The Byron Janis Chopin Collection = CHOPIN: 6 Mazurkas; 6 Nocturnes; 4 Waltzes; Impromptu No. 1; Etude in C-sharp Minor – EMI Classics

The Byron Janis Chopin Collection = CHOPIN: 6 Mazurkas; 6 Nocturnes; 4 Waltzes; Impromptu No. 1 in A-flat Major, Op. 29; Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 25, No. 7 – Byron Janis, piano – EMI Classics 50999 6 02898 2 7, 76:17 ****:
From what I can glean from Byron Janis’ liner notes, this compilation of recorded Chopin (1996, 1999) simultaneously repeats and complements his former CD for EMI, Byron Janis Plays Chopin from 8-15 October 1995 (CDC 7243 5 56196 2 4) and proffers the previously unknown versions of the G-flat Major Waltz, Op. 70, No. 1 and the E-flat Major, Op. 18 “Grande valse brillante” that Janis discovered at the Chateau de Thoiry in France, 1967. The program is virtually the same, and prospective buyers ought note that the ascription of the Nocturne in B Major, Op. 32, No. 1 as “Op. 32, No. 2” is an error, since the piece is the same and not the A-flat Major Nocturne, Op. 32, No. 2. Another misprint occurs with the E Major Nocturne, Op. 62, No. 2, here designated “Op. 62, No. 4.”  So, what one purchases that is new comes down to the Impromptu in A-flat Major, the Etude in C-sharp Minor, and the Op. 18 Waltz, all from 1999.
Plastic and fluid, the Byron Janis traversals of Chopin combine high intellect and high poetic gloss, as the three “new” additions testify. The studied harmonic rhythm of the Etude communicates that rare synthesis of tragic affect and balanced technical bravura here subordinated to a lofty purpose. His E-flat Major Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 2 carries the same gravitas we long venerated in Ignaz Friedman. For us who first heard Janis in Chopin or RCA Victor Records (LM 2096), we have long admired his poetic gifts at the keyboard. He plays the mazurkas without a “foreign accent,” as it were, with a canny sense of their innate metric ambiguities, infinitely capable of another point view. The wistfulness of his waltzes renders them lovely and poised, danced to in our seats rather than upon the patio. The Grande Valse brillante has its own story, as its etiology traces it to Yale University, where Janis its “alternative” manuscript. In this form, the piece has a new transparency and altered filigree, though Janis splices its published version’s coda to provide dramatic closure.  The Impromptu communicates a natural panache without heaviness.
The cover art, a Picasso-esque merger of pianist and his feminine “lover” of a keyboard, has been rendered by Maria Cooper Janis, the wife of Byron Janis and the daughter of the iconic actor Gary Cooper.  I happened to be named for that actor myself: and at my interview with Byron Janis in Atlanta years ago, Maria came to the Green Room to ask if our interview were over. When I introduced myself and explained my namesake, Maria uttered, “Good choice.” So is this fine album.
—Gary Lemco