There would be many things to say about these recordings, which we consider to be among the discs one would take to a desert island. We spent a great deal of time ensuring that this reissue could enter our EXCELLENCE category. And the result is here: you will not find anything better, that is final. It is as if a veil has been lifted. The separation between the piano and the orchestra is exquisite, so natural that one feels as though being in the recording hall. There emerges a highlighting of Arthur Rubinstein’s playing—at once marked by an assured strength of character and by an infinite bel canto…

Arthur Rubinstein: "How can one explain this immediate understanding, this spontaneous love for Chopin among all peoples? I believe that one of the secrets of his art lies in his uprightness, in that irresistible appeal that comes from the fact that he possesses a language of his own, while at the same time being a universal language. Added to this is the unlimited richness of his musical concepts—a richness which, according to Henry Theophilus Finck (American music critic and author), would suffice to nourish six average composers of symphonies and operas.

Chopin’s secret was rediscovered by Debussy and Ravel. He had many imitators; among the happiest of them, let us mention Scriabin and Szymanowski. But, alas, the masters who succeeded Chopin were not faithful to his art of the piano. Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartók, Milhaud, Honegger, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, have written beautiful, great works, but they lost contact with the soul of the piano. For them, it became once again merely a percussion instrument, or almost. For the piano to recover all its possibilities, Chopin’s secret would need to be rediscovered. But Chopin himself will remain unique.

When I am asked how to enter this magic circle and interpret Chopin—whether in the spirit of Romanticism or in the manner of the school for which the piano is nothing more than a percussion instrument—I look for the answer in Chopin himself. His meticulous precision, economical in means, is inseparable from the warmth of his emotion, from the depth of feeling. On one side, heroism, with its absolute refusal of any compromise; on the other, an extreme delicacy and sensitivity. Chopin’s world, with all its richness, gravitates between these two poles."