John Rusnak: Chopin Etudes, Opus 10 and Opus 25

Track Listings

1. Etude No. 1 in C major, Op. 10/1: Allegro

2. Etude No. 2 in A minor, Op. 10/2: Allegro

3. Etude No. 3 in E major("Tristesse"), Op. 10/3: Lento, ma non troppo

4. Etude No. 4 in C sharp minor("Torrent"), Op. 10/4: Presto

5. Etude No. 5 in G flat major("Black Key"), Op. 10/5: Vivace

6. Etude No. 6 in E flat minor, Op. 10/6: Andante

7. Etude No. 7 in C major("Toccata"), Op. 10/7: Vivace

8. Etude No. 8 in F major, Op. 10/8: Allegro

9. Etude No. 9 in F minor, Op. 10/9: Allegro molto agitato

10. Etude No. 10 in A flat major, Op. 10/10: Vivace assai

11. Etude No. 11 in E flat major, Op. 10/11: Allegretto

12. Etude No. 12 in C minor ("Revolutionary"), Op. 10/12: Allegro con fuoco

13. Etude No. 13 in A flat major("Aeoliean Harp"), Op. 25/1: Allegro sostenuto

14. Etude No. 14 in F minor("Balm"), Op. 25/2: Presto

15. Etude No. 15 in F major("Cartwheel"), Op. 25/3: Allegro

16. Etude No. 16 in A minor, Op. 25/4: Agitato

17. Etude No. 17 in E minor, Op. 25/5: Vivace

18. Etude No. 18 in G sharp minor("Thirds"), Op. 25/6: Allegro

19. Etude No. 19 in C sharp minor("Cello"), Op. 25/7: Lento

20. Etude No. 20 in D flat major("Sixths"), Op. 25/8: Vivace legato

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews
eMusic.com
"Rusnak brings a startling intimacy to these works....Don't let this one pass you by!"

Album Description
Effective September 1, 2005, all artist and label proceeds from the sale of this CD on Amazon.com will be donated to America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest charitable hunger-relief organization. This donation of $7.65 per CD is made possible through Visionmark Records and John Rusnak. Recorded in legendary Ocean Studios in Los Angeles, this dynamic CD is presented without digital editing. Pianist John Rusnak recorded these entire works live in studio in 1997, performing these etudes on a Yamaha C7 Concert Grand piano. As this CD is presented without digital "fix-ups" or computer alterations, it stands as a bold and daring version of Chopin's Etudes. Popular in the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Finland, it was among the Top 20 most downloaded Chopin CDs on iTunes(US) in August, 2005. In addition, John Rusnak was among the Top 10 most downloaded keyboard artists on eMusic.com in August, 2005. A reviewer on eMusic writes about John Rusnak's Chopin Etudes: "Passion, Sturm und Drang, true romanticism. It does not get much better than this." The third track of this innovative disc, "Opus 10, No. 3 in E Major: Lento, ma non troppo", was featured on the WB Network TV show "Smallville" in 2004/2005, beginning the episode "Bound". Rusnak's playing of Chopin's etudes was also featured in the Showtime movie "Down Came a Blackbird", and in the USA TV series "Highlander". Along with the Chopin Etudes, pianist John Rusnak's CD of Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 on Visionmark Records (VM-7271), was also recorded live in studio without digital editing. It is now available on iTunes, eMusic, Napster, MSN Music and Rhapsody Music.

Tracks:

Etude No. 1 in C major, Op. 10/1: Allegro
Etude No. 2 in A minor, Op. 10/2: Allegro
Etude No. 3 in E major("Tristesse"), Op. 10/3: Lento, ma non troppo
Etude No. 4 in C sharp minor("Torrent"), Op. 10/4: Presto
Etude No. 5 in G flat major("Black Key"), Op. 10/5: Vivace
Etude No. 6 in E flat minor, Op. 10/6: Andante
Etude No. 7 in C major("Toccata"), Op. 10/7: Vivace
Etude No. 8 in F major, Op. 10/8: Allegro
Etude No. 9 in F minor, Op. 10/9: Allegro molto agitato
Etude No. 10 in A flat major, Op. 10/10: Vivace assai
Etude No. 11 in E flat major, Op. 10/11: Allegretto
Etude No. 12 in C minor ("Revolutionary"), Op. 10/12: Allegro con fuoco
Etude No. 13 in A flat major("Aeoliean Harp"), Op. 25/1: Allegro sostenuto
Etude No. 14 in F minor("Balm"), Op. 25/2: Presto
Etude No. 15 in F major("Cartwheel"), Op. 25/3: Allegro
Etude No. 16 in A minor, Op. 25/4: Agitato
Etude No. 17 in E minor, Op. 25/5: Vivace
Etude No. 18 in G sharp minor("Thirds"), Op. 25/6: Allegro
Etude No. 19 in C sharp minor("Cello"), Op. 25/7: Lento
Etude No. 20 in D flat major("Sixths"), Op. 25/8: Vivace legato
Etude No. 21 in G flat major("Butterfly"), Op.25/9: Allegro vivace
Etude No. 22 in B minor("Octaves"), Op. 25/10: Allegro con fuoco
Etude No. 23 in A minor("Winter Wind"), Op. 25/11: Allegro con brio
Etude No. 24 in C minor("Ocean"), Op. 25/12: Molto allegro, con fuoco

