Hélène Grimaud plays Chopin & Rachmaninov

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Hélène Grimaud's releases on DG have each been built around a "concept." Here, it's death and transcendence. The philosophically bent can get Grimaud's explanation in the booklet notes, while the musical among us can just listen to a stimulating program of standard repertory freshened by one of today's outstanding younger pianists. In the Chopin Sonata, Grimaud's volatile first movement and delicately colorful finale provide the tone and resolution required by both composer and her own philosophical outlook. The latter, though, means a dry-eyed Funeral March shorn of any trace of sentimentality yet not lacking power, more a contemplation of mourning rather than the thing itself. The Rachmaninov Sonata is his 1931 revision with Grimaud's restoration of sections of the 1913 original. As in the Chopin, Grimaud's gorgeous tone and the clarity of her articulation help make this an outstanding performance. The program closes with a pair of Chopin's most affecting works, the Berceuse and the Barcarolle, both beautifully played. --Dan Davis

Tracks:

Grave - Doppio Movimento
Scherzo
Marche Funebre. Lento
Finale. Presto
Allegro Agitato
Non Allegro - Lento
L'Istesso Tempo - Allegro Molto
Andante
Allegretto

Amazon.com

Hélène Grimaud's releases on DG have each been built around a "concept." Here, it's death and transcendence. The philosophically bent can get Grimaud's explanation in the booklet notes, while the musical among us can just listen to a stimulating program of standard repertory freshened by one of today's outstanding younger pianists. In the Chopin Sonata, Grimaud's volatile first movement and delicately colorful finale provide the tone and resolution required by both composer and her own philosophical outlook. The latter, though, means a dry-eyed Funeral March shorn of any trace of sentimentality yet not lacking power, more a contemplation of mourning rather than the thing itself. The Rachmaninov Sonata is his 1931 revision with Grimaud's restoration of sections of the 1913 original. As in the Chopin, Grimaud's gorgeous tone and the clarity of her articulation help make this an outstanding performance. The program closes with a pair of Chopin's most affecting works, the Berceuse and the Barcarolle, both beautifully played. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews:

Reality Check.......2007-05-18

To the Reviewers that tend to harshly rate with diminutive stars. Dear Sirs your reviews are very helpful to all of us. Your input does not appear without true studies. But the reality of judging any Interpreter or recording artist of this type of material anything less than 5 stars is frankly not realistic. If you are a Piano Competition judge then shurly you wouldn't give the Competition away to anyone playing Schubert or Mozart verses Chopin, Shubert & Rachmaninov. Although they are equal in their versatility, Education and understanding of music. To the contrary the Piano Instrument was modernized for further Complicated and faster Interpretation. Thus allowing this Virtous material.
And to the Musicians & recording artists whom are seriously recording this great material. Either of which are a handful on the face of the Earth at any given time, mind you. Please disregard the Harsh and unfair way of judging with this 5 star system. At this point there is no way to judge with any scale. Please disregard these self seeking attention and Low rating Critics that might be in the midst of their highly acclaimed and judgmental exhausting work or experience. Yet a listener does not even compare to any Interpreter of this minute great music. There is an old saying that goes with true experience : ( The bigger they are, The nicer they are). A sobering thought.

Student-like playing!.......2007-04-16

It is amazing that critics as well as audiences can praise such mediocre Chopin playing!!! Did you forget people like Dinu Lipatti, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ignaz Friedman, Josef Hoffmann, and just recently Radu Lupu, Martha Argerich, and the brilliant Adam Harasiewicz, not to mention such excellent, if not brilliant, talents like Murray Perahia and the most successful piano comedian Lang Lang. Even the recent mediocre competition winners like Yundi Li and Alexander Kobrin play way better than Grimaud can ever even dream of.

Grimaud's Chopin and Rachmaninoff as well as Brahms and Ravel are on the student level: overpedalled, generic, technically inferior, lack musical ideas, not to mention having new ones, in one word - boring!

In addition, the cover photo is nothing much to look at. The eyes are beastly empty and express only nothingness, exactly like the playing. The pretentious, quasi-philosophical booklet writings only confirm the impression from the photos and the performances.

Wonderfully Played. Imaginative, with Feeling.......2006-09-22

I'm no critic here, I won't even attempt it. But I love Chopin, and Helene Grimaud's playing is masterful. I have read the knowledgeable reviews from other's who rate this poorly. It's surprising that their ears are so narrow and their minds so tight, full of their own genius.
This is wonderfully played. A must have. The Berceuse I have played for hours and it's magical intepretation stirs me each time. The Sonata No. 2, is simply amazing. I'm not even a Rachmanioff fan, but her playing makes me want to learn his music. Buy this and expand your ears, mind, and emotions. As for the critics, sorry you didn't enjoy this. I think you missed something called listening to creative artistry and enjoying Chopin.

