The Chopin Project

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Joe Jackson @ Bridgewater Hall
Manchester Evening News – Manchester,England,UK

Raves for a live show – and new CD – by the “musically literate former Angry Young Man…: “Rain captures all that singular brew of bile and beauty which drove Jackson’s best work.” – and apparently helps him find his inner Fryderyk…

The centrepiece was the new song Solo (So Low), introduced by its creator as “a bit of a wrist-slasher, but it does have its funny side..or maybe that’s just me”. Yes it is just you, Joe, for what the hushed crowd heard was one of the most striking hymns to loneliness ever sung, Jackson’s grand piano underpinning his bleak poetry with something akin to a Chopin piano study.

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Sixteen-year-old Fremont grad goes on to Julliard
Fremont Bulletin – California, United States

Local girl Ashley Hsu is packing her bags for the big city, wich help from the Chopin Foundation…

A talented pianist, Hsu has won multiple awards and scholarships, including a 2006-2007 scholarship from the Chopin Foundation of the United States for her performances of the works of Chopin. She is also the silver medalist in the 2008 Schimmel International Piano Competition where she competed against young artists from China, South Korea, Israel, Canada and other countries.

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Could it be the start of a trend? Playing the Eternal Sonata video game is sparking interest in Chopin’s compositions?

oddly enough playing eternal sonata has got me into Chopin (3)
By ♪ ☆ Anonymous Popstar ☆ ♪
can anyone recommend some more songs from that stand out.

Music @4-ch – http://4-ch.net/music/index.html

What’s the story, morning glory? What’s the word, humming bird?
By Mew(Mew)
As much fun as the battle system was and how freakin’ pretty Chopin is was, the game was…a little lacking. I didn’t feel too attached to the characters, the story seemed a bit rushed, and the plot was a bit boring. …
Mew – http://amewsed.livejournal.com/

Tags: Chopin Currency

Chopin News, Views, and Reviews:

Maurizio Pollini: when inspiration flows through to the third encore
Telegraph.co.uk – United Kingdom

London critic finds the essence of the Italian artist’s mastery in a brief Chopin etude:

When everything clicks in a Maurizio Pollini recital, as it did here, it can be an absorbing, revelatory experience. This was a vintage example of his fascinating pianism, combining as it does a focused intellect with poetic sensibility, and a passion tempered by reason.

You do not expect, nor do you get, anything gratuitously extrovert with Pollini, and there was no more acute example of his essential poise and stylistic awareness than in his second encore, Chopin’s famous Revolutionary Study.

Where some might launch headlong into it with barnstorming bravura, Pollini was more circumspect, not to the detriment of the music’s drama but with a care for colour that went way beyond mere technical virtuosity. [...]

Thoroughly in his element, Pollini played Chopin’s Four Mazurkas Op 33 with a breathtaking mix of wistful melancholy and rhythmic impetus. In the B minor Scherzo, as in the G minor Ballade given as the third encore, his inspiration flowed seamlessly.

Pollini’s rare artistry is restricted
This is London – London,England,UK

Same recital, entirely different view from the Evening Standard critic….

Undoubtedly one of the pianistic giants of his generation, Maurizio Pollini offers an increasingly frustrating experience in recital. Now in his mid-60s, he can still pack them in to the Festival Hall and bring them to their feet after three rousing encores. But a disengaged quality in his playing mars too much of what he does.

[...]

It has to be said, though, that Pollini’s technical mastery is no longer unassailable. That insecurity may well account for the scrambled, vertiginous nature of virtuoso passages, such as those of Chopin’s Scherzo No 1 in B minor. There was some impressive playing here, too: Pollini’s tone is always ingratiating and there were many wonderfully nuanced moments.

But once again expansive gestures were shunned, with the result that too much was flattened out and under-characterised

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Chopin is the Only Ring Tone for You
By Evan

I have a custom ring tone setup on my cell phone when my bride Amanda calls. Yesterday at work I thought I heard her calling … but it was just the internet radio?! How could she call me through the internet radio?
My guess is that my cell phone’s built in melody #7 is actually a version of Chopin’s Étude No. 5 in G-Flat Major “Black Keys.”

