Chopin: Ballades, Berceuse, Barcarolle, Scherzo No.4

This recording was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra)." Evgeny Kissin has progressed from the wide-eyed, innocent interpreter of his first discs into a very aware and increasingly mature artist. Chopin is the composer who looms largest in his discography, and here in the four Ballades he seemingly takes their narrative origins to heart with a great deal of rhetorical hesitation and acceleration. The dynamic range employed is huge, from whispered pianissimos to thunderous fortissimos. If not perhaps the most natural way to play Chopin, it is an approach with many rewards and certainly brings out the kinship to opera that permeates Chopin's music. The melodies are inflected much the way a great singer performing an aria of Bellini's would inflect the musical line. This individualization of the music continues with gentle but powerful readings of the Berceuse and the Barcarolle. With the addition of the Fourth Scherzo, this is a generous selection of Chopin in storyteller mode. The recording captures Kissin's Steinway to near perfection, giving him the best possible sound to explore his maturing vision of Chopin.