Is this the new Argerich or just heavy weather?.......2006-08-28

DG rarely signs on new pianists, and their faith in Helene Grimaud must be based on a gamble that she will tke off like their discovery forty years ago, Martha Argerich. Like Argerich, Grimaud has a powerhouse technique. She eschews lady-liike sensitivity, and often pounds heavily like Claudio Arrua, as if this equates with profundity. I'm not sure I'm a fan yet. I admire the fact that Grimaud wants to say something new in each work. She phrases the thrice-familiar Chopin Second her way, and yet is her way really original and inspiring? To me it's not, although I'd rather hear her, heavy weather and all, than a run-of-the-mill account from a pianist with no ideas. Grimaud occasionally lapses into routine phrasing, as in the middle of the Funeral March, which detracts from any sense of personal involvement.

The sprawling Rachmaninov Sonata #2 is an opulent showpiece that dares newcomers to match Horowitz, if not the composer himself. Grimaud is more solid and straightforward--Germanic if you will--than the volatile, nervy Horowitz. She doesn't exhaust us the way he does, which is all to the good, since this ultra-virtuosic music is exhausting enough to begin with. Her phrasing is songful and simple. Persoanlly, I like her in this music better than in Chopin, and one's pleasue is increased by the beautiful piano sound provided by DG's engineers.

Deep understanding.......2005-06-18

Helene Grimaud plays the structure of the piece. In this she is very unusual. In our music lessons, we learned about phrases--how that arc over some notes means to begin anew, to rise in strength, then fall back again. And maybe even how larger phrases contain smaller ones. And we remember how difficult it was to play the phrases, especially when they contained other ones. Grimaud's phrasing is incomparable. At every moment there are several phrases going: the immediate one, and all the levels above it. She tells us not only what is now, but what is ending and what is to come. Her playing has the extremely rare quality of anticipation, so that even in pieces new to us, we feel them developing, and in familiar pieces we revel in the hints and beginnings of the next idea. Sometimes the phrases are borne by different voices, and it can seem that more than one person is playing, so clear is Grimaud's articulation. She has said that she practices mainly by studying the score. This must be the secret of her music's almost incredible three-dimensionality.

In the great Chopin sonata on this record, Helene Grimaud combines her structural understanding with emotional strength and universality to achieve an interpretation that to me is substantially new and compelling. As she says in the notes, the sonata is about death, and its first movement, which she says is the heart of the work, "reflects the revolt and supplications of a tragic struggle against hopeless destiny". This seems to me exactly how she plays it. The whole movement--the phrase of the whole--is played with a driving, passionate intensity, never letting up, never denying, but still containing and letting breathe the beautiful "supplication" and noble "revolt" sub-phrases that contrast with death's relentlessly returning tocsin. The overall structure is constantly present and reinforced. Grimaud never indulges in idiosyncrasy or feeling for its own sake; she seems intent on letting the composer's idea and purpose come through, and does so using her enormous understanding and expressive power, aided, I must say, by the fabulous sound of her piano.

The rest of the sonata is equally rewarding. I would just mention how in the "Funeral March" movement, the tempo and dynamics of the march sections are almost utterly steady--surprisingly, one taps one's foot--removing all personal sentiment, as though we are seeing an historical black-and-white film. The sense of distance is complemented by the sweet, ethereal passages that interweave the march; Grimaud plays them limpidly and wonderfully slowly.

The other sonata on this disc, Rachmaninov's 2nd, is new to me and I am still "learning it" from the pianist. But her playing displays the same structural insight, anticipation, and voicing that I have mentioned, underlying her characteristically beautiful expression both in the strong passages and the gentle ones. I have all of her CDs, and a very special quality, evident here, is Grimaud's ability to be interesting wherever she is in a piece. There are no dead spots or contentless transitions: every passage always has something going on that holds interest, even fascination. In a sense she is a miniaturist in her immediate playing--I think that is the result of her deep grasp of what the piece, at every point, is saying.

The Berceuse in D flat and Barcarolle in F sharp, familiar to every listener, complete this program of Helene Grimaud's. They are beautifully rendered--the Berceuse with exceptional tenderness, the Barcarolle in all its unique originality. I give this recording five stars as a marvelous example of the work of a still relatively unknown pianist of exceptional quality whose approach and understanding and expressive power will, I believe, soon bring her recognition as one of the greatest pianists.