Wild.er – http://blog.evanwilder.com

Chopin in the YouTubeoSphere:

YouTube – Yundi Li – Chopin “Fantasie” Impromptu, Op. 66

Professionally shot and released DG video of the Fantasie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66 No. 1…

Tags: Chopin Currency

Chopin News, Views, and Reviews:

A Comedic Ballet With Legs
Wall Street Journal – USA

WSJ critic marvels at the staying power of Jerome Robbins’ Chopinistic comedic creation….

“Death,” one showbiz quip has it, “is easy; comedy is hard.” However savvy Jerome Robbins might have been in the mid-1950s as a still-budding master of both musical-theater dances and of classical ballet, he could hardly have predicted the staying power of “The Concert,” the comedic ballet he created to Chopin in 1956 and called “A Charade in One Act” and subtitled “The Perils of Everybody.”

Once his hilarious take on would-be concertgoers hit its stride with a 1971 restaging for his home-base company, the New York City Ballet, “The Concert” showed itself to be a deathless ballet comedy. In recent years, over a dozen ballet companies nationally and internationally, including one in Perm, Russia, have eagerly performed the work….

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Google Blogs Alert for: chopin

Robbins & Chopin at NYC Ballet
By oberon481

Dance-focused blogger’s taken on the Chopin/Robbins night at the NYC Ballet:

I’m not sure an all-Chopin evening is a great idea; surely the most effective programmes are those that offer musical contrasts. But THE CONCERT was fun tonight with Sterling Hyltin showing a nice flair for comedy (and dancing very well) and several amusing character players including Andrew Veyette’s henpecked, vengeful husband and Gwyneth Muller’s priceless wife with her droll efforts to maintain a sense of decorum.

Oberon’s Grove – http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/

Chopin in the Newsgroups:

Kobrins 2005 Chopin Preludes

From the rec.music.classical newsgroup, a discussion on the merits of Alexander Kobrin’s Chopin interpretations…

Sure emphasizes the dark side, but very effective,original conceptions
seemingly not just for effect. He seems to empathize better with this more complex,subtle music than with the more
extroverted, emotional Rachmaninoff Etudes,IMHO. But this is
2005……

newsgroups.derkeiler.com: rec.music.c… – http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.music.classical.recordings

Tags: Chopin Currency

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Rafael Viñoly’s Musical Refuge
New York Sun – United States

The world-famous concert-hall architect somehow finds time to practice, practice, practice…

The Uruguayan-born Mr. Viñoly is no mere collector. He is a bona fide musician who once contemplated a career as a pianist; he attended a music conservatory before switching fields, and knows how to finger those 88 ivories.

“Amazingly, I should confess that I still do consider sitting down to work out something as it deserves to work out,” he said. Scores by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and Schumann clutter his pianos.
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

All Robbins
By Philippe Boucher

Ballet-loving blogger goes to the Pacific Northwest Ballet program and finds more fulsome praise for Our Man Jerome and his unique take on Chopin…

In the Night was stunning set to the Nocturnes of Frederic Chopin, my favorite composer. Nocturne in F minor Op. 55 was played (a piece that I know how to play). What the program said about In the Night: Jerome Robbins’ rapturous In the Night features three couples, in varying stages of relationships, who eventually meet in a dance for six. Each couple’s pas de deux possesses a distinct character and in the end, all drift offstage in each others’ arms like stars fading at dawn. Mesmerizing.
Last, but definetly not least The Concert (or, The Perils of Everybody): A Charade in One Act.It was just hilarious and gorgeous. The curtain lifts up and we see another curtain with a drawing by Edward Gorey. It lifts again. An empty stage with a grand piano to the left. From the right comes the pianist….

