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To mark the forthcoming publication by Actes Sud of André Tubeuf’s new book on the Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti, La quatorzième valse (The Fourteenth Waltz), EMI Classics is re-releasing all the recordings by this artist of genius in a single 7CD box, each one freshly and sympathetically re-mastered using 24-bit technology. Falling victim to leukaemia at an early age and at the height of his powers, Dinu Lipatti naturally left behind only a small discography, but one of truly exceptional diversity and quality, and this collection is rounded off by his famous last recital, at Besançon in September 1950. This recital, which he halted after thirteen waltzes (hence the title of André Tubeuf’s book), having completely exhausted his ailing body, has become legendary, a last, powerfully moving expression of a life cut short in its prime barely three months later.

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Murray Perahia is one of those pianists you can "hear" smiling throughout a performance. The enjoyment he finds in these pieces and in his art is obvious and contagious to say the least.

The 4 ballades have been blessed in the catalog with many superb recordings and while some may be more mercurial or intoxicating, none are nearly as poetic and refined as Perahia's. His technique, it goes without saying, is flawless and yet, while listening to him play, rarely did I actually care! All technical demands and concerns about virtuosity have obviously been overcome years ago and what Perahia offers here is on a different level; smartly-felt rubato, imaginative narrative, and, above all, an irresistible love for the music. With this approach, the third ballade, less somber and more lyrical in character, shimmers and emerges as a truly underestimated masterpiece.

The rest of the program is tastefully selected; lighter pieces that complement the 4 masterworks very well. The Mazurka no. 4 from op. 17 is especially charming with an honest and charmingly rendered polish folk song in the middle section. The Étude "triste" is just as poetic and, in Perahia's hands, almost sounds like a Nocturne. A true testament to how self-effacing his phenomenal technique really is. With just over 60 minutes of music, this is a truly unique and refreshing statement about some of the most recorded music of the piano repertoire.

Schubert composed music for a wide range of forces and various genres including opera, liturgical music, chamber and solo piano music. While he was clearly influenced by the Classical sonata forms of Mozart and Beethoven (his early works, among them notably the 5th Symphony, are particularly Mozartian), his formal structures and his developments tend to give the impression more of melodic development than of harmonic drama. This sometimes lends them a discursive style: his music was described by Robert Schumann as running to "heavenly lengths". His innovations in the Classical style include the earliest examples of sonata form in which the exposition ends in the subdominant rather than the dominant (as in the last movement of the Trout Quintet).