Album Description

Live Studio Recording, No Digital Editing. Track three of this CD, "Opus 10, No. 3 in E Major: Lento, ma non troppo", was featured on the smash hit WB TV series "Smallville", beginning the episode "Bound". John Rusnak's playing of Chopin Etudes is also featured in the Showtime movie "Down Came a Blackbird" and the USA TV series "Highlander". His solo jazz and improvisational piano work can be heard in the Canal+ movie "The Chinese Box", and the Hollywood Pictures release "The Tie That Binds". Recorded in legendary Ocean Studios in Los Angeles, this dynamic Visionmark Records release is presented with No Digital Editing. Classical Music Director Peter Wells of eMusic.com, described John Rusnak's recording of Chopin's Etudes as "sheer exuberance and optimism". A reviewer list on eMusic describes the CD: "Passion, sturm und drang, true romanticism. It does not get much better than this." A cutting edge, daring and bold recording of Chopin's Etudes, this popular CD is presented without any digital "corrections" whatsoever. There are no note fix-ups, computer tricks, overdubs or tape manipulation used on this CD. Mr. Rusnak's CDs of the Chopin Etudes, Opus 10 and 25, and J.S.Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, are now available for digital download at iTunes, eMusic, Napster, MSN Music, YahooMusic, LiquidAudio, SonyConnect and Rhapsody. Beginning August 1, 2006, a donation of $2.00 per CD sale of the Chopin Etudes (VM-7270) on Amazon.com will be contributed to America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization, with a network of more than 200 food banks and food-rescue programs. This offer applies to each disc (UPC# 069804727025) sold on Amazon.com, and is made possible through Visionmark Records and John Rusnak. More information about this artist is available at johnrusnak.com and visionmarkrecords.com.

Customer Reviews:

A Pianist with a Passion.......2007-01-29

The talent and skill of John Rusnak is what every piano student should strive to attain. John Rusnak is a musician with technical skills, a great depth of musicality, and a passion for the classical. He is genius; he is true to the composed work, all the while losing himself within it. It is a blessing to hear him. This is a great album within a really great album cover! :) A perfect gift for anyone who has a love for piano performance, classical music, Chopin, perfection, or passion...!

Awesome Chopin.......2007-01-04

This CD is amazing in that these Etudes are some of the most difficult pieces that exist for the piano, and each one is played with effortless brilliance. Most importantly, the playing is emotionally gripping throughout the recording. I am a professional pianist and composer myself, and really appreciate John's technique of recording each song straight through, without finely tuning it afterwards like just about every other classical CD in the world. It makes for a recital in your living room that renders the music more real and true, and less a studio recording. And the sound quality is gorgeous. There's plenty of natural reverb in the recording space, and a it is a beautiful piano sound.

There are many songs on the album because each piece is only about three minutes. This means that everyone will have a favorite song that they won't be able to stop listening to. Like the other day when I repeated Etude No. 20 in D flat major some 10 times in a row on my car CD player because it made me so happy.

Now I have to check out his CD of Goldberg Variations...

Chopin in the raw.......2006-11-09

I'll admit to being one of the least qualified persons to review this CD, being no great connoisseur of classical music, and not knowing my Bach from my Chopin or my etude from my prelude. What I DO know, is that Chopin's compositions are considered to be rather difficult to play, and require a lot of upper body movement to get the job done right.

This CD contains the twelve technical exercises known as Opus 10 and the twelve of Opus 25, and I understand that for a pianist, this is the equivalent of a grueling aerobic workout. Not one to take the easy way out, John Rusnak laughs in the face of sound engineers everywhere, and delivers a powerful and beautifully executed album without digital or studio tweaking, so what you hear is what he plays, raw and direct, his fingers to your ears, and that's what makes it special.

One of the instantly recognizable pieces to me is Opus 10, No. 3 in E Major: Lento, ma non troppo, or to make it easier, track three, which was featured on the TV show "Smallville". I also recognized a few others, including Opus 10 #12, and took note of Opus 25, #11 and #3 and Opus 10 #4 for further investigation.

Overall, I found this CD very stimulating, and when I played it at work I actually got a lot of work done. John Rusnak is an extremely talented guy whose right hand certainly knows exactly what the left is doing.