Le blog d’Anne – http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/leblogdanne/

Celebrities and Depression
By Alicia Sparks, NAMI Affiliation Leader

It’s “Celebrity Health Week” on the Mental Health Notes blogstie, and Fryderyk finds himself A-listed on the Celebrity Depression List amongs Buzz Aldrin and Abe Lincoln…though what is this composition called “Nocturne” she speaks of?

Frederic Chopin, often regarded as the greatest Polish composer (I absolutely love Nocturne and am, as a matter of fact, listening to it right now) battled depression before his death 1849.

Mental Health Notes – http://www.mentalhealthnotes.com

Chopin News, Views, and Reviews:

‘The Spies of Warsaw’ by Alan Furst
Los Angeles Times – CA,USA

“Furst’s books are like Chopin’s nocturnes: timeless, transcendent, universal. One does not so much read them as fall under their spell and to fall in love with those Romantic impulses that compel men and women to act beyond their self-interests.”

And, like Chopin, Furst is a Romantic. Regardless of their gender or nationalities, his characters share one immutable trait: a heroic belief in the transformative power of love, whether for a nation, an ideal or another human being.

“The Spies of Warsaw” is Furst’s 10th novel. Like the others, it involves the work of European spies in the 1930s and ’40s. Few writers tread such a narrow path so often. Fewer still do it without repeating themselves. Furst’s genius is to revisit the same era and character types while making each journey new and fascinating.

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Author Q&A
Wall Street Journal – USA

No reference to Chopin, but a fascinating Q & A with author Alan Furst…

In Alan Furst’s newly published espionage novel, “The Spies of Warsaw,” he paints a convincing portrait of Europe in 1937, told in part through the eyes of a French military attaché. That Mr. Furst’s book is atmospheric, convincing and filled with twists and turns will hardly surprise readers of his nine earlier spy books such as “Night Soldiers” and “Kingdom of Shadows.”

Mr. Furst, 67 years old, turned to espionage after writing four earlier novels that didn’t sell. A Manhattan native, Mr. Furst lives in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and periodically in Paris. He estimates he has lived in France for roughly 10 years of his life.

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A Night for Robbins to Give Chopin a Twirl or Three
New York Times – United States

This seems to be shaping up as the Year of Jerome Robbins…

Jerome Robbins would remain one of the most diverse, successful and appealing choreographers of all time if he had never set anything to the music of Chopin. Yet to imagine ballet without Robbins’s Chopin works is to imagine a painful diminution. Though the current Robbins retrospective from New York City Ballet has been successfully under way for over a month, its “Definitive Chopin” program, which opened on Wednesday night at the State Theater, brings us closer to the choreographer’s heart than any other evening this season.

The program contains just three ballets. (Robbins’s “In the Night,” to Chopin nocturnes, was part of a separate bill that went out of repertory Thursday night.) It begins with a film clip of Robbins in 1990 rehearsing Darci Kistler in his first Chopin work, “The Concert” (1956). She’s really good, but he’s much better, wonderfully funny in the way the music makes him go weak at the knees: not an immediate collapse, but a rich, rippling-through-the-body plunge…

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Chopin in the blogosphere:

Robbins’s Definitive Chopin at the NYC Ballet
By nahnopenotquite

The Jerome Robbins Celebration for the 2008 spring season at the New York City Ballet is on now. I saw a program last night called Definitive Chopin that consisted of three pieces set to the music of, uh, Frederic Chopin (who else?).

It is hard to me to overstate how much I loved this performance. Dance is the highest expression of human physicality, the absolute apotheosis of human grace and beauty. You can see why men were always falling in love with prima ballerinas in 19th century novels. Ballet is pure elevation of the female form, so feminine, so seductive, so… The dance exults in the human body, and the dancers perform with such strength and skill that I left the theater amazed and elated. I kid you not. It was genuinely sublime.

