Bedrich Smetana: The Complete Czech Dances

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
If you don't know Smetana's Czech Dances, allow me to recommend them. These Czech Polkas and other dances are among the most delightful piano music from the Czech nationalist school, on a level with Dvorák's Slavonic Dances. Tuneful and filled with catchy rhythms, they are a guaranteed cure for the blues. Antonin Kubalek, a Czech-Canadian pianist, plays superbly, making the rhythms come alive so vividly that I tap my foot whenever I play the disc. The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall acoustics are another asset. Although there's nearly an hour of music on the CD, Smetana wrote more and I wish Dorian had recorded more of it. --Leslie Gerber

Customer Reviews:

Not just Ma Vlast.......2007-04-11

Smetana is generally known for Ma Vlast (specifically The Moldau), but here are some of his piano pieces, things that are so different and special they're surprising. I never knew Smetana wrote for the piano and these pieces opened my eyes to a whole different branch of Czech music.

What surprised me most about these dances is that they are complex and that they're not too "lovely" and fluttery. Some are very bouncy and pleasant. All are nice to listen to. Some of the dances actually make me want to jump up and dance. They're bouncy and fun.

They're not all bouncy dances, though. Some are more serious and elegant. I especially like some of the first pieces on the second disc, as they are very beautiful.

Smetana surprised me with these great pieces. Brilliant Classics surprised me this fabulous deal. Two CDs at a price that's considered cheap for one CD? You can't ask for anything better. Highly recommended.

Brilliant's Super-Budget Reissues of Essential Smetana Piano Performances.......2006-09-19

I've owned both of these CDs in their original versions -- the Kubalek on the now (alas) defunct Dorian label -- and am happy to have them both together on the superbudget Brilliant label. Brilliant seems to be doing what Naxos did early on, certainly with their amazing prices. They tend to buy up rights to well-regarded but now out-of-the-catalog recordings and reissue them at rock-bottom prices and I say hallelujah for that!

The music contained herein is not well-known to non-Czechs, even by pianists. More's the pity because there is some lovely stuff here. Smetana was himself a virtuoso pianist and he wrote ever so much better for the instrument than his younger Czech colleague, Dvorák. I own several versions of the Czech Dances and the blind pianist Antonin Kubalek's is, for me, the best one largely because of its subtlety, particularly with those tricky Czech rhythms. It is not necessarily the version that grabs you immediately by the ear by way of its virtuosity, but Kubalek knows how the pieces should go better than even his countryman Firkusny, whose version is a runner-up in this literature. Although recorded in the fabled Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, the recorded sound is just a bit boxy, but not enough to interfere with Kubalek's patrician style.

Peter Schmalfuss, a student of Gieseking and Kempff, recorded the other Smetana bits and pieces in 1980. These works are not otherwise easily available. The pieces are generally more virtuosic but less immediately interesting for me. But I really like 'Am Segerstade' ('On the Strand'), a flurry of watery arpeggios decorating a lovely melodic line and 'Sehnsucht' ('Longing') is notable for its aching melody. Some of Smetana's more Lisztian efforts -- some of the 'Rêves', for instance -- leave me unmoved but I can easily imagine someone else lapping them up. Schmalfuss is a very good pianist and is given better sound than Kubalek, but he doesn't quite have the feel for Czech gestures that Kubalek does.

Nonetheless, I strongly recommend this two-CD set at least partly because Brilliant has done a marvelous thing to reissue these two excellent discs at such a wonderful price, even if, I notice, you will need to buy it from one of Amazon's 'marketplace sellers'. [Just a word about that: I have had excellent luck using vendors via this Amazon website.]

Scott Morrison

Brilliant Smetana.......2005-06-18

I have 6 complete recordings of Czech Dances (2 versions with Kubalek and others with Firkusny, Novotny, Jirikovsky, Leichner) and know many others records of selected parts. And I have also my own experience, because I perform this pieces (not only dances, but Dreams and Etudes, too).

