Word: chopine
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...times the pianist sounds like Oscar Peterson or early Dave Brubeck, as he lays down a firm base of intricate rhythms and unpredictable chord progressions. The right hand produces a steady, lilting melodic line that can flow from originals to classic themes-as in Chopin Prelude/ How Insensitive, which leads from an E minor prelude into a bossa nova favorite with a similar mood and melody. Pretty good for a 15-year-old. As Critic Leonard Feather puts it, by the time Craig Hundley is old enough to shave, he might well be the best-known pianist in jazz...
...need not worry about his new album. Cliburn's natural equipment is just right for Chopin. He has a powerful and precise technique, a gift for tracing long, soaring lines out of detailed figurations, and an innately tasteful musicality that spurns either maudlin moonbeams or brittle bravura. He puts it all to work in the Byronic B-Minor Third Sonata, playing with dash, sweep and refined lyricism. His performance of the Second, in B-flat minor, offers something more. Although not the performance of a mellow master like Rubinstein, it displays a subtle feeling for the shifting, subterranean currents...
Keeping the Momentum. Cliburn, now 34, has not always played so well in recent years. In Manhattan alone, three of his appearances in the past two seasons-especially a performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the New York Philharmonic in May-were considerably off his best form...
...business, he makes fine music that also sells. In the ten years since he won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, he has sold 3,000,000 albums-more than 1,000,000 of them the version of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto that vanquished Moscow. His collection, My Favorite Chopin, has been on the classical bestseller lists for 138 weeks...
Sensing the Currents. Now RCA has released Cliburn's first recording in two years: Chopin's Second and Third Piano Sonatas. Why so long between disks? The reason is that Cliburn has been growing increasingly finicky about his work in the studio. "During these two years," he says, "I've probably cut another half-dozen pieces that I've rejected. To me, a record is so permanent that I must be very careful of what I release...