Shura Cherkassky plays Chopin Ballade No.2

Shura Cherkassky, born Odessa 7 October 1909; died London 27 December 1995. Although he came from a belle époque of great piano playing, one where the cultivation of character and individuality was paramount, he could never be termed “the last of the great Romantics“ for, in a sense, he represented no other tradition than his own. As he himself put it, “People tell me I am different, but . . . I just play the way I play.“ Born in Odessa in 1909 (he took two years off his age, he later admitted, to pro