Nah, Nope, Not Quite – http://nahnopenotquite.wordpress.com

Chopin Videos:

Prelude in C Minor, Frédéric Chopin
By Hari Ram Narayanan(Hari Ram Narayanan)

From a blog called “Chronicle of a Student Pianist…”

Frédéric Chopin referred to as “the poet of the piano”, is a polish composer. He composed almost exclusively for the piano. This piece is from his set of 24 preludes, each of which is composed in a different key. …

The Chronicles of a Student Pianist – http://thechroniclesofastudentpianist.blogspot.com/

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Preview: Playing a fugue of his favourite things
New Zealand Herald – New Zealand

Aussie pianist Piers Lane prepares to play a “friendly” in neighboring New Zealand…Chopin friends and colleagues Charles Alkan and Liszt, not to mention Liszt’s student Eugene d’Albert are represented in the first half; Chopin after intermission….

The second half of Tuesday’s programme will be the complete cycle of Chopin Preludes, a rare privilege in this part of the world. “Everybody knows certain of the Preludes, but there are others that people won’t recognise, as you don’t get to hear them apart from as part of the whole set,” Lane says. “They are a wonderful kaleidoscope of ideas and emotions and it’s extraordinary to hear how Chopin feels about each major and minor key on the piano because he goes through all 24 just as Bach did in his Well-Tempered Clavier.”

Lane says he likes stories about the composers he plays and has thought about how Chopin might have played his own music. “Later in his life, he was frail. When he played in England towards the end, they complained they couldn’t hear him at the back of the concert hall. In fact, his main criticism of other pianists was that they made the piano bark like dogs. He didn’t like big-scale playing. His style was an intimate one; he drew people in rather than going out to meet them.”

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Glasgow team piped into Paris to bid for role as City of Music
The Herald – Glasgow,Scotland,UK

More on the Glaswegan’s bid to become a UNESCO City of Music…

… only nationally but internationally – Mendelsohn visited and was inspired by Scotland’s landscapes, and Chopin took his first train ride in the city. …

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Audible.com Wins Audiobook of the Year: The Chopin Manuscript …
Business Wire (press release) – San Francisco,CA,USA

Multiple articles abound…

The Audie Award judges heralded the many innovative and collaborative aspects of The Chopin Manuscript, an original work that has continued to win praise …

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Audible.com Wins Audiobook of the Year: The Chopin Manuscript …
NEWARK, NJ—-The leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment, Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary , today announced the groundbreaking, original novel The Chopin Manuscript has been named …
eCocoma Web Consultant – Web… – http://www.ecocoma.com

Chopin News, Views, Reveiws and Previews:

Musical home of Chopin, Mendelssohn and Lou Reed? It’s Glasgow, of Course!
Times Online – UK

“Glasgow civic officials are in Paris on a mission to convince UNESCO that the city deserves world City of Music status…”

Making his city’s case, Mr Winter himself pointed out that Frédéric Chopin, the great composer, is said to have taken his first train ride in Glasgow, while his contemporary, Felix Mendelssohn, had been inspired by the countryside nearby – or to be more precise, Fingal’s Cave on the Island of Staffa, more than 100 miles to the northwest.

The bid document itself employed an unashamedly broad and colourful brush to the city’s musical heritage. Vienna had Mozart and Beethoven; New Orleans had jazz; but Glasgow cites artists ancient and modern including Simple Minds, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Clare Grogan and (to the confusion of any Austrians at the Unesco reception) Franz Ferdinand. Some of those name-checked were only visitors to the city, including the Move (from Birmingham), Oasis (Manchester) and Lou Reed (New York)

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Thus Far, PS3 Eternal Sonata Exclusive to Japan
Game Reviews – Phoenix,AZ,USA

Want to play the acclaimed Chopin-flavored video game on something besides an xBox? Rotsa ruck…

PS3 owners/lovers of eccentric RPGs based on the delusions of a dying composer are out of luck, unless you live in the Land of the Rising Sun that is. A Namco Bandai US spokesperson has stated that the PS3 version of Eternal Sonata, the RPG based on the fictional world dreamed up by a fever-wracked Chopin on his deathbed, “is only announced for… Japan right now.”

