Since a number of listeners are comparing Blechacz unfavorably to Zimerman (both great) may I suggest an essential difference? As he’s grown older, even in live performances, Zimerman has grown much more calculated, the ruthlessly rehearsed Chopin concerti he conducted being an obvious example. Blechacz, like other favorite pianists (e.g., Severin Eisenberger, Edwin Fischer) plays as naturally as he breathes. It’s not that his performances are unstructured, they only sound spontaneous - as we’re told Chopin’s did. Sheer delight.
It was a great performance that was really neat and beautiful. It was impeccable performance from start to finish. It's a characteristic of Rafal, but it's so lovely to play with all the notes beautifully.
This is a good example of a spirit teacher (Chopin) contacting a student (on this side of the veil) who is willing to listen to instructions from the other side. It is possible. People just don't like to talk about it that much.
Can you tell me more about this? I know it sound quite unrealistic but somehow i believe the spirit of any living (or deceased) person can be casted that way.. No matter what religion they are
Que lastima que este pianista que es tal vez el mejor intérprete de Chopin no ha grabado esta balada i la 4. Esta grabación deberían editarla en audio en cd. Infinitas gracias a Miss EmoTiph por publicar esta versión en publico
@fredericfranc zimerman is a catholic, not a jew. to say that zimerman plays terrible chopin is a very courageous statement. as long as i'm not a great lover of concertos with PFO his recording with giulini is the best i have ever heard. the best proof of zimerman's chopin understaing are his mazurkas. i heard op.6, 24, 56 and 63 and they all were outstanding. sztompka, rubinstein maybe malcuzynski can only match. and if somebody can play mazurkas you know he feels chopin.
THIS. More people need to look into these. I couldn't BELIEVE he had that jaw-dropping Liszt. Maybe not as fiery as is "popular" now, but definitely some of the best playing of the new generation.
Yagruma : ) Limo fecuda, Mialowsky a zarazem kapitan Rolloff. Hiszpanie vs Kubańczycy. Tam teżbyło formidable ; ) :D Z tej książki kojarzysz to słówko, czy tak napisałaś ? : ) I pojawiał się tam motyw Chopina, gdy Izabela grała etiudę rewolucyjną.
@fredericfranc believe me - i heard a lot of interpretations of this ballade... zimerman, argerich, harasiewicz, rubinstein, pollini, malcuzynski, jablonski, ashkenazy, paleczny, freire, ekier, yundi, ohlsson, sultanov, horowitz and many others. i posses most of those recordings and really blechacz's isn't bad. acutally it's quite good imo as i said before and i enjoyed his vision of this composition.
@fredericfranc what do you mean by 'produce the sound you need here'. he produces the sound he thinks he needs there (of course in borders of chopin's text). and the ending is played well - maybe copied form zimerman's ballades a little bit but that's not a bad thing. blechacz improved a lot since the competition-his articulation is so much better and his passages are one of the best i have ever heard. and even despite these whole technique stuff-chopin is about emotions,not technique.
Blechacz’s rendition of this ballade is not as structured as Zimerman’s, if I were to compare, nevertheless the pedaling, the tone, and the soul poured into it makes it brilliant. It’s delightful to the ear. The coughing makes me exhasperated, though 🥲
zimerman shows actually what chopin is all about and if you negate his interpretations... then i really don't know what to say. pollini's interpretations are quite true with the text and argerich (especially young) were also very nice (and i'm not a fan of her chopin). i like ashkenazy's ideas but he's got sooo heavy hand (i think that way especially when i'm listening to his polonaises) and by all rights he lost with harasiewicz. btw. do you enjoy horowitz interpretations of chopin's works?
It's incredible! Only sorry about image not so cool. So you know about Ric Marin? It's said that his chopin it's cool, but I don't find youtube videos!!!
