Two piano stars, but only one dazzles
Toronto Star – Ontario, Canada

No, it’s *not* Lang Lang; this time Yundi Li is being compared to “Macedonian wonder Simon Trpceski:”

Beneath the metallic glint of the Steinway was emptiness, like puff pastry without any custard filling.

Li has recorded Chopin before, and very beautifully at that, but his performances of a Nocturne and four Mazurkas from Op. 33 were not even phoned in, but text-messaged in, with vacuous emoticons substituting for the real thing.

It is possible that Li was having a bad night – or a bad first half. But I didn’t wait to find out more. Not when Trpceski, who has performed dazzlingly with both the Symphony and Music Toronto several times before, beckoned.

By the end of his strange and sharp-edged pairing of the Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante by Frédéric Chopin, I just wanted to get away. …
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Cemetery Gates
Cleveland Free Times – Cleveland,OH,USA

Review of documentary film Forever:

A meditative, strangely beautiful documentary about the importance of art in life, Forever is set principally at France’s fabled Pere-Lachaise cemetery. At Pere-Lachaise, visitors show up daily to pay their respects at the graves of everyone from Chopin and Moliere to Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. Although running just 98 minutes, director Heddy Honigmann’s film could conceivably go on for hours, even days. (It would make a fantastic gallery installation piece.)

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Free and legal MP3s from Grand Archives, Brooke Waggoner, and A …
By Jeremy(Jeremy)

Profile of Nashville singer-songwriter Chopinaphile Brooke Waggoner:

Brooke Waggoner may be the only singer/songwriter in Nashville who cites Chopin as an influence, never mind both Chopin and ELO. So she is not a typical Nashville musician; she’s from Louisiana but she’s not a typical Louisiana musician …

Fingertips – http://fingertipsmusic.blogspot.com/

an amateur classical music collection
By failed misanthrope(failed misanthrope)

From the “Failed Misanthrope’s” latest blog entry, containing lots of Chopin:

I’m posting this because as a pseudo / wanna-be / dilettante classical music critic-listener, I feel that some sort of full disclosure is needed. Aside from a few sad facts—I was not a music major, I don’t play any instrument, I know very few musicians—these are the classical albums I listen to:

Chopin Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 and Complete Orchestral Works, Krystian Zimmerman, Claudio Arrau, etc., pianists (Deutsche Grammophon, 2 CD set) 81. Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1, Liszt Piano Concerto No. …
The Failed Misanthrope – http://theamateurmisanthrope.blogspot.com/