The Chopin Collection
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Free Music Notes for The Chopin Collection
Free Music Review: Chopin in the hands of a master
Hit: 5 Stars
The first time I really remember hearing Chopin was watching the pianist and I wondered what was this incredible music. While wandering through youtube, I found videos of this decrepit old looking man at a piano. Even though he looked like he could kick the bucket at any moment, the music he generated from his hands were like magic. I had to know who this pianist was and sure enough, it was Artur Rubinstein, the great Chopin master. I saw this sometime last year at almost 150 dollars and thought that it was a bit much for him (poor college student here). So when I came on and saw the price, immediately I bought it and have no regrets. I just wish I can play half as well as he does at 88 years old! In short, buy this set as you will not regret it. Sure it might sound a little crappy here and there, but blame the technology of the time, not the artist.Free Music Review: No one plays all of Chopin as well as Rubenstein, except Chopin himself.
Hit: 5 Stars
Nothing needs to be said really. Arthur Rubenstein (and Horowitz) is the greatest pianist of the 20th Century. His forte is romantic music and almost solely the complete works of Chopin. Rubenstein is to the piano what Heifetz is to the violin. A word of advice. Never listen to a Chopin recording unless it is Arthur Rubenstein. I'm dead serious!!Free Music Review: The "Gold Standard" for Chopin
Hit: 5 Stars
This 11 CD set is absolutely fabulous. Artur Rubinstein was a great pianist, and he was at his best with Chopin. You simply will not hear better performances of Chopin than these. That is not just *my* opinion; he is widely regarded as one of the greatest interpreters of Chopin of all time. Just do a quick online search if you doubt this, and look at reviews of his other CD releases of Chopin pieces here at Amazon.com.
This is all of the pieces of Chopin that Rubinstein recorded, though it is not all of the recordings he did of Chopin (he recorded some pieces more than once; many of his earlier mono recordings are not included), and it is not all of the pieces that Chopin wrote (because Rubinstein never recorded all of what Chopin wrote). If one wants all of the works of Chopin, one should still buy this set, but one would need to buy a few other CDs of other people performing the few pieces of Chopin that Rubinstein never recorded.
10 of the 11 discs were recorded in the late 1950's & 1960's in good quality stereo sound (though obviously not as high fidelity as is possible now). The last disc was recorded in the 1940's, so the sound is not great, and is mono. Nevertheless, it is still listenable, and the performances are still superb.
It comes with a nice, informative, multi-lingual booklet. English is one of the included languages.
You should buy this set before they raise the price; it is great. This set would be worth buying even if they charged normal retail prices for the CDs (which would be somewhere around $200 for this many discs). I bought an earlier release of this set for around $100 some years ago, and was very happy with the deal. (My brother bought a set of this release, so I know about this particular release, too, and that it includes a multi-lingual booklet, etc.) At the price Amazon is currently selling it, buy before they change their minds and charge what it is really worth!
If you like Chopin, the only way you could possibly be disappointed with this is if you must have current state of the art sound quality, or you have deviant taste in how Chopin should be performed. There simply is no other way you could be dissatisfied.
Free Music Review: chopin
Hit: 4 Stars
bought this for my five year old grand daughter who is a grand champion of chopin. she loaded it on her bedside ipod and things it is great.