@fredericfranc i heard his mazurkas op.24 from nyc2005. very, very good - his interpretations are just like wine - growing better and better with time. zimerman is widely regarded as one of the finest chopin interpreters ever and really you should accept it. sorry but i don't know polish translation of panders. i'm poor in us-english vocabulary (and don't know why americans just cannot use british voc. maybe 'cause of thier delusion of grandeur?).
@fredericfranc forgot to mention davidovich - very nice ballades - one of more interesting interpretations i heard. come on 2cd set with impromptus and preludes if i remember correctly. i recommend. well it's hard to say how chopin played... 'cause there are no recordings as you know ;-) and remember - the pianos where different in XIX century (there's a very interesting FCNI series of recordings on XIXc. pianos). btw. where you heard zimerman's mazurkas? ;>
For sure ! Zimerman's version is the best! But Rafal Blechacz is not bad. And he won the International Chopin Piano Competition in 2005...30 years after Zimerman! The new generation is there !
@fredericfranc and that's the question - are you looking for somekind let's say 'variations' on chopin themes or for faithfully played music text. you're looking for the 1st one i'm looking for 2nd - these are two completely different visions of chopin and arguing doesn't make sens. and yeah i listened to his interviews on yt - very interesting... i wish only pogo and argerich were so humble and honest...
When I have read the duration of 30 seconds less, I immediately thought he threw away the central part (A major). In fact it's so. This pianist is very talented, but sometimes he makes too much of a choice. He lacks the maturity necessary to fully internalize the most intense and passionate parts of Chopin.
@fredericfranc i cant distinguish wrong notes because of the copy... it would have been better if he recorded in better quality... thanks to the uploader anyways... I think I know what you meant... you like horowitz interpretation of chopin which is more softer... but you must agree that he plays some chopin pieces with better interpretation than any other pianists nowadays... ;) peace out...
@fredericfranc Well- thank you...- i still disagree..IF we could meet and play sections..liten discuss then it would be easier to convince each other.... Do you think , that such an excellent pianists and judges in Jury ...made mistake? ..by awarding him so decisively first place? / no second..- if is really truth what you are saying..- they could give him..second prize etc./ BTW- what do you think about 2010 winner -Avdeeva?
@MissEmoTiph You all are right. Blechacz is one of my most favourite performers, his Barcarolle and Heroic polonaise are in my opinion the best ever played, but I fully agree with your opinion, that this was tooooooooo fast. He plays a Ballade like it was a Scherzo. I am a bit confused of the sound. I don't know if Blechacz uses so much of sostenuto or if it is caused by recording medium. Blechacz is very young and we can be sure to hear about him very often in the future. Great pianist.
@fredericfranc sorry mate but you gotta be kiddin'. if you don't hear polish feel in Z's mazurkas and you claim that argerich's mazurkas are more polish (and yeah those on CHC weren't bad but still miles behind polish pianists. and the later the worse, just like fou and his mazurkas from '80) then i can advise you to listen to pogorelich's mazurkas. maybe you'll enjoy them - they sounds like cossac dances so i think they could be suitable.
@fredericfranc that's some kind of joke i guess? that's good interpretation and i'm sure rafal will work on it so it'll grow better and better with every public concert. and the argument 'because he won the competition he should play better' is just so stupid... zimerman's waltzes recording for DG were really poor and i'm so interested if you would also said 'he should play better as a winner'. and this recording is already better than pollini's recording for dg.
@fredericfranc well to be honest i actually found cortot interesting (even i've got his op.35 in yt favourites i guess) but if we're talking about 'how chopin should be played' (which is very treacherous thread) - he should be played as he wrote by the music notation and they're just too loose in following it. yes, they're often interesting - something fresh and that's good but in case of faitfully reproducing chopin's music they aren't good.
well miss argerich is a star and she likes to be a controversial star. her taste is also controversial (to mention pogerelich is enough i guess). horowitz was a great virtuoso but poor chopinist in my opinion. but i think he didn't care actually about being good chopinist. still i'd like to know how far he would have gone in the competition - but oborin was a hard opponent. his mazurkas were good so i guess the rest was even better.