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Chopin-related podcasts:

Chopin to Dr. Dre: The Sounds of the Carillon
By webhelp@kuow.org (KUOW 94.9 Public Radio)

Seattle public radio profile of “Carillonist” Charlotte Dyke, and her choice of music for the University of Washington’s set of bells…

If you walk the UW campus on a weekday morning, you’ll hear a tradition that is nearly 100 years old. There are tuned bells called the carillon. We meet a student who plays everything from Mozart to hip hop. …

Sound Focus Podcast – /programs/sound_focus.asp

Chopin CSI News:

Chopin did not die of TB
Polish Radio External Service – Poland

It was Cystic Fibrosis (not classified as a disease until 1932) that felled him, according to professor Wojciech Cichy of the Medical University in Poznan ...

According to Professor Cichy, the presence of nodules on the surface of the composer’s heart, cited in the autopsy report, could be a symptom of the disease, which is a genetic disorder affecting primarily the lungs. Also, the medical history of members of Chopin’s immediate family supports this theory: two of his three sisters died of lung diseases, and the youngest one, who was of very fragile health, died at the age of 15. Chopin died at 39.

Cystic fibrosis and its genetic ramifications were not fully described until 1932, 83 years after his death. Professor Cichy’s team hopes to be able to carry out further genetic research on the basis of the material taken from the remains of Emilia Chopin, who was buried at Warsaw’s Powazki Cemetery.

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Polish professor: Chopin had cystic fibrosis
By Patricia Bauer

Fuller account of the story from a blogsite devoted to disability Issues…

A review article in the Journal of Applied Genetics in 2003 concluded that CF was a “probable cause” of Chopin’s death. The authors called for more research on the subject:

Is it justifiable to deepen our knowledge about the great Polish composer, but foremost to give hope and meaning to those who nowadays suffer from genetically inherited disorders? Is it not right to make an attempt to prove to many suffering people that many things count in life much more than a weak physical body, and that they are not predestined to vanish without leaving something that will influence, inspire and enrich the generations to come?

Disability News | PatriciaEBauer.com – http://www.patriciaebauer.com

Chopin News, Views, Reviews, and Previews:

‘Chopin Manuscript’ wins top Audie
Arizona Daily Star – Tucson,AZ,USA

And the winner is… The Audie Awards (the so-called “Oscars of the Audiobook Industry”) hand out the top prize to The Chopin Manuscript — a “serial thriller” named Audiobook of the Yearat the 13th annual Audie Awards banquet Friday in Los Angeles.

There is no print version.

For the first time ever, the top audio production is available only as a download from its producer, Audible Inc. Read by Alfred Molina, this World War II-era thriller revolves around the search for a document that may or may not have been connected to composer Frederic Chopin.

It is reported to have been hidden by the Nazis in Kosova. Nine best-selling mystery-thriller writers, headed by Jeffery Deaver, wrote “The Chopin Manuscript,” which came out in serial form starting last September. This is very much the way Stephen King’s “The Green Mile” debuted in 1996.

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Eternal Sonata Review
Game Reviews – Phoenix,AZ,USA

The Chopin-based video game gets high praise from the major game-review site TGM (8.5/10 overall)

Eternal Sonata, developed by Japanese studio tri-Crescendo and published by Namco, is a JRPG with a difference. It takes you on the final journey of famed Polish classical pianist Frederic Chopin through his final dream when lying in his bed just before dying in his house in Paris in 1849. It won’t come as a surprise to learn that the design team behind this captivating game are all musicians. Hiroya Hatsushiba is an audio programmer who has worked with fellow tri-Crescendo founder Motoi Sakuraba, who is in fact a composer, on many other JRPG’s including the likes off Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile for parent studio tri-Ace.

Eternal Sonata is one of those rare and wonderful games completely based on musical history. Throughout the game you will hear wonderful music from the famed pianist that the game is based on. In addition, there are some original songs that round off an amazing soundtrack….