So I must say, that Kubalek's performance is the best, there is no doubt for me. Schmalfuss is only minor pianist, but Kubalek is world class and he really understand this music. The dances are much poetic and expressive in his hands... But in Czech republic, there are still two diferrent streams on Smetana's playing. In fact, I think, that the both are right. Smetana was virtuoso and great dancer. He admired Liszt and Liszt appreciated him. But he was also musical poet and dreamer. He eas nationalist, indeed... but he was great musician, and this si the feeling, which Kubalek has drawn and shown to the audience. He is even giving masterclasses about this music.

I am Czech pianist, so I think, I speak as an expert. This is high recommendation. Listen to Kubalek's readings of Czech music and then you will understand it.

SECRET GARDEN.......2005-05-31

It needs a bit of goodwill to award this set a fourth star, but the goodwill is there so far as I'm concerned because it has opened for me a chapter of 19th century piano music that had been closed, indeed its very existence unsuspected. Smetana's output was not large, but a surprisingly high proportion of it was for piano. He was himself a pianist, unlike Dvorak, and he must have been an accomplished one to judge from the difficulty of some of the 30 pieces here. The two discs consist of recitals by two different artists, recorded 8 years apart in time. Such problems as the set gives me are largely concerned with the recording, and oddly the earlier disc (1980 at some undisclosed location) strikes me as being a considerably better piece of engineering than the later.

Antonin Kubalek's recital comprises the full 14 Czech Dances - 4 polkas, 1 furiant and the balance bearing picturesque titles of various kinds. Peter Schmalfuss gives 5 more polkas plus 11 'Reves', not of a predominantly dreamy kind and with a strong dance-element in many of them. Taking the performances for themselves, so far as I can do that without discussing the recorded quality, Schmalfuss comes across much more successfully. For me Kubalek doesn't in general succeed in making the music really dance. I would have liked a bit more definition and firmness in his rhythm generally. His technical command is well up to the task and he turns in some good professional virtuosity in the Bear Dance and the Stamping Dance, but I feel a certain lack of personality about him. He is not helped by the recording he has been given, which is too favourable towards the bass, very much so in the 4 polkas. He may also be overdoing the pedal rather, but I sense that this is likely to be the fault of the recording again - the bass is actually pretty clear, so a certain over-resonance is probably down to the recording technicians.

Matters improve greatly with the second disc. Again, the recording leaves something to be desired, but it is certainly a lot better, wherever it was done. The sound of Schmalfuss's piano is really quite satisfactory with sufficient body and good balance between treble and bass: the only problem is a bit of metallic 'bloom' on the top notes, which is something I can discount without much problem. There is a great deal more zest and heartiness to this recital by and large. Some of the pieces, such as the 'Macbeth and the Witches' number or the Concert Study, are of near-Lisztian difficulty and showiness (as well as being a lot more musical in my own opinion). Schmalfuss goes about these with aplomb, but what appeals to me most of all is the true sense of dancing in the music.

The real thrill for me has been in discovering the music, and I shall be returning to this set often - both discs, whatever my griping about Kubalek. Dvorak is no doubt a 'greater' composer than Smetana, but there is a self-consciousness about his worn-on-the-sleeve Czechery that gets me down a bit. I love the freshness and spontaneity of Smetana, the nationalist elements displayed naturally and with pride but without descending to mannerisms. There are two interesting short liner notes, one of them by Kubalek himself. For me, this music has been a major and really delightful discovery, and such criticisms as I must in honesty offer matter to me very little in comparison with that.

Backhaus: The Complete British Acoustic Recordings, 1908-25

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Backhaus: The Complete British Acoustic Recordings, 1908-25

Manufacturer: Pearl
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Polonaises | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

Waltzes | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

Etudes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Fantasies | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Fugues | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Preludes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Suites | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Scherzo | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Lullabies & Berceuse | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Caprices | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
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Pablo Casals: Festivals at Prades Vol. 1

ASIN: B0000542HD
Release Date: 2001-02-27

Tracks:

