Stephen Hough's new Chopin CD (on Hyperion) is out. I have not listened to it (yet) but I read a great review in the New Yorker that I steal-paste below (only in part so you are enticed to read the full thing onthe original website ). Ross actually overviews a couple of other Chopin CD's and gets to use the verb "galumphs" right after Lang Lang's name. Why can't I write like that??
Apparently Hough almost literally sings the third sonata. Sounds utterly delicious and worth a listen, Chopin's centenary fatigue non-withstanding. Hough is an incredibly good pianist, always mesmerizing. I can't get enough of his CD with Isserlis ( a match made in heaven ).
Hamelin is also mentioned, in second place, and of course the early recordings of tigress Argerich, among others.

"The machine sings beautifully on “Chopin: Late Masterpieces,” Stephen Hough’s new recording for the Hyperion label. “Largo,” “cantabile,” and “sostenuto” are three markings that Chopin appends to the slow movement of the Third Piano Sonata—broad, singing, sustained. They imply that the movement is an homage to bel-canto opera, and in particular to Bellini, whom Chopin knew and admired. Hough’s playing of the opening melody suggests that he has thought hard about how it would sound if it were sung by a soprano: in place of the clean articulation that you find on most recordings, he adopts a free, flowing manner, so that one prominent motif—an eighth note followed by a sixteenth-note triplet—is rendered almost as a four-note turn, with the first note held a little longer than the others. The manner is at once regal and inward, as in Bellini’s “Casta diva.” When Hough reaches a high B, he slows for a moment, as a soprano would, for the sake of both expressivity and caution. I’ve gone through various canonical Chopin recordings—including accounts of the Third Sonata by Alfred Cortot, Dinu Lipatti, and Arthur Rubinstein—and found none on which the melody coalesces into such an acutely vocal shape.

Chopin’s two-hundredth anniversary fell on March 1st, and commemorative CDs have been piling up. All the notes glitter in place, but many of the disks overlook what Hough has called, on his delightful blog, Chopin’s “shades, hints, suggestions, half-lights.” The young Chinese pianist Yundi (formerly Yundi Li), in a survey of the complete Nocturnes, on EMI, plays elegantly and not without feeling, but fails to find a distinct character for each of the twenty-one pieces. Lang Lang, the other big Chinese virtuoso, galumphs through the two piano concertos on DG. For the same label, the young German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott delivers weirdly ponderous versions of the Waltzes. (The great old Yellow Label seems to be concentrating these days on artists who photograph well.) There are also some prizes in the bunch: Nelson Freire’s courtly, nuanced Nocturnes, on Decca; Alexandre Tharaud’s gently eccentric “Journal Intime,” on Virgin Classics; and ferocious 1959 and 1967 performances by Martha Argerich, which DG has redeemed itself by retrieving from radio archives."

Ross/ New Yorker

Artists who photograph well....Well I do look at some of these CD covers and think to myself, ohhh, a new scent from Kalvin Klein?

This made me laugh. I'll have to check this CD out! Thank you!

Please do, the virtuosity of early Argerich is incredible. Rarely do you hear such ease in execution, and her 1st ballade is one of the most original interpretations without the awkwardness of her live performance on Youtube.

I was actually speaking of the Hough CD, but I'll check out Argerich's also.

I just noticed that Argerich's 1959 performance of the Ballade is on YouTube. Compared to the live hell-for-leather, take-no-prisoners performance (which seems to have been removed from YouTube ), this one is a model of composure!

(I'll be the first to admit that I do get a certain thrill when Argerich skirts the boundaries of sanity and good taste. )

Nice thing about the 57 recording is that, in my opinion, it's Argerich at the top of her game technically. She has the incredible technique so well demonstrated in her childhood Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart and Bach recording, which even she said were were incredible to her, but it's after she's studied with Gulda and developed her style and lyricism.

I'm having the same fascination with her Grieg Concerto that was so recently posted on Youtube.

as it happens, I did a rehearing of all my op.58 recordings yesterday evening/night, I'll list them first and then tell you my preference, not having heard the Hough-version of course, here we go:
Rubinstein
François
Andsnes
Szekely
Harasiewicz
Tchetuev
Pollini
Demidenko
Lipatti
Cziffra

that are the only specimens in my collection, and the winners are: Demidenko, for his breathy and spacious playing, Lipatti, for having the first modern vision, Tchetuev, for being the first 'Nachwuchs' player to try to combine the above mentioned ways of playing, and now it's up to poor me...