Anna Fedorova – Shaping Chopin: Waltzes, Mazurkas, Nocturnes (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Anna Fedorova – Shaping Chopin: Waltzes, Mazurkas, Nocturnes (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:03:35 minutes | 1,87 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Channel Classics Records

The year 2020 was a strange, lonely year for many of us, due to the spreading corona virus. (…) Music was something that gave this comfort, taking our minds away and transporting us to different worlds. I, for instance, found myself diving into the music of Chopin. His music had an important place in my life from early childhood and I worked extensively on various pieces with my parents, who were my teachers at that time in Kiev. While we were separated for a long time, I felt closer to them through his music. Practising certain waltzes or nocturnes seemed to transport me in time and space and reflected the current mood with their dreaminess and melancholy.

When the opportunity to record a new album spontaneously arose, I immediately thought about the music of Chopin. I made a selection of various Waltzes, Nocturnes and Mazurkas, and added the Fantaisie Impromptu, as they cover a wide spectrum of emotions, moods and colours.It’s incredible how Chopin can express himself so intensively and so deeply in a piece which lasts just a few minutes. He always manages to create a captivating atmosphere and a unique dreamworld. While performing Chopin’s miniatures it feels like diving into a living painting, artistically shaping its unique story, colours and characters with music.

Anna Fedorova is at home in the Romantic period, she knows it’s repertoire inside out and has proven this several times. In addition to previous recordings of Liszt, Schumann or Scriabin, she shines especially with Russian composers such as Rachmaninoff and as a Youtube star, her interpretation of his 2nd Piano Concerto has more than 30 million clicks, and Chopin is also no blank slate for her. Already in her albums Four Fantasies (2018) and Storyteller (2019), both released on Channel Classics, she pays tribute to the Polish-French composer, devoting herself to his ballads as well as fantasies, among other works. In Shaping Chopin, she now devotes herself fully to his most famous genres and conjures up an extensive program for us with a selection of his most beautiful mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes as well as fantasies on record.

Live concerts in 2021 unfortunately remain relatively quiet, but instead we experience a real flowering of lockdown albums recorded in the previous year. For Anna Fedorova, it was Chopin who accompanied her during this period and whom she re-met in a new way. Already in the first piece Grande Valse Brillante Op.18 the name speaks for itself. Fedorova interprets the piece in an extremely fast tempo, but this does not detract at all from the waltz itself. Due to her extremely precise keystrokes as well as her, already repeatedly praised, amazing technical skills, the dances seem like child’s play for her. The same applies to the following Waltzes Op. 34, Op. 42 and Op. 64, which she expresses with a dancing lightness and at the same time, with extremely strong and sensitive dynamics, however one does not exclude the other. This effect, on the other hand, diminishes somewhat in the two Nocturnes Op. 27. Here one would have wished for a little more calmness and time. The concluding Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66, however, makes up for this. In an incredibly lively and energetic interpretation, she draws us back into her Romantic spell. Listeners are certainly getting their money’s worth! – Lena Germann

Tracklist:

1-01. Anna Fedorova – Grande Valse Brillante in E-Flat Major, Op. 18 (05:48)
1-02. Anna Fedorova – No. 1 in C-Sharp Minor (05:20)
1-03. Anna Fedorova – No. 2 in D-Flat Major (06:16)
1-04. Anna Fedorova – No. 1 in A-Flat Major – Vivace (06:16)
1-05. Anna Fedorova – No. 2 in A Minor – Lento (05:44)
1-06. Anna Fedorova – No. 3 in C-Sharp Minor – Moderato (02:48)
1-07. Anna Fedorova – Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 42 (04:22)
1-08. Anna Fedorova – No. 1 in G Major – Vivace (02:44)
1-09. Anna Fedorova – No. 2 in A-Flat Major – Allegretto (03:36)
1-10. Anna Fedorova – No. 3 in C-Sharp Minor – Moderato (05:37)
1-11. Anna Fedorova – No. 1 in D-Flat Major – Molto vivace (02:11)
1-12. Anna Fedorova – No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor – Tempo giusto (04:22)
1-13. Anna Fedorova – No. 3 in A-Flat Minor – Moderato (03:15)
1-14. Anna Fedorova – Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 66 (05:12)

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