Got a Minute?

Fredrik Ullén (piano)

BIS Records: BIS-CD-1083 (2000)

Web page for BIS Records
Web page for BIS Records BIS-CD-1083

Cd cover image Got a Minute?

Duration: 76:35

Comments: Ullén includes both of Sorabji’s works on Chopin’s Minute Waltz along with many other composers’ treatments of Chopin’s works.

Track listing

  • Track 10: Three Pastiches for piano Pastiche on Chopin’s Waltz op.64 no.1 (4:44)
  • Track 21: Pasticcio Capriccioso (Valse in D flat major, op.64/1 [Chopin]) (4:11)

Reviews

  • “… Ullén(’s) own stimulating notes … Ullén rivals Charles Rosen in dexterity … The transformation process is taken one step — no, a couple of miles — further by Sorabji’s whose two terrifyingly difficult ‘pastiches’ transform Chopin’s delicate poetry into fascinating, dense contrapuntal cascades of pantonal horror. Ullén has a good set of fingers but is no mere technician, producing an attractively warm tone.” (International Record Review)
  • “This is a concept album, and the concept is quite a pleasing one &madsh; lots and lots of transcriptions of Chopin’s “Minute” waltz by different composers. There are the customary Grand-Piano-Romantic fireworks, ornamentation and technical difficulties from Michalowski, Joseffy, Moskowski, Rosenthal and the like — lots of thirds substituting for single note lines in the original, that sort of thing. Many of the conmposers introduce ingenious counterpoints which get away from the more obvious (though still delightful) virtuosic-showpiece theme (Reger, for instance, whose five Studies after different works of Chopin are all included, and Sorabji (both of whose Pastiches on Op. 64 No. 1 are here)).” (Records International)