Chopin Complete Piano Music Collection - Best Classical Piano Works for Relaxation, Study & Romantic Evenings

Karol Mikuli, Chopin's pupil and teaching assistant, described his master's playing as "measured, chaste, distinguished and at times even severely reserved." Which nicely sums up the Chopin playing of Nikita Magaloff. I would only add that Magaloff wore his severity lightly, and elegantly. As a youngster my idols were Horowitz and Rubinstein, the one “neurotic”, the other "healthy", both very much at home in Carnegie Hall. Magaloff might have been at home, like Chopin, in George Sand’s Nohant. Having grown older -- now much older than Chopin lived to be -- I've come to believe that he would have prized Magaloff more highly than the Romantic idols who overshadowed him. If this or another such box -- from Decca taped in the '50s or Philips in the '70s -- ever comes down in price, grab it. Meantime there are cheaper individual issues of the Mazurkas, Nocturnes, Preludes with Impromptus, Waltzes (a good place to start) and live recitals, which are my favorites. But don't buy claims from critics like Piero Rattalino that Magaloff blossomed only at the end of his life. As Siloti, Ravel, Stravinsky and Argerich would have told you, Magaloff was always a prince.