Entertainment Times - Keene, New Hampshire
Local Artist On CD
On the Patria label from Littleton, NH, (603-444-3336) comes Frederic Chopin: Images of a Homeland (KIE 2000) with pianist Marjan Kiepura. What we have here are 14 mazurkas, 3 waltzes, a nocturne, a prelude, and a polonaise by the Polish composer, each a minor masterpiece and a delight. But why bother to offer such over-recorded pieces that are interpreted by so many more "famous" pianists on other labels? Again a press release quotes the artist himself: "it has been my intent to observe Chopin as a person deeply affected by influences, chiefly what one might call the essence of his heritage --the Polish earth-- which never left him...."
And it is this desire to point out "his idiomatic Polish traits" that makes this Chopin offering something special and different from the other renderings. I loved it. See what you think. This CD can be purchased at The Village Bookstore in Littleton, NH (800-640-9673).