I listened lots of his Chopin, great pianist. But, not one of his play touched me, I dont know why, I really like him. Argerich , Zimerman, Pollini, Yundi they all has some works touched me, I mean, Chopin works. I am so sad, I still can not understand Rafal..
*_lol +Margaret Alexiu. But on a serious note, I must agree, Rafal's polonaises are unbelievable but his ballade are a shocking compared to his polonaises ... Sad really_*
@fredericfranc Cortot, Pogorelich, Rachmaninov? these names are so far from chopin as it's only possible to be. they are the best example how chopin SHOULDN'T be played. no esteem for chopin's original texts. after listening to rachmaninov's sonata op.35 i thought he played it in ironworks... arrau, michelangeli, richter are quite decent chopin interpretors (but still nothing special) and davidovich and hesse-bukowska are high in my personal favourites.
This is a fabulous piece - apparently one of Chopin's own favourites: but I don't agree that this is a good performance. He handles the first few bars like a machine taught to play 'sensitively', rather than a musician imbued with a poetic vision. Little wonder that after the announcement of the main theme his interpretation begins to fall apart. Part of the problem is his overuse of pedal - a common enough issue. More true finger legato please! As it is, he has given a good but mechanical imitation of superb playing. I'd urge him to stop playing like a good/excellent student and more like a well formed musician. As the winner of the competition, no doubt he was the best. It's worth recalling however that Chopin did not write notes: he wrote music with beauty and vision and exquisite taste - the best he could give - front and centre.
+limitattitude I think you would evaluate his legato differently if the recording was captured properly. This is an amateur recording on god knows what (a smartphone?) that leaves far too much to the imagination when it comes to discerning actual clarity. Even the piano itself sounds second-rate when recorded with whatever was used.
Man remenber he is live on agave AND the recording Is everything but profesional i think someone in the audiencie recorded it AND the other you hear here AND there were recorded by professionals
Never heard the first ballade like this. It's in another dimension from the other interpretations. Unbelievable and perfect.
Since a number of listeners are comparing Blechacz unfavorably to Zimerman (both great) may I suggest an essential difference? As he’s grown older, even in live performances, Zimerman has grown much more calculated, the ruthlessly rehearsed Chopin concerti he conducted being an obvious example. Blechacz, like
other favorite pianists (e.g., Severin Eisenberger, Edwin Fischer) plays as naturally as he breathes. It’s not that his performances are unstructured, they only sound spontaneous - as we’re told Chopin’s did. Sheer delight.
I love his ballade no.1 the most. Please make the record..
He's the best. absolutely brilliant performance, very inteligent pianist. i totally fell in love with His interpretations.
Wielki i wspaniały Rafał Blechacz.
Great artist ! Wonderful performance
Finally somebody who stands up for Blechacz. Give the man some love! :D
It was a great performance that was really neat and beautiful. It was impeccable performance from start to finish. It's a characteristic of Rafal, but it's so lovely to play with all the notes beautifully.
Fantastic! I dream of seeing him performing live!
This is a good example of a spirit teacher (Chopin) contacting a student (on this side of the veil) who is willing to listen to instructions from the other side. It is possible. People just don't like to talk about it that much.
Can you tell me more about this? I know it sound quite unrealistic but somehow i believe the spirit of any living (or deceased) person can be casted that way..
No matter what religion they are
My favorite pianist so far.. He puts every one else in one class and himself on another
Muhanad Ajinah I agree. He is special.
Yes
Great version! Full of passion, in the line of Horowitz. Well done!
Que lastima que este pianista que es tal vez el mejor intérprete de Chopin no ha grabado esta balada i la 4. Esta grabación deberían editarla en audio en cd. Infinitas gracias a Miss EmoTiph por publicar esta versión en publico
I'm so excited while I listen this ... ¡¡amazing!!
Beautiful interpretation !
Fascinating pianist :) You can feel all the "fire" and the passion of the Youth.
this guy plays it just the way I like it. Well done.
