MIDWEST RECORD:
Smart interpretations of Chopin going through dark and darker moods, this is a dignified and tuneful take on later works by Chopin when he was in his exile from Poland .  The “Polonaise” played here is not his famous one and you get a feel for his sadness right thought the joyfulness of his dance pieces.  The album is well played and up front in its simplicity being a nice find for the classical piano fancier.
Chris Spector

LIVERPOOL DAILY POST:
The pianist Alicja Fiderkiewicz may have been born in Warsaw, and trained at the Central School of Music in Moscow, but it was at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester that she ended her studies, and even before then, in 1972, she had already made an impact on Manchester with her UK debut at the Free Trade Hall.

Since then she has made many appearances with the Hallé and Manchester Camerata, stopping off on her busy international career. Her new CD was recorded at Chetham's School of Music in February, and is a well-chosen programme of music by Chopin including seven Mazurkas, two Nocturnes and the Polonaise-Fantaisie. She is clearly on home ground here in this satisfying recital issued by Divine Art.
Peter Spaull

MUSICWEB:
This finely played, acutely interpreted and attractively recorded recital reflects well on all concerned. Fiderkiewicz has, if one can put it this way, Chopinesque chops. She summons up the right sound, colours appositely, is constantly mindful of the rhythmic flux of the music and she vests things with apposite characterisation. In short she is a perceptive if sometimes wilful guide to the music and has constructed a balanced recital.

It's perverse of me, therefore, to start with a big niggle but let's get it out the way now, not least because it concerns the opening track, the C minor Nocturne. This is yet another of those overtly funereal performances that, despite the galvanising moments later on, never recover from an initial tempo that drags things down. Passionate, tensile and richly contoured though the middle section undoubtedly is it seems too much so in the context of both the opening tempo and mood. There's a definite feeling of rushing and a confused sense of the architecture.

The companion Nocturne immediately re-establishes her credentials in this repertoire. It's pensive, reflective, rising and cresting with melancholic conviction. Above all she conjures the shifting patterns and moods with real concentration. The Opp.24 and 59 Mazurkas herald a series of elegance, touch, refinement and control. None is quite as fast as Rubinstein's but they resolve their own momentum with consistent insights and a real sense of terpsichorean naturalness of rhythm.

The Third Ballade sounds closely allied to a watery Barcarolle in this persuasive performance. The glinting colour of the narrative is another decided plus – and unlike the opening Nocturne the narrative thread is more – though still occasionally idiosyncratically - anchored to pertinent paragraphs. The sole example of her way with the Preludes is richly voiced albeit the basic tempo is very slow. Finally there's a really buoyant adrenalin-laced Polonaise-Fantasie in A flat major which finds all the moods, colours and textures as well as the dramatic frame of the thing. There's elegance here but passion too with some very personalised rubati. Minor finger slips are inconsequential when set against the vitality and characterful verve of the playing.

Fiderkiewicz proves her credentials with this recital. This is Chopin playing of often impulsive engagement; sometimes a little too much for some but still eloquent.
Jonathan Woolf

WRIGHTMUSIC:
When I read the publicity quotes in the sleeve notes to this disc, I shuddered. Miss Fiderkiewicz is described as "the high-priestess of Chopin", an inane and absurd remark. Is it intended to instil in us the notion that she is the greatest Chopin player and that if we disagree we are guilty of not worshipping her? It reminds of that famous and stupid remark of Barbirolli when he said, "You cannot be a musician or even a music lover if you don't adore Elgar and every note he wrote!"

The quote attributed to Rubinstein that only Poles can play Chopin is also nonsense.

These comments, although probably sincere, alienate people as they are sycophantic remarks and display an arrogance which people baulk at. It would be best to explain why she is so good and couch these reasons in musical terms.

However, Miss Fiderkiewicz has a growing international reputation and deservedly so. She has a tone of exquisite beauty and does not fall into the trap of being maudlin. There is an intensity in her playing of the major works which is not marred by emotionalism . Her style is admirable and generally in accord with Chopin.

Chopin's music is not macho and has often been described as effeminate and weak with an emphasis at the top of the piano making the music tinkly and akin to a music box. His music has not the depth of Beethoven or Liszt, but for pianists to turn Chopin's music into silly anaemic tinkling is unforgivable.

Sixty percent of this disc is devoted to miniatures namely two nocturnes and seven mazurkas. I assume the pianist chose what to put on this disc but it would have been preferable if she had balanced her programme by including more of the better pieces. One would love to hear her plays the scherzos or the first and fourth ballads.

Nonetheless her playing is totally convincing and it is evidence that she knows the music well.

The Ballad no 3 is probably the best piece on the disc. It does not have the brilliance of the scherzos or the G minor ballade and it has been said that it is based on a Lithuanian folk song and Undine , the evil water sprite. The piece certainly has the feel of a narrative. The balance between the hands is exemplary and the pianist negotiates the tessituras without the banality usually given to them. The music is episodic as it is in the Polonais-Fantasie, and does not hang together well even when outstanding pianists do their best to achieve this. Miss Fiderkiewicz is at her best in the more robust music.

I regret that the Prelude in C sharp minor is here referred to as number 25 as if it is a continuation of the 24 Preludes, Op 28 completed about two years earlier. The Opus 45 is a work on its own and superior to the Op 28. The Op 45 is an intriguing piece which asks more questions than it gives answers.

Sadly, the Polonaise-Fantasie Op 61 is my bete noir. I have known it for forty years and never liked it. It is bits and pieces linked together unsatisfactorily and does not really make a whole. " It lacks cohesion ," wrote one famous Chopin pianist and it was composed when Chopin was often ill and emotionally disturbed with his extreme mood changes this work has been called the product of a manic depressive. Whether or not I agree , I can see the point .

Chopin was a difficult man. His amti-Semiticism was fiercer than that of Wagner and , in his last years, when he was looked after by the Scottish spinster, Jane Stirling who cared for him and literally kept him alive Chopin was hateful to her. It is my belief that his unpleasant character is often shown in is music. His changes of mood are evident in some of his piece

There are many other recordings of these works and I recommend Stephen Houghs' CD of the scherzos and ballades on Hyperion CDA67456 and the complete nocturnes and mazurkas played by Angela Hewitt on CDA67371/2.

GRAMOPHONE:
Alicja Fiderkiewicz tends to overstate, trying too hard for maximum eloquence. Free-spirited to the last, she leaves a fashionably nonchalant or disengaged Chopin to others, storming through the C minor Nocturne's central fusillade of octaves with a sure sense of rhetoric and declamation. Elsewhere, her rubato is more push-and-pull than give-and-take and her impulsive fits and starts disfigure much of the A flat ballade and Polonaise-fantaisie. There are also some wildly rushed fences at the end of the latter and several smudges that would have benefited from a producer's hand. Well recorded.
Bryce Morrison