Beatrice Rana’s Warner Classics Chopin album receives rave review

Beatrice Rana’s recent album of Chopin Études is praised for the pianist’s technique and color (Photo credit: Simon Fowler)

Review: CHOPIN Etudes, Op. 25; four Scherzos
By Phillip Scott
Fanfare Magazine
January 7, 2022

At a mere 28 summers, Beatrice Rana has made a number of recordings since winning the Montréal International Music Competition in 2011 (where she played the Chopin Preludes), and gaining silver two years later at the Van Cliburn Competition. (Vadim Kholodenko came first.) An exclusive Warner artist, Rana is promoted heavily, at least in classical music terms. She is one of the most fluent of a generation of technically brilliant pianists. Reviewing Antonio Pappano’s recordings of the Bernstein symphonies for another publication, I thought Rana excellent––at times, dazzling––in “The Age of Anxiety”.

She is at her best in No. 3: predictably, her double octaves are totally accurate, and strong without any need to bash the keyboard (though it gets a good bashing in the B minor Etude). The best thing about Rana’s recording of the Scherzos is that it sent me back to Pogorelich at his short-lived peak (famously the last word in self-indulgence), and I was rapt. Returning also to the 30-year-old Ashkenazy’s recording of 1967, it was clear that his sensitive yet straightforward approach did Chopin no harm. The beauty and volatility of this music are there in the notes; they do not need to be magnified.

A few years back I bought Rana’s disc of Ravel’s Miroirs, La Valse, and Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrouchka. It showed off her scintillating technique, and I remember being highly impressed in that respect.

The sound quality of this recording is clear and warm, and you get your money’s worth with 76 minutes of great music.