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Alexander Brailowsky plays Chopin: The Complete RCA Recordings. Sony Classical 88985499992 (8 CDs).
Alexander Brailowsky plays Chopin. Sony Classical 19075920602 (5 CDs).
The tale of Alexander Brailowsky is one of two pianists. There was the brilliant Leschetizky-ite whose iron fingers expertly essayed huge portions of the piano repertoire for adoring audiences all over the world. There was also the ham-fisted dilettante who thumped his way through Liszt and Chopin without an ounce of sensitivity or style. Witness these two headlines for Claudia Cassidy reviews of his Chicago concerts. In 1945: "Alexander Brailowsky at his best in brilliant recital." In 1951: "Alexander Brailowsky assaults ears in deplorable recital." There was a Jekyll -and-Hyde element to his work, and based on contemporary reports, one never knew which pianist would arrive to perform.
Brailowsky (1896-1976) had an intriguing pianistic background. He studied as a boy in Kiev with Vladimir Puchalsky (Vladimir Horowitz's first teacher) and then with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. After his studies with Leschetizky, Brailowsky worked with Ferruccio Busoni and Francis Planté. The juxtaposition of Leschetizky and Busoni is an odd one; Leschetizky pupils such as Paderewski, Moiseiwitsch, Hambourg and Friedman were famous for their heart-on-the-sleeve Romanticism and sensuous playing, while Busoni was known for his shockingly "modern" interpretations of Liszt and Chopin. A film of Brailowsky from 1936 shows that he lacked the physical ease of his fellow Leschetizky students, playing with stiff arms, tight shoulders, and sharp gestures. At the same time, however, his handsome face and poetic demeanor attracts; he had an intangible charisma that is harder to define than the outgoing exuberance of his colleague Arthur Rubinstein or the virtuoso mystique of Vladimir Horowitz.
Although Brailowsky denied being a "Chopin specialist," that was how he was labeled throughout his lifetime. From 1924 to 1960, he played more than thirty "complete" cycles of Chopin in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, Mexico City Zurich and other major cities, working his way through 170 pieces over six concerts. In the minds of the public, he was "Mr. Chopin," perhaps even more so than Arthur Rubinstein. This worked to his disadvantage when it came to recording; although he had an enormous repertoire (numerous Beethoven sonatas, the Liszt sonata, Schubert Wanderer Fantasy Bach-Busoni transcriptions, the big works...