Audiophile Sound

This double LP contains famous Chopinian works (from the Ballades nos. 1, 3 and 4 to the Scherzi nos. 2 and 4; from the Polonaise-Fantaisie to the Barcarolle), performed by one of the greatest German interpreters, Burkard Schliessmann. The recordings first appeared on an SACD from the same label that now presents them on its first audiophile vinyl album. Schliessmann is a remarkable interpreter of Bach, and this background enables him to face Chopin with an approach which, if it betrays an analytical element, at the same time has no lack of passion, heat and poignancy, and shows the brilliant Polish composer as an inheritor of the harmonic conquests of the Kantor.

The two 180g. LPs, enclosed in an elegant package and manufactured by Pallas of Berlin, are, for sound reproduction, a great product but cannot aspire to olympian audiophile heights as they were remastered digitally at 24 bit so the digital filtering is only partly alleviated by the vinyl. Having listened to both SACD and vinyl, it is obvious that on the latter, the inevitable angularity of the upper register is softened, and the lower registers made more dense and less metallic, but of course the overall result is affected by the lack of original analog recording so without that approach’s softness and vaporous roundness. For that reason one less point in our award for technical quality.

Artistic Interpretation: Exceptional Technical quality: Optimal

—Andrea Bedetti