Prelude In C Sharp Minor, Op. 3, No. 2
Liebestraum No. 3 In A Flat
'Harmonious Blacksmith' Vars
Prelude No. 1 In C, Op. 28, No. 1
Etude No. 1 In C, Op. 10, No. 1
Norwegian Bridal Procession, Op. 19, No. 2
Finale: Perpetuum Mobile
Fantasy-Impromptu In C Sharp Minor, Op. 66
La Cam-panella
Etude No. 20 In D Flat, Op. 25, No. 8
Etude No. 21 In G Flat, Op. 25, No. 9
Etude No. 5 In G Flat, Op. 10, No. 5
Prelude
Fugue
Etude No. 18 In G Sharp Minor, Op. 25, No. 6
Etude No. 13 In A Flat, Op. 25, No. 1
Etude In E Flat Minor, Op. 10, No. 12
First Movement (Abridged)
Third Movenment (Abridged)
Novelette No. 7 In E, Op. 21, No. 7
Waltz No. 11 In G Flat, Op. 70, No. 1
Waltz No. 14 In E Minor, Op. Posth.
Waltz No. 5 In A Flat, Op. 42
Polka In F
Sonata In F, L. 188 (Kk. 525)
Sonata In G, L. 490 (Kk. 523)
Etude No. 7 In C, Op. 10, No. 7
Waltz No. 6 In D Flat, Op. 64, No. 1
Moment Musical No. 3 In F Minor, Op. 94, No. 3
Hark! Hark! The Lark!

Tracks:

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (Abridged)
Polka In F
Naila Waltz
Polonaise No. 6 In A Flat, Op. 53 (Abridged)
Caprice Espagnol, Op. 37
Don Juan Seranade
Widmung
Liebestraum No. 3 In A Flat
Waltz No. 5 In A Flat, Op. 42
Variations On A Theme Of Paganini, Op. 35, Book I
Variations On A Theme Of Paganini, Op. 35, Book II
Berceuse In D Flat, Op. 57
Moment Musical No. 3 In F Minor, Op. 94, No. 3
Traumeswirren, Op. 12, No. 7
Scherzo
Triana, No. 6
Don Juan Serenade

Amazon.com

Backhaus was among the giants of 20th-century keyboard artists, renowned for his solid--some would say stolid--Beethoven and Brahms interpretations. The younger Backhaus was a more overtly virtuosic pianist with a wide repertory. This invaluable Pearl set covers his British recordings, starting in 1908 when he was only 24, and it includes composers and works he abandoned in later years when he pared his programs down to essential masterworks. So we get his only recordings of Rachmaninoff, whom he admired as the greatest among living piano composers, along with Bach, Scarlatti, and others. Backhaus's dazzling virtuosity can be heard in his abridged Brahms Paganini Variations, the Liszt, La Campanella, with its marvelously even runs, and the Weber, Perpetuum Mobile, with precise articulation at fast speeds, among many other examples. Some of his early electrical recordings fill out disc two, sounding fresher than most of the acoustics. Seth Winner's transfers on both well-filled discs are uniformly fine. Collectors of historical recordings will want these rarities. --Dan Davis

Bedrich Smetana: The Complete Czech Dances

Average customer rating:

This one is the best
Musical treasury
Czech music in highest level
Piano music that deserves more attention than it has gotten
A Labor of Love By a Great Pianist

Bedrich Smetana: The Complete Czech Dances

Manufacturer: Dorian Recordings
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000001Q85
Release Date: 1993-08-31

Tracks:

Polka In F-Sharp Minor
Polka In A Minor
Polka In F Major
Polka In B-Flat Major
Furiant
Little Hen
Grain Dance
Bear Dance
Little Onion
Stamping Dress
Lancer
Stepping Dance
Neighbour's Dance
Hop Dance

Amazon.com

If you don't know Smetana's Czech Dances, allow me to recommend them. These Czech Polkas and other dances are among the most delightful piano music from the Czech nationalist school, on a level with Dvorák's Slavonic Dances. Tuneful and filled with catchy rhythms, they are a guaranteed cure for the blues. Antonin Kubalek, a Czech-Canadian pianist, plays superbly, making the rhythms come alive so vividly that I tap my foot whenever I play the disc. The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall acoustics are another asset. Although there's nearly an hour of music on the CD, Smetana wrote more and I wish Dorian had recorded more of it. --Leslie Gerber

Customer Reviews:

This one is the best.......2005-04-19

I heard five performances of Czech dances, so I'm quite familiar with this cycle (actually, I'm playing some of them) and I must say - the Kubalek's version is the number one. Now and forever. Lovely music, recommended to all music lovers.

