More Preludes to Chopin

A second album of Chopin’s Preludes, performed by Professor Kenneth Hamilton in combination with other pieces by the same composer, will be released this month.

More Preludes to Chopin: Nocturnes, Waltzes and Other Works features nine preludes, performed as they were originally intended, as prefaces to longer pieces.

The album follows Preludes to Chopin, which entered the UK Classical Charts upon its release in 2018. It attracted international attention for the originality of its performance style, and was described as offering ‘a new way of listening to Chopin,’ by Dr Chang Tou Liang of the Singapore Straits Times.

This new recording features a later version of Chopin’s famous Nocturne op.9 no.2 using the composer’s personal variants, a rendition of the dramatic c minor Nocturne inspired by Chopin’s own interpretative advice to his students, and a performance of Polonaise-Fantasy. The CD is accompanied by Professor Hamilton’s notes on the pieces and their performance history.

He writes: “As with the original CD, this new recording shares its inspiration with that of my book After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance (Oxford University Press): a fascination with the performance styles of the so-called “golden age” of pianism from Chopin and Liszt to Paderewski and an abiding interest in how Romantic and late-Romantic approaches might be adopted or adapted in a modern context to enrich our own playing.”

“I was delighted, encouraged and touched by the reception of Preludes to Chopin. More Preludes to Chopin is the second instalment of what will eventually be a three-CD cycle, presenting all of Chopin’s preludes as prefaces to longer pieces.”