Chopin: Piano Works

I first listened to Tamás Vásáry rendition of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor in the late 1960s when I was 15 or 16 years old, studying piano and very much interested in "big time" younger pianists. The concerto came to me as a gift from Dad on a DG vinyl pressing of decent quietness and dynamic range, and it quickly became my favorite classical record. Vásáry appeared to be 30 years old or so back then--a bit of an Eastern European analog of our own Van Cliburn, though with a style I preferred to the young Texan's, especially in the Chopin. Now that you know the nostalgic side of this, I can say that this set of CDs comes through very, very well audially (considering that the original recordings were made in the 1960s). It appears that DG may have recorded the concertos at 30 inches per second on reel-to-reel tape, hence there are no instances of tape oversaturation and distortion, and the background hiss while present, does not directly compete with even the quieter passages. DG clearly devoted its then-best technical efforts to this then-young artist. And with reason. Vásáry has a reputation as a phenomenal technical and interpretative virtuoso, and this comes through in the recordings. His young fingers are forever fluid but precise, and for sheer joyful tunefulness, Vásáry's interpretations fit Chopin's spirit wonderfully well. Younger ears than mine may fault the late-1960s' audio quality, but the sheer musicality and precision of playing places these recordings near the top of the heap. The fact that the set is attractively priced helps make this set a great gift for a lover of music trying to build a basic classical library. This is Chopin wonderfully played.