Amanda Richards, November 8, 2006

A Genteel Return to the Era of Salon Gatherings.......2006-08-03

There was a time in the Romantic period, a period which extended into Victorian times and is extant in appreciative circles even today, a time when guests would be invited into a home for the sole purpose of hearing a pianist perform the works of a composer in the setting for which they were written. Such is the case for the Chopin Etudes, works that now are part of every fine pianist's repertoire played on the distant stage in a hall of acoustic splendor for an audience sitting rigidly rapt at the expense of a high-priced admission. This welcome recording reverses all that and allows us to appreciate and hour of Chopin Etudes performed by the very fine pianist John Rusnak on a Yamaha piano in a salon setting.

If there is a gimmick here it is that the recording was made live and not enhanced by all of the sophisticated manipulations available to professionally recorded 'recitals'. Even 'live performances' are Dolbied and remixed and tampered with so that the final CD 'resembles' the event recorded but is not the experience of the audience. John Rusnak is a brave man to release a recording without the paraphernalia available to make a 'perfect' sound. What we are privileged to hear is Rusnak's survey of all 24 Etudes of Chopin's Opus 10 and Opus 25 played in the manner in which they were originally heard - our living room!

Rusnak is a well trained musician whose talents are not limited to those of a concert pianist. That is not to say that Rusnak's playing will erase all memories of today's plethora of brilliant musicians whose forte is the Chopin oeuvre - Ax, Perahia, Argerich, Uchida, Bronfman, Ollson, Pires, etc etc etc. Rusnak is not the dazzling technician nor the wistful poet found in the playing of those whose lives are spent emersed in the repertoire.

What John Rusnak brings to the Chopin Etudes is a sense of commitment and a tremendous sense of connected architecture of each of the Opus 10 and 25. And while I am amazed at the sound on this disc being untampered electronically, I am also aware that the natural ambience of recording tends to cover the total spectrum of the keyboard: that is inherently a problem in where the microphone was place in the particular room used for recording. That factor suggests that Rusnak's pedaling techniques are a bit on the heavy side, that his middle voices become secondary to the outer regions of the keyboard spread, and that the subtleties and phrasings of the quiet moments are not as stunning as one would expect. But those are chances inherently taken in producing a recording of this type.

For this listener, Rusnak feels more at home in the more richly colorful Opus 25 Etudes (witness the staggering No. 1 in A flat major of Opus 25) than in the earlier Opus 10. Yet having stated that there are few pianists who phrase the E flat minor Andante (No. 6 from Opus 10) with the straightforward elegance Rusnak displays. Noting that this recording was made in 1997 can only make us wish we knew how Rusnak has grown into this challenging body of piano music in the interim: one would expect the early thoughts here suggest even finer performances now.

But the original praise for this fine album holds. This is Chopin played by an obviously devoted pianist in a setting historically correct - and in that setting these Etudes ring with conviction and a fine degree of precision and heart that is too often lost in the computerized renditions available form the big name pianists. Grady Harp, August 06

Fantastic work! .......2006-03-19

This is a CD you cannot resist to buy not only for yourself, but for others. A wonderful gift to share with everyone you know, the pieces are perfect and wonderful for people of all ages and anyone with a passion or an appreciation for great music.

Track Listings:

Track Listings

track listings

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1. Etude No. 1 in C major, Op. 10/1: Allegro
2. Etude No. 2 in A minor, Op. 10/2: Allegro
3. Etude No. 3 in E major("Tristesse"), Op. 10/3: Lento, ma non troppo
4. Etude No. 4 in C sharp minor("Torrent"), Op. 10/4: Presto
5. Etude No. 5 in G flat major("Black Key"), Op. 10/5: Vivace
6. Etude No. 6 in E flat minor, Op. 10/6: Andante
7. Etude No. 7 in C major("Toccata"), Op. 10/7: Vivace
8. Etude No. 8 in F major, Op. 10/8: Allegro
9. Etude No. 9 in F minor, Op. 10/9: Allegro molto agitato
10. Etude No. 10 in A flat major, Op. 10/10: Vivace assai
11. Etude No. 11 in E flat major, Op. 10/11: Allegretto
12. Etude No. 12 in C minor ("Revolutionary"), Op. 10/12: Allegro con fuoco
13. Etude No. 13 in A flat major("Aeoliean Harp"), Op. 25/1: Allegro sostenuto
14. Etude No. 14 in F minor("Balm"), Op. 25/2: Presto
15. Etude No. 15 in F major("Cartwheel"), Op. 25/3: Allegro
16. Etude No. 16 in A minor, Op. 25/4: Agitato
17. Etude No. 17 in E minor, Op. 25/5: Vivace
18. Etude No. 18 in G sharp minor("Thirds"), Op. 25/6: Allegro
19. Etude No. 19 in C sharp minor("Cello"), Op. 25/7: Lento
20. Etude No. 20 in D flat major("Sixths"), Op. 25/8: Vivace legato