Hélène Grimaud plays Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Ravel (Box Set)

Average customer rating:

An Admirable, Distinguished Collection Of Helene Grimaud's Earliest Recordings
Not just exceptional piano playing for a teen-ager - exceptional piano playing, period.
Gorgeous Music - Great Value

Hélène Grimaud plays Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Ravel (Box Set)

Manufacturer: Brilliant Classics
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B0000D1FCP
Release Date: 2003-09-30

Customer Reviews:

An Admirable, Distinguished Collection Of Helene Grimaud's Earliest Recordings.......2007-05-25

This is truly a magnificient box set which demonstrates the early artistry of one of our finest contemporary pianists, the celebrated French pianist Helene Grimaud. It's an amazing collection not only because it was recorded when Grimaud was in her teens and early twenties when she was contracted to Denon, but more importantly, it demonstrates just how accomplished a musician she was at the start of a brilliant career. Her excellent playing of these works, especially of the Schumann and Brahms pieces, can hold their own against legendary competition from the likes of Claudio Arrau, Alfred Brendel and Murray Perahia, to name but a few of the most noteworthy interpreters - past and present - of these scores. However, I think the real gems are her spellbinding, exquisite performances of the Rachmaninov piano concerto and solo pieces, which I find as admirable as those I've heard from Vladimir Ashkenazy and Zoltan Kocsis, to name but a few. Those unfamiliar with the earliest phase of Helene Grimaud's distinguished career as a celebrated solo pianist will find this box set most rewarding.

Not just exceptional piano playing for a teen-ager - exceptional piano playing, period........2006-12-03

Brilliant Classics, a cheapo-cheapo label based in the Netherlands, has licensed from Denon the five recordings which launched Helene Grimaud's career, and marketed them at a price which makes them a steal. Miss Grimaud was 15 when she recorded the first of these five, the Rachmaninoff collection, in 1985, comprising his second piano sonata (in Horowitz' abridged edition) and a selection of Etude-Tableaux, plus two Preludes. She went on with Schumann (1st piano sonata in 1987, Kreisleriana in '88), Chopin (1st Ballade) and Liszt (Dante Sonata - both in '87), Brahms (second piano sonata in '88 followed by third piano sonata and Klavierstücke opus 118 in '91), and it was all topped-off, in 1992, by the concerto recordings: Ravel's G major and Rachmaninoff's 2nd, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted bu Jesus Lopez-Cobos. She then moved own to Erato, and now DG - and that was it for Denon.

So these discs span the 7 first years of her recording career, and it is not easy stuff that she tackled either. These are among the most daunting compositions of the piano repertoire, not only technically but also musically.

It would be unfair to Miss Grimaud to say that these are astounding recordings for a 15-to-22 year-old girl. These are astounding recordings, period. Throughout she displays unflinching muscularity, gripping rhythmic bite, magnificent control of the long line and the succession of variegated moods, from drama to lyricism, and admirable attention to the inside voicing and complexities of contrapuntal writing. All these recordings are not just fine visiting cards for a fledgling pianist - they are equal to the best. Brilliant as reissued the Denon discs as they were originally, short timings and all - the Rachmaninoff is 44 minutes long and the longest of the five is under the hour - but given the price and the excellence of piano playing it is still a bargain.

Miss Grimaud is now in the public's eye almost more for her infatuation with wolves than for her pianistic skills - and the Brilliant release surfs on the wave, albeit with some discretion, by the choice of its cover art. But judging from these recordings, one suspects that this kind of claptrap is almost detrimental to her cause. The wolf hype would easily lead you to think that some wise-axxed PR was trying to make up by that tacky attention-catcher for what her mere pianism was unable to achieve. Not so. Miss Grimaud's pianistic and musical gifts can amply stand on their own. Let the wolves howl, and hats off to the pianist.

Gorgeous Music - Great Value.......2004-07-31

This box set consists of 5 CDs of Helene Grimaud's beautiful piano playing. These CDs were originally released by Denon which has a great reputation for audio quality. Grimaud plays Rachmaninoff (Piano Concerto 2, Piano Sonata No.2 and others), Ravel (Piano Concerto in G major), Chopin (Ballade No. 1), Schumann (Piano Sonata No. 1 and Kreilserana), Liszt (Apres une lecture de Dante), Brahms (Piano Sonata Nos. 2 and 3 and Klavierstucke Op. 118).

A lot of great music beautifully played and recorded without breaking the bank.

Highly recommended.

Average customer rating:

Hélène Grimaud plays Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Ravel (Box Set)

Manufacturer: Brilliant
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballads | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Etudes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Fantasies | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Preludes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music