Such a talented pianist, inspiring like others before him for the generations to come!
Najlepsze wykonanie ❤️
My favorite
love this interpretation
Wonderful! ❤ 💐🙏🕊️
I have the same opinion. It seems that i can feel and hear the Chopin playing himself.
True, he takes the most out of his music
Really beatiful !
今でも聴いています。色褪せない。
@fredericfranc
zimerman is a catholic, not a jew. to say that zimerman plays terrible chopin is a very courageous statement. as long as i'm not a great lover of concertos with PFO his recording with giulini is the best i have ever heard.
the best proof of zimerman's chopin understaing are his mazurkas. i heard op.6, 24, 56 and 63 and they all were outstanding. sztompka, rubinstein maybe malcuzynski can only match. and if somebody can play mazurkas you know he feels chopin.
I love your phrasing and drama
Outstanding.
THIS. More people need to look into these. I couldn't BELIEVE he had that jaw-dropping Liszt. Maybe not as fiery as is "popular" now, but definitely some of the best playing of the new generation.
I hope to go his concert someday. Please visit Korea Blechacz!
formidable!
Yagruma : ) Limo fecuda, Mialowsky a zarazem kapitan Rolloff. Hiszpanie vs Kubańczycy. Tam teżbyło formidable ; ) :D Z tej książki kojarzysz to słówko, czy tak napisałaś ? : )
I pojawiał się tam motyw Chopina, gdy Izabela grała etiudę rewolucyjną.
i imagine Chopin himself played it exactly like that
He is perfect, he is Chopin reincarnated, ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
@fredericfranc
believe me - i heard a lot of interpretations of this ballade... zimerman, argerich, harasiewicz, rubinstein, pollini, malcuzynski, jablonski, ashkenazy, paleczny, freire, ekier, yundi, ohlsson, sultanov, horowitz and many others. i posses most of those recordings and really blechacz's isn't bad. acutally it's quite good imo as i said before and i enjoyed his vision of this composition.
Blechacz is my favourite pianist
Breathtaking and wonderful performance!!
Not too fast at my opinion,
only at the right phrases,
otherwise also rómantical and emotional.
I disagree with the comments below. Beautiful performance, valuable artist.
@fredericfranc
what do you mean by 'produce the sound you need here'. he produces the sound he thinks he needs there (of course in borders of chopin's text). and the ending is played well - maybe copied form zimerman's ballades a little bit but that's not a bad thing.
blechacz improved a lot since the competition-his articulation is so much better and his passages are one of the best i have ever heard.
and even despite these whole technique stuff-chopin is about emotions,not technique.
7:20 - *THE BEST!!!*
He is Chopin, the gesture is like Liszt says in his biography
Blechacz’s rendition of this ballade is not as structured as Zimerman’s, if I were to compare, nevertheless the pedaling, the tone, and the soul poured into it makes it brilliant. It’s delightful to the ear.
The coughing makes me exhasperated, though 🥲
zimerman shows actually what chopin is all about and if you negate his interpretations... then i really don't know what to say. pollini's interpretations are quite true with the text and argerich (especially young) were also very nice (and i'm not a fan of her chopin). i like ashkenazy's ideas but he's got sooo heavy hand (i think that way especially when i'm listening to his polonaises) and by all rights he lost with harasiewicz.
btw. do you enjoy horowitz interpretations of chopin's works?
It's incredible! Only sorry about image not so cool. So you know about Ric Marin? It's said that his chopin it's cool, but I don't find youtube videos!!!
@fredericfranc
i heard his mazurkas op.24 from nyc2005. very, very good - his interpretations are just like wine - growing better and better with time.
zimerman is widely regarded as one of the finest chopin interpreters ever and really you should accept it.
sorry but i don't know polish translation of panders. i'm poor in us-english vocabulary (and don't know why americans just cannot use british voc. maybe 'cause of thier delusion of grandeur?).