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All-Robbins program doesn’t miss a step
Seattle Post Intelligencer – USA

Another rave review for the Pacific Northwest Ballet production of two Chopin-based Jerome Robbins creations: “Into the Night, and “The Concert:”

One of the opening gambits of Peter Boal, as PNB artistic director, was “In the Night.” It is among Robbins’ most memorable ballets for its limpid moodiness and subtle shifts of tone. Three couples dance to Chopin’s evanescent nocturnes, played with nuance by pianist Dianne Chilgren. The first is young and perfect; the second more formal and restrained, and the third restless and troubled. Pantastico and Olivier Wevers, who danced in the original cast, repeated their performances. They were a perfect realization of idealized love. The second couple, Ariana Lallone and Stanko Milov, were new to the roles, at least to me. They are a distinctive couple, and they offered distinctive dancing. The action of the third couple is realized more with the woman than the man. Nadeau, who danced in the original cast, was turbulent yet appealing. Karol Cruz was her able partner.

“The Concert” was given its PNB premiere at the fall gala. It was a sensation then and is so now. There is so much that is amusing or outright hilarious. It is supposed to be a parody of a concert, thus the name, but goes so far beyond those perimeters that one easily forgets the premise….

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All Robbins Showcases PNB’s Acting Chops
Seattlest – Seattle,USA

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Best Audio Book Of The Year
By M.J. Rose

Amazement at the Chopin Manuscript victory: “As one of our esteemed authors said – beating God and Harry Potter is one thing — but beating Colbert? Now that’s impressive.”

The Chopin Manuscript is an original serialized thriller created exclusively for audio by a stellar list of thriller writers — for a joint project between Audible.com and ITW – a project that Steve Feldber and I only imagined would …
Buzz, Balls & Hype – http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/buzz_balls_hype/

Chopin News, Views, Reviews, and Previews:

“All Robbins” is all pleasure at PNB
Seattle Times – United States

The Jerome Robbins Chopin-dance fever juggurnaut rumbles on in Seattle, with acclaimed productions by Pacific Northwest Ballet of “The Concert” and “In The Night.”

Making its PNB premiere, Robbins’ 1956 comic work “The Concert” is set to sedate piano works by Chopin, played onstage by Dianne Chilgren and witnessed by a motley crowd in pale-blue leotards. The ballerina (a funny, loose Miranda Weese) practically embraces the piano in her joy, while a pair of hatted ladies (Lesley Rausch, Maria Chapman) cross their legs in exaggerated precision. A wife (Carrie Imler) scolds her cigar-chomping husband (Jonathan Porretta) — not noticing that his eye is on the ballerina.

And from these character vignettes, Robbins sweeps us into fantasy: a dimly lit umbrella dance that’s both melancholy and lovely; a cast transformed into gossamer-winged butterflies, suddenly lighter and sillier than air. It’s a wacky dream ballet, performed with airy precision, and the giggling opening-night audience rewarded it with a standing ovation.

“In the Night” is also set to Chopin (also played beautifully by Chilgren), but its velvet mood is a world away: three romantic pas de deux on a starry night. As the most tempestuous of the couples, Louise Nadeau and Karel Cruz were mesmerizing; though they initially seemed physically mismatched (he looks at least a foot taller than she), their shared recklessness and dramatic ardor cast a powerful spell. Ariana Lallone and Stanko Milov, arms reaching to the sky, brought regal strength to their more formal dance. Noelani Pantastico and Olivier Wevers, in their effortless lifts, personified youthful, sparkling love.


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Chopin Downloads of Apparent Legality:

Free Download of the Week: Chopin’s Nocturne No. 1 in B Flat Minor …
By Laura(Michael)

From the new site Musopen, boasting “copyright free classical music.”

