Amounting to a glorified sampler of Romantic piano favorites, this double-disc from Naďve is too scattered, multifarious, and excerpt-oriented to be comprehended on one hearing. Either the focus should have been on fewer performers, or the selections narrowed down to a handful of works played in their entirety. As it is, one must find a strategy to absorb the performing styles of ten different pianists, and to sort out the 41 short pieces and extracted movements by Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and Mendelssohn without much ...
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Amounting to a glorified sampler of Romantic piano favorites, this double-disc from Naďve is too scattered, multifarious, and excerpt-oriented to be comprehended on one hearing. Either the focus should have been on fewer performers, or the selections narrowed down to a handful of works played in their entirety. As it is, one must find a strategy to absorb the performing styles of ten different pianists, and to sort out the 41 short pieces and extracted movements by Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and Mendelssohn without much guidance from the scant liner notes. Close attention must be paid to the track listing to know whether one is being overpowered by Grigory Sokolov, seduced by Rafael Orozco, charmed by Janusz Olejniczak, or dazzled by Jenö Jandó. With several more selections performed by Laurent Cabasso and Péter Nagy, and only one each by Philippe Cassard, Paul Gulda, Karl Engel, and Danielle Laval, the listener may easily lose track of the roster and become distracted from enjoying the music itself. The...
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