Monarch Classics plays coy with recording dates, indicating that these Chopin performances were “remastered in 2002 from previously recorded material.” Whether the sessions stem from 20 years ago or yesterday, the harsh, metallic sonics yield a closely-miked piano tone that grows increasingly unlovely as the music grows louder and more laden with notes. Granted, Jerome Rose can certainly get around the keyboard and negotiates the taxing First, Second, and Fourth Ballade codas with requisite panache and surface excitement. He also brings admirable sensitivity and nuance to lyrical sequences such as the Meno mosso in the G minor Ballade, the F minor Ballade’s beautifully sustained opening pages, and the F minor Fantasy’s brooding episodes.
Other times, however, his flashy fingers vulgarly undermine the musical message. In the aforementioned G minor Ballade, he telegraphs the big climax at measure 106 and slams into the fortissimo with a wrong chord. He pulverizes the F major Ballade’s double notes (measures 169-197) to the point where it becomes difficult to ascertain the pitches through the percussive din. Compare this to Ivan Moravec’s astoundingly controlled articulation at a similarly agitated pace, and you’ll get my point. Rose, to be sure, has made fine recordings (his Vox Liszt series, for example), but the present release faces serious sonic and interpretive competition from Moravec, Arrau, Rubinstein, Perahia, and Ashkenazy, to name only a few.
