Klara Min Plays Chopin Mazurkas

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About Klara Min Plays Chopin Mazurkas

Product Description With this release, distinguished Korean pianist Klara Min brings her special touch a seventeen-piece survey of her favorite Mazurkas - a unique 'composer genre' from Frederic Chopin. Widely regarded as the most intimate, heartfelt, emotional, and personal music that the 'poet of the piano' composed, the mazurkas fairly shine under Min's fingers. Her tone has been called 'ravishing' and 'out of this world' (American Record Guide), and her rare interpretive acumen, technical wizardry, and intuitive musicianship make Chopin's music a perfect fit. Review ...Min's superbly controlled technique and formidable coloristic resources allow her to fully realize her conceptions, aided by Delos' vibrant, lifelike sonics. --ClassicsToday.com With this release, Klara Min offers a seventeen-piece survey of her favorite Chopin Mazurkas. Loosely based on the traditional Polish mazurek dance, Chopin applied subtle classical techniques and sophisticated harmonic schemes to this mostly simple folk form, elevating it into high musical art that is far better-suited to the concert stage than to dancing. --WFMT Radio Min's approach to the Mazurkas shows good sense and considerable interpretive skill. Though she advocates restraint, her Chopin remains elegant and spontaneous rather than stiff. Her use of rubato is tasteful rather than saccharine, and she plays with polished precision and control. There is no agreed numbering of them, but in what this album calls No. 45, her liberties with rhythm illuminate sweeping melodic lines rather than obscuring them. The dynamic gradations are heart-stopping, such as the delicate pianissimo that follows the majestic forte opening of No. 20. Mazurka 37 is eloquent, and Min's lingering gestures on No. 44 strike the perfect, singing balance between cloying and prosaic. Thoughtfulness combines with refinement to produce one of the most effective recent collections of Mazurkas that I have heard. The sound is pristine. --American Record Guide, September 2013 ...Klara Min luckily picks out as her seventeen favorite mazurkas almost all of my own favorites; for another, her rhythmic sense is, as mentioned, unerring, with any slight hesitations or halts in the dance step carefully judged. This isn't the softest-edged or most poetic of interpretations - see Garrick Ohlsson and Ivan Moravec - but it's not a clattering rush, either; Min finds a middle path. The melodies tend to be distinctive but well-crafted: contrast with Russell Sherman's recent recording, where Sherman also attempts to put a new stamp on many of these pieces but often misjudges or simply sounds bizarre. Op 56 No 2 is a great example of why Klara Min is so good: the main tune is very sensitively delivered, but the piece still manages to rock. Others have criticized her micro-managing, and it is true that just about every phrase, every pause, is very carefully calibrated. I certainly found much to enjoy here, and I'll be happy to listen to more from this pianist when it arrives --MusicWeb International, Brian Reinhart, June 2013