It has already been said that Yuzuru Hanyu skated on a Krystian Zimerman interpretation of Chopin's First Ballade, which I "happened" to "discover" only last weekend, when I found the Japanese pianist's interview about 2015 Fantasy on Ice. I had just noticed how good were the cut and the interpretation, but not recognized "his usual touch", the skating score having, how to say, a "thicker stroke". I should have thought better. Krystian Zimerman is very sensitive of the conditions of rendering of a recording, having once said for instance that digitizing old analogical records, where pianists had played according to the recording technical limitations they knew, was like "undressing the Gioconda and finding she had not had shower". ;-) Of course, for the piece to be played on an ice rink, with the problems of reverberation (though usually a hundred times better than they used to be in my childhood, when I wondered how those skaters could bear such horrors), he had to play with that thicker stroke; and we could see in this last 4CC that his interpretation was efficient to compensate this fail, as Yuzuru Hanyu could skate so wonderfully, so immersed in the music, while the problem of reverberation was more acute than usual, which he could not do with the Onmyoji score.
No, the recording doesn't come from any DVD or live recording of Krystian Zimerman's. His contracts with Deutsche Gramophon must be quite stringent, I believe, and forbid any such use anyway. I am rather certain he conceived and recorded it specially so that Yuzuru Hanyu could skate on it, from what we can deduce he is an early fanyu — or at least, from his first Olympics.
By the way, there are several similarities between them. Particularly, both are G.O.A.T.