@fredericfranc
forgot to mention davidovich - very nice ballades - one of more interesting interpretations i heard. come on 2cd set with impromptus and preludes if i remember correctly. i recommend.
well it's hard to say how chopin played... 'cause there are no recordings as you know ;-) and remember - the pianos where different in XIX century (there's a very interesting FCNI series of recordings on XIXc. pianos).
btw. where you heard zimerman's mazurkas? ;>
For sure ! Zimerman's version is the best! But Rafal Blechacz is not bad. And he won the International Chopin Piano Competition in 2005...30 years after Zimerman! The new generation is there !
@fredericfranc
and that's the question - are you looking for somekind let's say 'variations' on chopin themes or for faithfully played music text. you're looking for the 1st one i'm looking for 2nd - these are two completely different visions of chopin and arguing doesn't make sens.
and yeah i listened to his interviews on yt - very interesting... i wish only pogo and argerich were so humble and honest...
When I have read the duration of 30 seconds less, I immediately thought he threw away the central part (A major). In fact it's so. This pianist is very talented, but sometimes he makes too much of a choice. He lacks the maturity necessary to fully internalize the most intense and passionate parts of Chopin.
So true! Too fast and quite shallow.
I want rafal playing chopin ballade no.2,no.3 and no.4
@fredericfranc i cant distinguish wrong notes because of the copy... it would have been better if he recorded in better quality... thanks to the uploader anyways... I think I know what you meant... you like horowitz interpretation of chopin which is more softer... but you must agree that he plays some chopin pieces with better interpretation than any other pianists nowadays... ;) peace out...
@fredericfranc
Well- thank you...- i still disagree..IF we could meet and play sections..liten discuss then it would be easier to convince each other....
Do you think , that such an excellent pianists and judges in Jury ...made mistake? ..by awarding him so decisively first place? / no second..- if is really truth what you are saying..- they could give him..second prize etc./
BTW- what do you think about 2010 winner -Avdeeva?
@fredericfranc Hi- was on vacation, that's why wasn't able to respond to your comment..
Can you be more specific? what transitions? His problems?????
and by the way, i went to his last concert 23 07 1012 in la roque d'antheron and he played it much better!
i do agree, or Kissin, but as a young pianiste he is remarckable!
Nooo! Horowitz, he "lived" the ballade n 1! He's absolutely the best! :)
The sound quality is not so good
@MissEmoTiph You all are right. Blechacz is one of my most favourite performers, his Barcarolle and Heroic polonaise are in my opinion the best ever played, but I fully agree with your opinion, that this was tooooooooo fast. He plays a Ballade like it was a Scherzo. I am a bit confused of the sound. I don't know if Blechacz uses so much of sostenuto or if it is caused by recording medium. Blechacz is very young and we can be sure to hear about him very often in the future. Great pianist.
@fredericfranc
sorry mate but you gotta be kiddin'. if you don't hear polish feel in Z's mazurkas and you claim that argerich's mazurkas are more polish (and yeah those on CHC weren't bad but still miles behind polish pianists. and the later the worse, just like fou and his mazurkas from '80) then i can advise you to listen to pogorelich's mazurkas. maybe you'll enjoy them - they sounds like cossac dances so i think they could be suitable.
When was this????? Please
Concert???
@fredericfranc
that's some kind of joke i guess? that's good interpretation and i'm sure rafal will work on it so it'll grow better and better with every public concert.
and the argument 'because he won the competition he should play better' is just so stupid... zimerman's waltzes recording for DG were really poor and i'm so interested if you would also said 'he should play better as a winner'.
and this recording is already better than pollini's recording for dg.
@fredericfranc
well to be honest i actually found cortot interesting (even i've got his op.35 in yt favourites i guess) but if we're talking about 'how chopin should be played' (which is very treacherous thread) - he should be played as he wrote by the music notation and they're just too loose in following it.
yes, they're often interesting - something fresh and that's good but in case of faitfully reproducing chopin's music they aren't good.
