Search - Chopin, Katsaris :: Chopin: The Complete Polonaises

POLONAISES RESURRECTED!!!!!!!

Melvyn M. Sobel | Freeport (Long Island), New York | 07/12/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So obvious is it from the majesty, sorrowful intensity, ethereal beauty and eccentric whimsy of the Katsaris performance of the Polonaises that it seems these pieces have merely languished until now. Sure they're popular; sure they're performed regularly, and recorded just as regularly... but never like this, never with such aplomb, breadth or penetration.



Katsaris is no mere pianist. No. He is a magician, a conjurer impossible to resist. Those hidden inner voices Chopin wants us to hear, we finally hear; those harmonic lines Chopin skews to color or disorient come clear; passages of sheer angst we never knew existed--- they, too, come vibrantly to life.



The bravura Polonaises on Disc 1 (Opp. 26, 40, 44, 53, including fabulous readings of the Andante Spianato/Grande Polonaise, Op. 22 and the Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61) that are all so utterly familiar, in Katsaris's hands take on flesh and blood, ring completely true with flashes of ecstasy, pathos, spirituality. As with his recording of the Preludes, I have never heard such soul-stirring playing. Here is a pianist who can reach the innermost part of us, wring our emotions dry... and, then, fling us, like kites, aloft. And the more one listens, the more one truly hears.



On Disc 2, Katsaris gathers Chopin's youthful Op. 71 and Op. Posth. polonaises (e.g. the B-Flat was written when Chopin was seven years old! and the A-Flat when he was eleven!) and brings to them a zest lilting with melody. Yet, even in these so-called "minor" works (which aren't), Katsaris always senses the inherent lyrical melancholy of Chopin--- the foreboding always present in this composer's music, and usually always "submerged" or "diverted" by other performers. Again and again, Katsaris blows the dust off these rareties; inner voices speak to us, harmonic notes are singled out like beacons--- all fabulously thrilling. These youthful works suddenly, and with eerie prescience, evoke the composer Chopin will become.



Sony has given Katsaris a gorgeous "sound world" in which to work his magic.



And magical it is.



[Running time--- CD 1: 71:32 CD 2: 66:39]"