MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Buy through MusicWeb
for £13.50 postage paid World-wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Transcriptions
Nocturne in E flat major, op.9 no.2 (arr. Pablo de Sarasate) [4:28]
Etude in E major, op.10 no.3 (arr. K. Weksler/M. Blum) [4:23]
Etude in F minor, op.25 no.2 (arr. Willy Burmester) [1:56]
Prelude in B flat major, op.28 no.21 (arr. Gustaw Adolfson) [2:29]
Prelude in E minor, op.28 no.4 (arr. Gustaw Adolfson) [2:17]
Mazurka in D/A major, op.33 no.2 (arr. Fritz Kreisler) [1:58]
Mazurka in B minor, op.33 no.4 (arr. J. Ebner) [3:49]
Mazurka in A minor, op.67 no.4 (arr. Antoni Cofalik) [3:15]
Nocturne in B flat minor, op.9 no.1 (arr. Karol Lipinski) [7:26]
Nocturne in C sharp minor - Lento con gran espressione (arr. Antoni Cofalik) [4:45]
Nocturne in D flat/D major, op.27 no.2 (arr. August Wilhelmj) [6:26]
Nocturne in E flat major, op.55 no.2 (arr. Camille Saint-Saëns) [5:08]
Jaroslaw KORDACZUK (b.1967)
Sostenuto: Hommage à Chopin (2009) [5:23]
Jolanta Stopka (violin)
Magdalena Blum (piano)
rec. November - December 2009, Polish Radio Studio S1. Warsaw, DDD
ACTE PRÉALABLE AP0208 [53:48]

Experience Classicsonline



 
I’m not aware that there are many discs of violin transcriptions of Chopin’s music. Certainly many recitals will contain a spicy arrangement or two – say one of Kreisler’s, or the famous Sarasate of the Nocturne in E flat major, Op.9 No.2, but a whole 50 or so minutes is a new experience for me.
 
The transcriptions vary between the very famous and the unknown. Violinist Jolanta Stopka and pianist Magdalena Blum start with the best known, Sarasate’s, and take it from there. Her vibrato can be a bit slow, and so too her trills, and this imparts a degree of tremulousness to some of the playing. For a lark, I dug out the transcriber’s own 1904 recording: what panache, what elastic rubati, what tight, fast trills! Perhaps the second best known is Wilhelmj’s arrangement of the Op.27 No.2 Nocturne. She plays this with delicate, refined almost perfumed sincerity. It certainly makes a real change to hear Mischa Elman’s 1919 recording, all expressive generosity and manly confidence.
 
Pianist Blum and someone called K. Weksler have jointly transcribed the Op.10 No.3 Etude. Here they run the gauntlet of a big ask. I waited to see what they’d do with the pianist’s contrary motion octaves. Answer? Nothing. They leave it with the piano. Fair enough, I suppose, but overall it’s a bit of a queasy arrangement. I wish Willy Burmester, Teutonic curmudgeon and self-promoter extraordinaire, had recorded his transcription of the F minor Etude. In fact, few ever have. There are two transcriptions by one G. Adolfson or, as the notes don’t tell us, Adolf Gustav Sonnenfeld, who cleverly reassembled his names to construct his pseudonym. He took the Op.28 No.4 Prelude, an especially beautiful piece of music, which just about survives the transcription. Stopka veils her tone usefully here.
 
I was expecting the Kreisler version of the A minor Mazurka but instead we get one by Antoni Cofalik, a contemporary Polish violin player and pedagogue; effectively done. The longest transcription is of the Nocturne Op.9 No.1 by Karol Lipinksi (1790-1861), a famous Polish virtuoso, and it works quite well in its leisurely way. And there is a pendant, Sostenuto, a Chopin ‘homage’ by composer Jaroslaw Kordaczuk (b.1967) that includes some discreetly stomping Tatra folklore.
 
At the end of the A minor Mazurka (the Cofalik arrangement) there’s a startling moment, reminiscent of old unedited 78 days, when Stopka accidentally hits a string and says something, probably to the control booth.
 
It’s an interesting idea, an all-Chopin transcription album, but somewhat variably executed.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 



 

 

 



 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.