How ever do you pronounce his name?
Ra-fal (with a king of w-like „L“) Bleh-khach
Polish names are confusing 😢
That's just your opinion, not everyone.
Fast to my taste. However, he's a wonderful performer.
well miss argerich is a star and she likes to be a controversial star. her taste is also controversial (to mention pogerelich is enough i guess).
horowitz was a great virtuoso but poor chopinist in my opinion. but i think he didn't care actually about being good chopinist. still i'd like to know how far he would have gone in the competition - but oborin was a hard opponent. his mazurkas were good so i guess the rest was even better.
One of the best version, similar to Zimmerman preformance :)
I prefer Zimmerman than this, but I think Rubinstein is the best interpretation of this one.
*_I must agree Zimmerman's ballade are ornate and made to perfection, Rubinstein has very good renditions but sometimes I prefer other renditions_*
And the very best is your interpretation?
Maybe in the future he will be the next Zimerman
and his starts to go faster and faster, thats not too great though
Les personnes qui souhaitent acquérir le moulage d'art "La Main de Chopin" peuvent me contacter.
great great ! but there's no intepretation like zimerman's one
Juliana ferreira I think Rafal’s interpretation is more fascinating.
I listened lots of his Chopin, great pianist. But, not one of his play touched me, I dont know why, I really like him. Argerich , Zimerman, Pollini, Yundi they all has some works touched me, I mean, Chopin works. I am so sad, I still can not understand Rafal..
I think he's emotionally quite restricted.
@A8opi he *
give a listen to Jerome Rose's version, it's my favorite
rafał blechacz one of my favorite pianists, but this ballad unfortunately he played negligently
Anna Basar, Take your hands OFF that piano ( if it's You on that picture).
Play a flute or something else.
*_lol +Margaret Alexiu. But on a serious note, I must agree, Rafal's polonaises are unbelievable but his ballade are a shocking compared to his polonaises ... Sad really_*
You look like alexish
@fredericfranc
Cortot, Pogorelich, Rachmaninov? these names are so far from chopin as it's only possible to be. they are the best example how chopin SHOULDN'T be played.
no esteem for chopin's original texts.
after listening to rachmaninov's sonata op.35 i thought he played it in ironworks...
arrau, michelangeli, richter are quite decent chopin interpretors (but still nothing special) and davidovich and hesse-bukowska are high in my personal favourites.
we have the new driver for Ferrari....
@fredericfranc
...."the Guy" can play multiple times better than you and me together !!!!
Your comment is simply sensless....
This is a fabulous piece - apparently one of Chopin's own favourites: but I don't agree that this is a good performance. He handles the first few bars like a machine taught to play 'sensitively', rather than a musician imbued with a poetic vision. Little wonder that after the announcement of the main theme his interpretation begins to fall apart. Part of the problem is his overuse of pedal - a common enough issue. More true finger legato please! As it is, he has given a good but mechanical imitation of superb playing. I'd urge him to stop playing like a good/excellent student and more like a well formed musician.
As the winner of the competition, no doubt he was the best. It's worth recalling however that Chopin did not write notes: he wrote music with beauty and vision and exquisite taste - the best he could give - front and centre.
+limitattitude I think you would evaluate his legato differently if the recording was captured properly. This is an amateur recording on god knows what (a smartphone?) that leaves far too much to the imagination when it comes to discerning actual clarity. Even the piano itself sounds second-rate when recorded with whatever was used.
+retrogamerdave you may well be right!
これは盗撮だ。このコンサートはチケット代を支払った人のための特別なコンサートであるなら、他の人に公開する必要はありません。他の観客がルールを守ってその権利を享受したようにあなたも公開を控えてほしい。それがフェアな取引でしょう！
It's a good interpretation but I've heard better.
lol
Man remenber he is live on agave AND the recording Is everything but profesional i think someone in the audiencie recorded it AND the other you hear here AND there were recorded by professionals
Vladimir Horowitz is better .p