This Year We Will be Playing Mostly......

Anniversary obsession continues for BBC Music magazine with the new cover disk celebrating Chopin's 200th anniversary. They give the title Chopin Piano Masterpieces including Sonata No 2. In fact, for some variety, they include two orchestrations of Chopin as well as the piano pieces played here by Martin Roscoe. He is featured playing two Nocturnes ( in E flat op 9 and in F sharp op 15 ) and a Polonaise ( in C sharp minor op 26 ) in addition to the highlighted Sonata in B flat minor op 35. This is the sonata featuring the ubiquitous funeral march and it is good to hear it here set in the correct context with the rest of the work. The famous theme is so thoroughly connected with its' subject matter that it is easy to forget that even within that movement there is some lightening of the mood. Roscoe's playing throughout is perfectly respectable and while perhaps not being library sandard recordings of these works they are fine to have. As mentioned the disk also features two orchestrations played by the BBC Philharmonic under Vassily Sinaisky. These are Chopiniana by Glazunov, in four short movements featuring polonaise, nocturne, mazurka and tarantella plus the Nocturne in A flat by Stravinsky. Both of these orchestrations were for the Ballet Russes and serve that purpose admirably.