I snatched an old CD at the Shiner resale shop, early Rubinstein performances of the seven published polonaises. When I’m in a store and I see anything with Chopin on the cover–it belongs to me! As for this find, I don’t care too much for the muffled recording quality and Rubinstein’s playing (for the most part), though I love the way he pounds those low, sonorous chords at the end (the ones that start in c-major). To use a metaphor, the triumphant, piercing a-flat major chord (m. 179) is the lightning flash; the rest is thunder.
The last 3 measures of the op. 53 polonaise:
University of Chicago Library, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center.
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