, albeit having a fantastic technical arsenal, in this recording, uses it for purely pianistic effect. Chopin's lucidity; the way his music ebbs and flows, is sacrificed, and thus the recording fails to captivate. What one really needs, in my opinion, in the Ballades, is a sense of a tale. Chopin, like Schumann, can really tell a story in the Ballades. Think of the second Ballade. The atmosphere on the surface is gentle, and lyrical. Underneath this veneer of calm, though, there is a slightly obsessive, darker undercurrent to the piece. Kissin, totally fails to evoke this physcological undercurrent, whereas someone like Arrau or Moiseiwitsch, or even Tamas Vasary, brings to this music simultaeneously a technical accomplishment, wholly at the service of the music. Schumann spoke of the second Ballade, "the music would inspire a poet to write words to it," he said, ironically, considering its possible poetical inspiration as a piece of music Would Kissin's playing inspire a poet, or is his approach to abstract, too fantastic? The line between pianism and artistry is perilous. A performance can sound musically impressive, yet technically lacking and vice versa; the music can be too safe, too technically impressive to offer any hidden insights. Some pianists tend to distort the music, adding their own expression, their own dynamics... Kissin, unfortunately, for me, at the moment seems of this tendency, along, sometimes, with Horowitz. Horowitz and Kissin (not all of the time) bend around with the music until it is moulded into their own labrynth, and violate the music. Chopin was said, like Schubert to have despised the thumping of virtuosos. Kissen needs to heed this advice! Those who admire this performer, really ought to listen to the playing of Vlado Perlemuter, a real poet in sound. He mastered a whole spectrum of tonal perspective, as a means to an end, and his playing of Chopin and Ravel,like Schnabels' Schubert, at it's best was incomparable. p.s I heard Kissen play at the Proms in London. He played Brahms 2. The performance was sickening. It's delivery was at breakneck speed, and had little if any artistic insight. To quote Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (changing the original quotation's description of the music of an English composer with performer) his perfomance, "underneath it's trumpery of Pinchbeck Brummagem-Benares nick-nackery, oozes with glutinous commonplace."Playing" (this is not Sorabji's word, but mine) like this always reminds one of those spurious "liqueur" chocolates grandly labelled "Grand Marnier", "Maraschino", Benedictine", leading one to expect the delicious gastronomic sensations, the incomparable marquis knows so well how to excite, but which are found actually to yield a horrid sickly sugary concoction- insipid and nauseating." This reflects Kissin's style in a microcosm. Buy it if you wish, but beware!!

Mr. Bad Taste strikes again:
It seems that Kissin has practiced so much on technically perfect playing that he has lost any feeling of normal, 'human' expressivity. Kissin's superb technical control makes him believe he can do everything he wants, and the result is a thoroughly hubristic and arrogant reading of these Chopin works, most notably the Ballades. Let me start off saying Kissin has a plastic tone. I have heard quite some of his recordings, but none of them has a really 'special' sound. His tone is thoroughly over-practiced and seldom conveys the magic that is inside nearly every note of pianists like Arrau and Schnabel. But more importantly, Kissin's use of rubato is completely unnatural. He delays nearly every phrase endlessly, and to make matters worse: it becomes awfully predictable after a while. He holds back notes (and believe me, it happens in every measure) in a completely planned and predictable way: that is, every phrase is delayed equally! Rubato is meant to create some relaxation, but because Kissin delays nearly everything in the same way, his interpretations become claustrophobic and irritating instead. Very exemplary are the last minutes of the third ballade, where the space between the first and second pulse of the measure is constantly lengthened. Exactly the same happens in the main theme of the fourth ballade, though less obviously because the melody is not so aggressive. Or take the stormy section of the second F major ballade, where the upward left hand runs are all delayed in exactly the same way. I can go on this way because there's really no end to this approach of Kissin. Simply put, he plays everything like this. And he not only delays a whole lot of notes, he also varies their dynamics unendingly. Any kind of equal dynamics within a phrase is unknown to him. Almost every time he slows down (which he does in every measure, as said) he automatically drops down the sound level and lets it increase as soon as he speeds up again. To give just a short example: in the climax of the Barcarolle he puts the blazing melody in a tight jacket with constantly the same accelerations and slow-downs, and only loud notes when it gets faster. Kissin tries to portray 'inner fire' here, but on hearing it I just get absolutely mad at him. With all these tactics, Kissin probably wants to show how much feeling and passion he puts into the pieces, but it completely fails: because of the meticulously planned character of his delaying style and the absolutely predictable dynamic shifts, he comes out as a stiff robot. The Ballades and the Barcarolle are almost impossible to listen to. When I try to listen seriously, I have a lot of difficulties to refrain from throwing my speakers out of the window, and this is no joke. What a difference this is with the great performances of Arrau, a pianist who DID know how to delay without ever sounding perverse. And what a difference with Richter, who used his technical equipment to push the Ballades to its musical limits. Or Ashkenazy, who makes the Ballades a very simple and poetic experience. Kissin's readings are simply perverse and idiotic. The only thing on this disc worth listening is the Berceuse, but even there I find Kissin way too controlled and predictable to make anything special of it. Anyway, it would be a very sane idea for everybody to leave this disc on the dusty store shelves. Maybe this 'pianist' will one day realise he cannot go on like this.

Ahhh...This Recording is Incomparable:
After listening to a Rubenstein recording of the Ballades that sounded annoyingly tinny, and after experiencing a less-than-satisfying Ashkenazy CD, this recording was promptly popped back into my CD player. And this minute it began playing, a soft sigh of pleasure escaped my lips...the truest sign of a perfect recording. It really does seem that Kissin was made for playing these Ballades. When he plays them, they are exciting, passionate, brutal, overjoyed, tragic-never before have I heard such a wide variety of emotions on one CD. These feelings and the incredible beauty of each piece simply were not there on the other recordings. I love it how the Second Ballade starts in the most silent, subdued (but still beautifully voiced) way, and startles in just a few minutes with its magnificently crashing middle part. And thinking of that middle part just reminded me of another unforgettable part of Kissin's playing-his technique! Never before have I heard anyone play so nimbly, so fast, so soft-ohhhhhhh....I could go on and on about this CD, but I will simply tell you to buy this one. But just let me close with this-for a little less than $20.00, you can buy something that will give you endless hours of pleasure.

• Ballade No. 1, Op.23 In G Minor
• Ballade No. 2, Op.38 In F
• Ballade No. 3, Op.47 In A-Flat
• Ballade No. 4, Op.52 In F Minor
• Berceuse, Op.57
• Barcarolle, Op.60
• Scherzo No. 4, Op.54 In E