A Chopin Recital (CD review)

Andrew Rangell, piano. Steinway & Sons 30038.

It's obviously no accident that so many concert pianists play so much Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. These were composers who were pianists themselves, loved the instrument, loved what it could do, and loved what they did with it. In the case of Polish composer and virtuoso pianist Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), he produced possibly the greatest number of poetic and dramatic piano pieces of all, so it takes a pianist with a strong poetic sensibility and a reasonably forceful dramatic flair to communicate his music well. American concert pianist and Steinway Artist Andrew Rangell possesses just such a sensibility and flair, along with an uncommonly thoughtful approach to the music.

A year or so ago I reviewed another album by Mr. Rangell, that one called A Folk Song Runs Through It, and I said at the time that he practices a light, often delicate touch, while maintaining a good deal of power in reserve, making his technique not only impressively virtuosic but uncommonly sensitive and diverse as well. A short biography of Mr. Rangell tells us he holds a doctorate in piano and a while back recovered from a severe hand injury that sidelined his career for some seven years. I wondered at the time of the first review if sometimes tragedy couldn't be a blessing in disguise if one used it to one's advantage, in this case forcing Rangell into a style he might not have adopted earlier. Anyway, I also wondered back then if we would ever hear him return to recording Chopin (he had released the Mazurkas for the Dorian label in 2003). Now, he has returned, with a recital of some of Chopin's most-challenging piano works.

Rangell tells us in a booklet note that he chose the pieces in the recital for their "conceptual daring and architectural grandeur," pieces that "put completely to rest the dubious but long-held view of Chopin as the poetic miniaturist--and they provide a vivid and haunting intimation of what might have followed had Chopin lived longer." Fair enough, although Mr. Rangell's opinion still doesn't discount the idea that Chopin was one of the finest "poetic miniaturists" the world has ever known. He was that, indeed, yet, as Rangell contends, much more.

Anyway, leading off the program is the Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat major, Op. 61, from 1846 the last of Chopin's long, extended-form pieces. It's a rather daring way to begin an album because it is not one of the composer's more-popular works. In fact, it's one of his most-difficult works, being in no way sentimental, melancholy, or even particularly Romantic. In fact, it's rather modern in its development of form over content, structure over melody. But the choice shows us that Mr. Rangell is not just a virtuosic pianist but one of intellect as well. This piece confirms Rangell's assertion that there is more to Chopin than mere sentiment; there is intellect involved as well.

Next, we get the little Nocturne in E-flat major, No. 2, Op. 55, from 1844, a fairly elaborate work considering its size. Here, Rangell demonstrates his lightness of touch and flowing style, a sweet, tender manner that eschews any hint of self-indulgent nostalgia.

After that is Chopin's Bolero, Op. 19, an early and oft-overlooked work from 1833. With Bolero, Rangell gets a chance to enjoy himself in a bit of showmanship. The piece is colorful, and Rangell isn't afraid to set his academic inclinations aside for a moment and give full rein to his virtuosic side. However, that doesn't mean he allows the piece to fall into anything bombastic; it's just clean, well-controlled fun.

Andrew Rangell
Then it's on to the Nouvelle Étude No. 1 in F minor, a piece from 1839 published posthumously. Rangell allows us to see into this little etude and discover its hidden delights. The coherence of the pianist's vision is such that the piece becomes quite hypnotic, gluing the listener to every note.

Rangell's includes three of Chopin's four Ballades on the program: No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23, No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47, and No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52. The first of the ballades comes off gracefully and poignantly under Rangell's guidance. Again, he displays a way of playing that seems to sort out every phrase and reduce it to its simplest and most-easily understandable form, while helping us appreciate the complexities of the piece all the more. Rangell's approach is never to exaggerate or aggrandize anything, yet makes us stop and say to ourselves, "Wait, I must listen to this. I've never heard it expressed so accurately and succinctly before."

The third and fourth ballades sound elegant, rhapsodic, and rapturous by turns. I've always enjoyed the third for its theme later adopted as "I'm always chasing rainbows," which Rangell treats with tender care. He shows an affection for these works that never softens them.

In addition, we get the Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 45, which Rangell describes as an "improvised meditation," with "Brahmsian textures...majesty and mystery." Under Rangell, this prelude has a dreamy, meditative quality to it that some pianists seem to overlook (well, to be fair, most pianists overlook the piece entirely). It's a delightful work all the way around, its melodies shining brilliantly in Rangell's hands.

Rangell ends the program with another Nocturne, this one No. 2 in E major, Op. 62. Throughout the nocturne, Rangell remains true to his convictions: that Chopin was no mere sentimental miniaturist but a composer of deep intellectual feeling.

In short, Rangall's performances never appear that of an academician simply playing the notes by rote. There is much feeling here, strong emotion, but well under control so as to demonstrate the composer's intentions all the better. It's a neat trick, stripping each work to its barest minimum with mathematical precision yet maintaining its poignancy and beauty. But that's Rangell: magisterial and magical.

Mr. Rangell produced the album, Tom Stephenson engineered it, and Brad Michel edited and mastered it for Steinway & Sons, recording the music at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, Massachusetts in July 2013. The sound of the Steinway Model D #586518 Rangell plays is about as lifelike as one could imagine. It joins the ranks the best piano recordings I've ever heard, in fact. Not only is the piano clear and true, the venue imparts a pleasant ambient bloom to the affair that makes you feel you're in the room with the soloist. Yet there is not so much reverberation that it drowns out the piano's rich tone and clarity, which remain resonant and transparent throughout, without ever sounding hard or edgy.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:


Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa