Chopin: Piano Concertos nos. 1 and 2

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Russell Platt wrote in the New Yorker: "Is there a composer who blends shadow and substance as unforgettably as Chopin? The music invades our soul but also stands apart with an aristocratic reserve; the melodies quiver with sensitivity but arise from an intricate web of counterpoint that emulates Bach. And we will never get enough of it, as a new batch of recordings proves. The two piano concertos represent the composer at his most public and proud, but Lang Lang, in his new disk on Deutsche Grammophon … is outclassed by Vassily Primakov, the young Russian pianist who has been taken up by the small but distinguished Bridge label. For Lang, rubato means slowing down whenever a right-hand roulade graces the end of a bar; for Primakov, well supported by the Odense Symphony Orchestra and the conductor Paul Mann, it is a device in which shifts of tempo, tone color, and articulation are blended into a subtly modulating flow. Primakov, a Juilliard graduate, is making a strikingly personal adaptation of the brawny Russian national style" ("Chopin List," 4/20/09, p. 16).