Title: A testament to Rubinstein's greatness, and Chopin's
Product review: If someone wished to make a case for Rubinstein's genius not only as a Chopin interpreter, but as a pianist of the first rank, they'd need do little more than offer this one recording as evidence. The control of melodic line, lift, chordal technique, brilliance in ornamentation and fioriture - all of them are at the service of Chopin's conception, but come together with a sound that can only have been made by Rubinstein. Perhaps most moving is the first ballade; the grandeur of the main E major theme has never been brought out so compellingly, and the closing Gm section is nothing short of demonic. I've listened to this recording well over a thousand times, and have explored every other commercially-available recording of the ballades. Nothing quite compares. If I had only one piano record, perhaps even only one record of any kind, to choose for the proverbial desert island, this one would be it.
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