Gianluca Luisi - Chopin: Piano Concertos No. 1 & 2 (2011)

Piano quintet arrangements of Chopin's two piano concertos have been recorded several times, in several different versions. It's a little unclear whether this one was made by Chopin himself, but it dates from his own time; annotator Elisabeth Deckers states that the Ensemble Concertant Frankfurt "located the German first edition of the two piano concerto in the version for string quintet accompaniment. In order to capture the chamber-musical tone, the historically precise instrumentation employed and published by Chopin himself has been perfectly complemented on the solo piano." This is a bit murky, but it is doubtless true that an audience of the 19th century would have found such arrangements perfectly normal, and one's understanding of Chopin's universe is enhanced by hearing them. This said, transferring the full-scale piano-and-orchestra score to quintet dimensions is a difficult task: the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, relies in its opening movement on especially dramatic entrances, and reducing the dynamic range available to the piano tends to vitiate the effect of the entire work. Several more famous pianists have produced unsatisfying versions, but the performance here by Italian pianist Gianluca Luisi may be optimal. Equal credit goes to Luisi, the Ensemble Concertant Frankfurt, MDG's crack team of audiophile engineers, and perhaps even the restorer of Luisi's 1901 Steinway, a truly lovely instrument that achieves with a quiet voice what more powerful later instruments delivered with sheer power. Without ever disturbing the delicate balance between pianist and instrumentalists he creates the range of musical colors that defines these concertos as key works in the emergence of Chopin's musical language. Another very strong entry in MDG's series of historically oriented performances.