Ivan Moravec's first recording of Chopin's Funeral March sonata... governed by Chopin's intentions rather than tradition's dictates... the Funeral March is direct, dignified, and unmannered, while Moravec's spooky but light-and-feathery Finale sculpts the unison octaves to sing over the bar lines.

...The Fourth Ballade follows a subjective blueprint similar to Moravec's 1966 recording, but with more expressive economy and a greater sense of line...Moravec adds three more Chopin Mazurkas to the handful already gracing his recorded repertoire, and plays up their harmonic felicities while keeping their rustic characteristics to the fore.

...The Fantasie alone is worth the price of this disc, and easily takes its place alongside the classic Cortot and Arrau versions.

See the full review at www.classicstoday.com.

...Moravec, while definitely an individual, stands closer to Rubinstein than to Argerich. However, one hears more intention, more intellect if you will, in Moravec than in Rubinstein. Moravec gives the impression of more study than Rubinstein's "singing bird." Nevertheless, he also manages to convey the zaniness of Chopin's structural frame as well as clearly delineate it. This comes out most forcefully in the so-called "funeral-march" sonata, a piece which has confused many great musicians, including Schumann... Moravec plays through the first movement in a way that justifies Chopin's designation... Moravec melts your heart in the trio, with a gorgeous singing line. Allusion to the trio, as in some of Beethoven's symphonic scherzos, briefly turns up in the coda.

...The fleet finale, lasting less than two minutes, is a wonder, with harmony and tonality largely in shreds. Moravec shapes it. One other thing: Moravec has a fantastic sense of harmonic movement and voice-leading. He almost never just plays chords. Whether from deliberation or instinct, he manages to string together constituent notes of successive chords to give you a line, wholly unexpected...

...Moravec takes the opening of the first [mazurka] in a way that connects with Bartók's piano dances, with shifting accents. The second is a delicate marvel, without slipping into the fey. Moravec manages to hint at an underlying steel, without becoming pushy. This elegant restraint runs over into the third mazurka. The hesitations in phrasing are distinct, but never overdone. To me, this is a model of rubato.

My favorite work (and my favorite performance) on the CD is the f-minor Fantaisie... Moravec delivers a powerful, moving account, making you feel the pianistic ornaments as an intensification, rather than a dissipation, of emotion. It's a difficult work, in the sense that Chopin shifts emotional gears on a dime. Moravec matches him and creates one gigantic, almost phantasmagoric span.

Now in his early 70s, Ivan Moravec, treasured by audiophiles and piano buffs alike for his famous Connoisseur Society LPs that wedded great sound to legendary performances, is back in the recording studio. Recorded in vibrant sonics, Moravec's new all-Chopin recital is not to be missed. He illustrates his mastery of the elusive art of rubato, displaying wondrous keyboard touch and control along with infinite degrees of shading and dynamics.

His interpretations are like no one else's but remain faithful to the music's spirit and letter, making that old warhorse, Chopin's B flat minor Sonata, sound fresh, even its 'Funeral March' movement. There, he never wallows in sentiment, giving the quiet, almost hesitant, middle section's frail beauties an emotional wallop by flanking it with a spare, measured tread in the march. The Fourth Ballade is marginally more cogent than his 1963 version; the Berceuse sparkles; a trio of Mazurkas is full of life. Best is the great F minor Fantasie, which can seem episodic but here is as tightly knit as a 'fantasy' can be. It's played with the magisterial command, dramatic power, and weight befitting perhaps the greatest of all Chopin's works.

Moravec fait partie des très grands... Sa vision de la Sonate est franchement hallucinée, et c’est bien ainsi qu’il faut concevoir cet ouvrage complètement hors norme, que Schumann admirait immensément tout en admettant qu’il n’en comprenait ni la construction, ni le langage. Il faut reconnaître que ce finale, en particulier — un délire de quelques secondes, sans début ni fin, fuyant et souvent atonal — exige de la part du pianiste une technique inimaginable.

Ivan Moravec has returned to the ring with a dramatic and loquacious new recording of music of Chopin on the Vox Classics label...creating brilliant and precise readings that are, nonetheless, wholly romantic in spirit... Any new release from Moravec is a big deal in piano circles; here's further proof as to why.