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 Plain text for smartphones & printers

Support us financially by purchasing this from

Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Nocturnes [120:27]
Luiz de Moura Castro (piano)
rec. 1998-1999, Digital Arts Studio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Private release [61:06 + 59:21]

A certain type of listener will love Luiz de Moura Castro’s Chopin nocturnes. These are slow, ultra-romantic readings, where the pianist pauses to smell the roses and tugs certain notes out to heavenly lengths. Beauty is everything. The pianist finds a surprising number of levels of soft playing, so that nothing is monotonous. One of the nocturnes stretches out to nearly ten minutes.

Some of the slow timings will give you an idea (with Arthur Rubinstein’s 1949-50 cycle in parentheses for comparison):

Op. 9/3: 7:50 (5:24)
Op. 27/1: 6:15 (4:58)
Op. 48/1: 6:53 (5:06)

There’s no doubt that Luiz de Moura Castro succeeds at what he does. He’s making a choice to deliver this slow, sighing, achingly pretty Chopin, and he has the pianism and poetic touch to succeed. He never grows boring, or becomes too extreme. In other words, he’s very good at this.

So it’s up to you. How do you like Chopin’s nocturnes? Do you see Chopin as a classicist, and grow tired of pianists using his works as a chance to indulge? Try Rubinstein instead, or Michele Boegner on period instruments. If you love the Chopin nocturnes as an ultra-expressive romantic vehicle for the pianist, and if you were raised on artists like Maria João Pires and Michel Block, then you’re going to love this beautiful, lovingly played collection.

Please note that Castro did not record Nocturnes Nos. 10 (Op. 32 No. 2) or 21 (Op. posth.).

Brian Reinhart

 

 



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