Liszt/Chopin: Sonate in B, Opus 58 & Sonate in B, Opus 143

Anyone who has seen a portrait of Chopin, radiating grace and innate distinction, understands that he always appeared to be living in some ethereal world. Heine called him "the Raphael of music"; Chopin's whole personality was impregnated with a sense for the exquisite and the beautiful, and it is reflected in his music. His style necessitates profound feeling, poetical imagination and delicate sentiment. Purity and finesse elevate his art to the ecstasy of religion. Sometimes we can hardly penetrate into his musical thought. The tendency to melancholy and dreaming is not weakness. Chopin's music is sound ascending, attaining to the gates of heaven. Born of a French father and a Polish mother, Frédéric combines, in his nature, romanticism and measure. These opposite characters are joined in him, in a wonderful harmony, that utters itself in his music. Classicism and romanticism are evenly balanced in opinion and sentiment. His compositions contain enormous technical difficulties, the importance of which is often unnoted. Chopin confined himself to the instrument best suited to his genius, and succeeded in evoking the hidden soul of the piano. As the 19th century went on, the increasing preoccupation of composers with poetic values was mirrored by what might be called "the literary school." Liszt, as well as Berlioz and Schumann, used music also for the expression of literary ideas. He is a towering figure of legend in so many aspects of music. His questing mind leads him into areas previously unknown. He invents for instance the genre called "rhapsody". What he accomplished in his B minor Sonata remains unequalled till this day. Like his symphonic poems of the same period, that sonata uses its own formulas to unify the many changes of tempo and mood, succeeding one another, between its slow beginning and its conclusion. The brilliance it shares with almost all of Liszt's music is here full of inspiration and beauty. The sonatas of Chopin and Liszt belong to the most noble 19th century creations. Technical and musical masterpieces, they speak a lovely, a marvellous language. The Dutch pianist Frans Beeldsnijder was born in Amsterdam. He received his first music-lessons when he was already 15. After a brilliant study at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where he obtained his degrees, he followed the lectures of pedagogy at the University of his native city. As a concert pianist, he shows a high degree of sensitivity, temperament, measure and great virtuosity. Kant 1: Frédéric Chopin: Sonate in b, opus 58 Allegro maestoso Molto vivace Largo Presto Kant 2: Franz Liszt: Sonate in b, opus 143 Lento assai - Allegro energico - Grandioso Recitativo Andante sostenuto - Quasi Adagio Allegro energico - Più mosso - Stretta quasi Presto Presto Prestissimo - Andante sostenuto. Allegro moderato - Lento assai Geluidstechniek: Willem Top en Freek Feenstra, Hilversum. Leverancier concertvleugel: Firma P. Ypma te Alkmaar. Instrumenttechniek: Dolf van den Assem, Amsterdam. Foto hoes: KHOSY Agency, Amsterdam.