Chopin: Piano Sonata No.3 in B minor; Scherzo No.4 in E major; Prélude in C sharp minor, Op.45; 24 P

FEW MUSICAL pleasures equal a fine performance of Chopin’s Third Piano Sonata, and this one is exceptional. It can be ruined if treated as a vehicle for mere virtuosity. In this studio recording made in 1964, just before his 60th birthday, the great Franco-Polish musician Perlemuter is master both of the notes and of their poetic meaning. Listen to the way he shapes and inflects the first movement’s second theme (one of the longest and most beautiful melodic spans in music) with what William Glock called his “wonderful range of tone colour, rhythmic subtlety and balance between line and detail”. Wonderful indeed. Three star. -- David Cairns, The Sunday Times