“Min plays with the most ravishing piano tone I’ve heard in the last 50 discs I’ve listened to, at least! Her dynamic control is out of this world … anybody’s music would be served well by Min’s touch.”
Thus raved American Record Guide’s Stephen Estep in his review of a previous recording by distinguished Korean pianist Klara Min. With this release, Min brings her special touch to a seventeen-piece survey of her favorite Mazurkas – a unique “composer genre” from Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849): widely regarded as the most intimate, heartfelt, emotionally varied, and deeply personal music that this beloved “Poet of the piano” ever wrote. Loosely based on the traditional Polish mazurek dance-form, Chopin applied subtle classical sophistication and advanced (for his day) harmonic schemes to this mostly simple folk-form, elevating it into high musical art that is far better-suited to the concert stage (or classical recordings) than to dancing!
Klara Min – justly renowned for her championing of Korean composers as well as her overall versatility – applies her “ravishing piano tone” to these lovely and affecting works, as well as her rare interpretive acumen, technical wizardry, plus a deeply intuitive and soulful affinity for Chopin’s music
Reviews
“Min’s superbly controlled technique and formidable coloristic resources. Her liberties command interest in how they point up Chopin's amazing harmonic ideas and increasingly involved contrapuntal textures”
– Jed Distler, Classics Today
FEATURED ALBUM - “Brilliant playing…intuitive musicianship...sensitive and polished”
– John Brunning, Classic FM LONDON
"With this release, Klara Min offers a seventeen-piece survey of her favorite Chopin Mazurkas. Loosely based on the traditional Polish mazurek dance, Chopin applied subtle classical techniques and sophisticated harmonic schemes to this mostly simple folk form, elevating it into high musical art that is far better-suited to the concert stage than to dancing."
– WFMT Radio
"Min's approach to the Mazurkas shows good sense and considerable interpretive skill. Though she advocates restraint, her Chopin remains elegant and spontaneous rather than stiff. Her use of rubato is tasteful rather than saccharine, and she plays with polished precision and control. There is no agreed numbering of them, but in what this album calls No. 45, her liberties with rhythm illuminate sweeping melodic lines rather than obscuring them. The dynamic gradations are heart-stopping, such as the delicate pianissimo that follows the majestic forte opening of No. 20. Mazurka 37 is eloquent, and Min's lingering gestures on No. 44 strike the perfect, singing balance between cloying and prosaic. Thoughtfulness combines with refinement to produce one of the most effective recent collections of Mazurkas that I have heard. The sound is pristine."
– American Record Guide, September 2013