Chopin - 24 Etudes Op10 & 25 [Magaloff]
These miniatures are wonderful, each one is a TV advert compared to a Symphony being a film, an Etude is a microcosm of a Symphony, it teems with the same musical language, but has to make it's mark in roughly 2 minutes, and Chopin is the King of the miniature.
Magaloff has his own ideas about interpreting these pieces, on the whole he's slightly slow, hesitant in saying his version, maybe even slightly clumsy at points here and there, he's not an Andrei Gavrilov or Evgeny Kissin, but he's certainly not a bumbling Grandfather at the piano either, he was 63 when he recorded these pieces.
The piece i loved the most on this listen, was the fifth Etude from the first book, entitled Black Keys, Magaloff produces a lovely ringing tone, he gets the tempo right where it matters, and his legato at 0:55 makes the piece even more treasurable, there's a lovely autumn wistfulness to his interpretation at 1:04 to roughly 1:27, if you want to listen to this piece on You Tube, try it here, even though the sound is fairly quiet.
