![]() ![]() ![]() Weinstock further feels that, “had Chopin written little else, it would entitle him to a position as peer of the greatest artistic creators.” In his work on Chopin, Herbert Weinstock has written, “I have heard the sonata played so that it sounded like four separate pieces the fault was the pianist’s… But I have heard it played…with the complete, overall, four-movement structural and aesthetic-emotional unity of a Mozart piano concerto or Beethoven piano sonata… Calling the B-flat Minor a sonata was neither caprice nor jest it is a sonata by Chopin.” Mr. Schumann’s often-quoted remark about the B-flat Minor Sonata – “Chopin has simply bound together four of his most reckless children” – is taken to task by most modern critics, who feel that the work, despite its unclassical form, is a completely logical entity. In the same liner notes, Neville Cardus elaborates on the Chopin sonata as follows: But I think this idea of a final sigh or a ghostly wind over the grave is a good one. You know the story they tell – Chopin was asked if the finale was a ‘light wind over the grave’ and he said, ‘No, just gossiping between two hands.’ He was a moody man, Chopin. It’s been a good friend throughout my career. The Chopin sonata I played first in ’22 or ’23. “All these pieces have been with me a long time. In the liner notes to that recording, Thomas Frost quotes Horowitz as follows: I was introduced to Chopin’s second piano sonata in just this way, through Vladimir Horowitz’ 1962 recording for Columbia Records, which also includes works by Schumann, Rachmaninoff, and Liszt. I well remember browsing through my local record store searching for the one record (perhaps two) that insisted on going home with me, and the sense of anticipation with which I placed it on the family turntable for the first time. Long-playing, vinyl records were our primary means of discovering new music, and there was a wealth of them for us to choose from. CD’s were still twenty years in the future. In 1963, when I was beginning to explore the world of classical music, there was no internet and, obviously, no YouTube. ![]()
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