This album is my introduction to the Armenian-Danish pianist Marianna Shirinyan (b1978), though an album pairing Kuhlau and Beethoven album was well received by Harriet Smith in 2013.

The first thing one notes about the recording is the beautifully cultivated piano tone in the plaintive opening bars of the G minor Ballade (it becomes apparent that at p and pp this is a distinguishing feature of the pianist). The second thing, however, is how dangerously slowly the first few pages are taken. It makes the narrator sound timid and cautious, which is not, I think, what Chopin had in mind. Shirinyan makes an impassioned case for the latter part of the piece, sometimes at the expense of her sound production, but it is rare to find any performance of this much-recorded work lasting as this does over 10 minutes (the average is between 8'15" and 8'45").

The drama of Ballade No 2 is well conveyed in the delicately played sotto voce andantino section, contrasted with the presto con fuoco segment, executed feverishly but with little variation of dynamics. The Third and Fourth Ballades are treated much the same way as the First with the ‘slow’ sections dallied over, the action coming almost to a complete standstill several times, the intention being presumably, with exaggerated rubato, to inject an extra level of emotion into the music. It is one way of playing the piece but the musical argument goes by the board and 12 minutes for the F minor Ballade is an awfully long time for a piece that usually lasts about 10.

I was more taken with the four Scherzos, where there is less temptation to linger. Shirinyan is no right-hand-only Chopiniste, ensuring in No 1 that we hear, for once, the accented left-hand chords under the opening helter-skelter of right-hand quavers. The Polish Christmas song quoted in the central part is touchingly done; likewise that of the B flat minor Scherzo, the last two of its pages compromised by being a tad over-excited, with the last five bars compressed into three. The final two Scherzos are also played with great conviction and many individual touches (Shirinyan certainly has good fingers), my caveats being a tendency to treat Chopin’s dynamics and phrasing cavalierly, and an almost consistently harsh tone at ff and above. In all, a satisfying recording from a talented pianist, but not one that is truly competitive when pitted against this conventional programme played by Earl Wild, Stephen Hough, Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Ashkenazy.