Composer: Frédéric Chopin
Work: The Piano Works
Performers: Various
Label/Year: Brilliant Classics, 2002
Grade: B
Chopin’s “Piano Works” on Brilliant Classics is akin to a well-crafted but overpriced artisanal cocktail — the kind served in a dimly lit hipster bar with a name like “The Ineffable Quill.” Sure, the ingredients are top-shelf, but the execution is so self-conscious it borders on parody. The performers, like diligent acolytes at the altar of Chopin, bring out the melodies with such excessive, almost slavish, devotion that the original spirit gets lost. It’s like seeing your favorite punk band don a tuxedo — it’s not bad, per se, but it’s not what you came for.
To its credit, the album is not devoid of charm. There are moments of brilliance, like fleeting glimpses of a rare bird in flight. But these moments are few and far between. The majority of the album, however, resembles that one friend at the party who insists on recounting their study-abroad experience in exhaustive detail — impressive in theory, but a drag in execution. If this album were a dish, it would be an overcooked steak — the raw material is high-quality, but the chef seems to have lost sight of the fine line between well-done and charred.
