Ivan Moravec"s Chopin is always compelling. He makes each one of the Ballades into a compelling story, reinforcing his imaginative approach to the music with superb tonal and dynamic resources. Each of the Mazurkas also becomes an individual experience, with rhythmic shadings as effective as the tonal shadings. Since there is only one other recording of a single Ballade by Moravec, and the five Mazurkas he recorded for Vox are all different from the ones here, the disc becomes a compelling item for Moravec fans and pianophiles in general, even though it contains only 54:39 of music. The late sixties recordings still sound wonderful. --Leslie Gerber