Musical treasury.......2005-04-14

This is incredible collecton of surprisingly nice piano music. Full of inspiration, beautiful melodic ideas and with colourful and clear sound. The Smetana's answer to Dvorak's Slavonic Dances shows us, that his creative abilities in his mature age were quite good... In fact, this is wonderful Slavonic music, but also nice collection of unusual forms. Smetana combines monothematic and counterpoint techniques with funny rhytms and wonderful mellodies. Performance is perfect - better than Firkusny or Kvapil. You must have it!

Czech music in highest level.......2005-02-01

I have many CD's with compositioions of Czech masters, but this one is one of the greatest. Perfect performance. I have also Klansky and Novotny, but this one is my favourite.

Piano music that deserves more attention than it has gotten.......2004-03-03

Antonin Kubalek has graced us with a series of sparkling recordings courtesy of the Dorian label. As a Czech emigre to Canada, Kubalek has remained somewhat out of the mainstream in classical music, but a fair amount of the Dorian label was available via BMG a few years ago, which is how I first became acquainted with Kubalek's artistry. I was indeed delighted to make the acquaintance, as Kubalek possesses as fine a musical maturity as one is likely to encounter today.

In this album, he devotes his attention to the two books of Czech Dances by Smetana. Both Smetana & Dvorak are well-known to mainstream classical audiences, but certainly not for their piano music. Smetana more than Dvorak might remind the listener of a Czech version of Chopin, as the vast majority of his output was for piano. These collections of miniatures are in the same vein as Chopin's Polonaises or Mazurkas, all based on native Czech folk dances. Smetana wrote all of these dances fairly late in his life, by which time he had gone totally deaf (but had not yet gone insane).

Kubalek, as is usual, gives beautifully-wrought performances, carefully shaping every phrase, tempo & dynamic. It has been 14 years since Dorian released this album, yet one can only hope that Kubalek may yet again get the opportunity to record more of Smetana's & Dvorak's wrongly-neglected piano music.

A Labor of Love By a Great Pianist.......2002-01-30

Antonin Kubalek left his native Czechoslovakia for Canada in 1968, as the Soviet tanks were rolling into Prague. The homesickness that he felt for his native country awakened a new affection for the piano music of such Czech composers as Dvorak, Martinu, Janacek, and the man generally regarded as the father of Czech classical music, Bedrich Smetana.

This recording, twenty years after he left Czechoslavakia, is the exquisite product of that awakening. The love that he feels for these pieces is audible in every note. Kubalek is definitely a romantic pianist, using considerable rubato. Yet he keeps every note under control, and he shapes each piece beautifully.

These are dances in much the same way as Chopin's waltzes, polonaises, etc., with cadences, accelerandos, etc. Yet every one is based on a dance native to Czechoslovakia. Only the furiant from Book 2 was at all familiar to me. It was a true delight to discover the others.

While Antonin Kubalek is not very well known, his recordings of this and other Czech music establish him as a peer of such greats as Ivan Moravec and Rudolf Firkusny.

Customer Reviews:

Quieter less Histrionic Chopin Playing .......2006-08-29

These performances have always enjoyed a great deal of respect, but I question using them as a benchmark for Chopin playing. In particular, Askenase opens out the structure of the music so methodically that he ends up consistenting refusing Chopin's endless invitations to glitter and pianistic gallantries. One constantly senses Askenase is more comfortable in the role of pedagogue and teacher than performer. In some music, and certain selections of Chopin reserve and inwardness is not only desireable, but very much the point. Yet exhibitionism and theatricality play a major role in much of Chopin's music: they help to balance the innerwardness and bring contrast to the soulfulness. The sparkle illuminates the depth in a way unique with Chopin. These personal and particular musical qualities really do mean more than surface effects - Chopin is above all a composer who wrote for ONE instrument - the piano. And he wrote better than anyone else ever did before or since for the specific soundstage possible with that instrument. There are no wasted extraneous effects for effects sake in mature Chopin. But with Askenase these endless delights are shortchanged. The haunting multi-colored beauty the best Chopin playing always conveys is not projected. (Try following Askenase's recordings with other pianists famous for their Chopin and the other performer will seem overwhelming in his or her coloristic effects.) Too, while listening to these performances I kept remembering other performers way with a section or theme. After listening through a particular piece I constantly found myself getting up to put on another CD by a different composer. And because I love Chopin that's not a good sign. I will try these CDs again another day, but I strongly suggest you not buy this set unless you have heard the performances.
Returning to listen to pianists such as Friedman in the Mazurkas (Naxos) leads me to believe technical limitations as well as personality apply in the case of Askenase and play a part in his disinclination to 'compete' with the glamor boys in this repetoire. (The nice enclosed booklet actually states that after a single hearing of Friedman play the Mazurkas Askenase shied away from them the rest of his career.) Moreover, his disinclination to record the etudes is a clear tip off that even within the music of 'his' composer he had limits. His thoughtful non-showy approach to Chopin may have been pre-determined by factors not germane to the requirements of the music itself. It's incredible to me that someone could prefer these qualities in, say, the brilliant and showy microcosmos that makes up the Waltzes to a host of other pianists who were delighted and reveled in just these qualities. Captivating and flirtatious one moment, sad and wistful the next, petutulant then suddenly exhuberant; these musical embodiments of Shakespeare's Cleopatra convey the very essence of the infinite variety of life. (With Askenase they seem more like mounted butterflies, or, fairer, industrious cabbage butterflies.) Listening to the waltzes we hear why Chopin, like Mozart, was so entranced by the songfullness of Italian bel canto. And it takes a great pianist to 'voice' the many lyric moments. Just as in song even the most thoughtful of performers must be able to rise to the technical level of a Patti or a Caruso if their way with a piece is to be considered the final word, so also in the realm of the piano, and especially Chopin!
This problem of colored memories is certainly not unique to Askenase - the French pianist Samson Francois was equally venerated in Chopin by his peers in France but today his performances reveal some troubling inconsistencies. Yet it only takes a second or so listening to Francois in Chopin's waltzes to hear how much more color and excitement exists in the music than is found by Askenase.
If you must have only one pianist for Chopin buy the Rubinstein CDs. He certainly has far greater technical skills and just as much of an understanding of the music. I think this may be one of those cases where high ratings are partly attributable to fond memories clouding reviewers' better judgement.

Ding an sich.......2006-08-17

I do not have very much to add to the redoubtable Mr. Lipscomb. His always-perceptive summaries speak for themselves. What I will say is that this set is among a handful of artistic miracles in the pantheon of recorded classical music. Even if Chopin is not your thing, I doubt very much if you will not find yourself transported by the first dozen or so staves of--for example--the C Sharp Minor nocturne. Stefan Askenase has a sensibility that transcends Chopin playing, and, for that matter, Chopin: it is as if you are given a glimpse of the great musical beyond, of the musical noumenon.

A Poetic View of Chopin.......2005-03-22

The long-awaited CD issue of these classic recordings is cause for rejoicing. The playing of Stefan Askenase (1896-1985) was a marvel of tender poetry, subtle rubato, and lucid clarity. Contrary to the album's title, these recordings span the period 1951-1971, and there are also works here by Mozart, Schubert, Liszt, Smetana and Mendelssohn. Transfers are uniformly excellent.

As Amazon has not provided a list of this set's contents, here is a brief digest:

CD 1 (all 1951, all Chopin) has 14 Waltzes, Piano Sonata #2, and the Mazurka op. 50/3. CD 2 (1951-52) has Piano Sonata #3, the 2nd Piano Concerto with Fritz Lehmann and the Berlin Phil., and 4 Polkas by Smetana. CDs 3-4 (1952-54) offer 20 Nocturnes, 24 Preludes op. 28 (Chopin) and Mozart's Piano Sonata K. 570. CD 5 has 8 Chopin Polonaises from 1951-52, and from 1968 a delightful 11 minute medley (compiled by Askenase) of Schubert Waltzes & Landler, plus exceptionally lyrical accounts of Liszt's Liebestraum No. 3 and Valse Oubliee No. 1. CD 6 includes Chopin's 1st Piano Concerto & Rondo a la Krakowiak (1959, with Willem van Otterloo and the Hague Phil.), plus Mendelssohn's Scherzo in E minor and 3 of the Songs Without Words. CD 7 features Chopin's Barcarolle, Berceuse, Scherzo #2 (all 1968), the 4 Impromptus, Scherzo #3, 4 Mazurkas, and the 3rd Ballade (all from 1970-71).

