Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11

Perahia's playing is wonderfully poetic, the rubato so natural, so unmannered, so poised. This is just the performance for anyone who normally criticizes Chopin's youthful E minor Concerto as vapid note-spinning. What struck me first was the strength of Murray Perahia's characterization throughout, realized with fingers as strong as they are fluid and gleaming. On the HMV/Pollini/Kletzki version the customary Allegro maestoso heading to the first movement is followed by the word risoluto, and it is that quality, i.e. resolution, that I think Perahia emphasizes even more than Pollini or Zimerman (DG), not least in the strongly accented and ardently urgent development section (incidentally so much speed is gained in the excitement that there is an uncomfortably abrupt gear-change at the orchestral start to the recapitulation). That said, let me hasten to add that the first movement's lyricism, like that of the central Romanze (an orchestrally accompanied nocturne), is wonderfully poeti