It is difficult to describe what makes these recordings so very special. At an early age Askenase's only teacher was his mother, who studied with Karl Mikuli, Chopin's most famous pupil. Askenase's style of playing - intimate, tender, sensitive - tonally most reminds me of Moriz Rosenthal, another Mikuli pupil. I strongly suspect that Askenase, Rosenthal and perhaps Pachmann & Czerny-Stefanska were probably the closest to Chopin's own style of piano playing, particularly with regard to delicacy of touch and tonal color. Like Neuhaus and Horszowski, Askenase spent most of his career teaching rather than concertizing (two of his pupils were Argerich and Uchida).

If your models for piano playing are the cool efficiency of Pollini or the theatrical thunder of Horowitz, you may find Askenase's manner too polite and small-scale. But if you prefer delicate shimmer and sparkle to empty glitter, and if you are seeking lyric grace of enormous subtlety, then Askenase is a must-hear.

As a Chopin player, Askenase is at his best in the wistful elegance of the Waltzes, the improvisationally lyrical Impromptus, the dreamy Nocturnes, and the subtle rhythmic challenges of the dance-like Mazurkas and Polonaises. Next to Askenase's Waltzes, even Rubinstein sounds a shade cavalier and Lipatti a trifle objective. The Waltzes were my first exposure to Askenase in the days of LP, and they remain my favorite version of all. His Impromptus are, along with Vasary's (DG LP), the finest I have heard. For me, Askenase joins Moravec (Nonesuch) and Vasary (DG) at the top of the list in the Nocturnes. His op. 28 Chopin Preludes are among my favorites, along with Moravec, Argerich and Cortot. Askenase's Berceuse ranks with the best (e.g., Solomon and Rubinstein).

Larger-scale, more overtly dramatic works like the Scherzos and Ballades are more successfully conveyed by others, especially Rubinstein (his magnificent stereo Ballades/Scherzos CD on RCA) and Richter (his live accounts of the Scherzos on Olympia and the stunning live Ballades on his 15-disc Praga set). While a fine account, the Barcarolle here strikes me as just a notch below the versions by Rubinstein, Lipatti, and Cherkassky.

I love Askenase's way with both the concertos, though I will admit that they are scaled more to the salon than the concert stage (his #1 is similar to Czerny-Stefanska's in this respect). Otterloo (#1) and Lehmann (#2) provide the finest orchestral support these works have received on disc (conductor Otterloo's large discography is urgently in need of CD reissue). As for the folkish Krakowiak, I think Askenase's is far and away the finest recording this under-rated little gem has ever received. In the Sonatas, Askenase substitutes nuance and subtlety for drama and forward motion. These too are in my personal Chopin pantheon, along with Rubinstein and Rachmaninov (#2), and Kapell & Lipatti (#3). In the latter work, Askenase offers a deeply eloquent account of the Largo, and his last mvt. has an unusual "galop" quality that I find very attractive.

Unfortunately, like Rubinstein, Askenase never recorded the Op. 10 or Op. 25 Etudes. In those works, I love Cortot's grand style (smudges and all) and the very personal readings by Vasary (DG LP). But my "desert island" set would be the long out of print Concert Hall LPs recorded in the 1950's by the Vienna-born Robert Goldsand, who was also primarily a teacher (one of his pupils was the astute music critic Harris Goldsmith). Hopefully some enterprising CD label will re-issue Goldsand's miraculously varied and musical Chopin, which also included a GREAT reading of the rarely heard 1st Sonata and the charming Variations on Mozart's La ci darem la mano.

Space does not permit my going into any detail regarding the lovely Mozart Sonata, the idiomatic Mendelssohn (a delightful Spinning Song) or the Smetana (but listen to the latter's first Polka for Askenase's incredibly liquid passagework, the work of a truly masterful colorist).

Urgently recommended.