In the mood for a more melancholy tune? Take advantage of music in the public domain and download this beautiful piece by Chopin, courtesy of Musopen.com. Click to download Chopin’s Nocturne No.1 in B Flat Minor, Op.9 …

Fastcase – Accelerated Legal Research – http://fastcase.blogspot.com/

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

‘Forever’ captures architecture, ‘personality’ of French cemetery
Deseret News – Salt Lake City,UT,USA

“To be honest, a 90-minute documentary about a cemetery sounds — at least on paper — about as exciting as spending 90 minutes in a cemetery. But surprisingly, Forever turns out to be a much-better film than that would suggest…..”

Director Heddy Honigmann and cinematographer Robert Alazraki spend much of the 90 minutes capturing the architecture and “personality” of said cemetery, which turns out to be Pere-Lachaise in France.

For those who don’t know, the cemetery is the final resting place of such luminaries as Doors frontman Jim Morrison, composer Frederic Chopin, cinematic trickster Georges Melies, actress Simone Signoret, author and critic Marcel Proust, and many, many others.

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Chopin-related Downloads:

9. PIANO FILLS—CHOPIN INTRO 2.aif by hammerklavier

From the Free Sound Project website, a Chopin-flavored offering…

	Another improvised opening (by me) in the style of Chopin or Liszt. Very florid and purposely fiery. Recorded some years back—has some tinniness and distortions. Slightly processed to overcome them…

The Freesound Project – http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

The scared boy who dreamed… and the man who triumphed
Yorkshire Post – Leeds,England,UK

Approving profile of Yorkshire pianist-turned-textile-magnate-turned-arts- developer-turned-philanthropist Sir Ernest Hall, developer of the renowned Dean Clough arts and business complex, upon the publication of his memoir “How to Be a Failure and Succeed.” What lies ahead for him conquer? A certain composer…

The story of Dean Clough (he retired as chairman this year) will be told in a second book, which he hopes to finish by the end of the year. “But I’m very busy. I’ve still got the Chopin project,” he says, with enthusiasm. It has long been his ambition to record the complete works of Chopin – 14 CDs in all, of which he has so far recorded seven. He plans to complete the project in time for the bicentenary of Chopin’s birth, in 1810. “I shall be 80 years old,” he says. At 78, he’s still reaching, still transcending boundaries. “Dreams of achievement have an amazing power in your life,” he says. “You find that you are elevated by ambition itself.”

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Concerts at the Cadillac: “Piano for the People” by Chris Hess
Beyond Chron – San Francisco,CA,USA

If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to visit the Cadillac Hotel, for a concert called “Piano for the People: a Classical Piano Concert for Non-Classical Listeners.”

Chris will connect music written from 1840-1960 with the present day Tenderloin to excite and educate a general audience. Chris will play Chopin, Rachmaninoff and other romantic composers, interspersed with personal stories. For example, he will syncopate different rhythms in the right and left hands, show you how, and explain why it builds community.

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MKM Attila ilhan Hall / Ingrid Fliter / 8:00 pm
Turkish Daily News (subscription) – Ankara,Turkey

No day is complete her at the Chopin Currency without an Ingrid Fliter posting, today in advance of an appearance at the Caddebostan Culture Center with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra…

“Chopin’s music has been one of the great standards of the classical repertoire for generations, and many audiences have enjoyed hearing it played well; however, and especially in this unique class of the art, there is to be found a rare, untouchable nuance that speaks directly to the heart,” as Fliter says, “and it is truly an extremely rare artist who can well demonstrate this treasure.” She is in love with her work, and it is her love that gives life to her art, so much appreciated by the public.

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Kapell Rediscovered: The Australian Broadcasts – 2-CD set
Audiophile Audition – USA

Typically thoughtful (if a bit wordy!) review from esteemed online publication that nonetheless pithily summarizes the new-old release from the late William Kapell: “Collectors will listen to it often, in spite of the sonic defects that make some moments almost unbearable…

Kapell always performed Chopin as a strong suit, and I remain fond of the B Minor Sonata and several of his mazurkas, the Op. 50, No. 3 in particular. His Barcarolle opens with massive chords and flamboyant ornaments; nothing effeminate in those trills. The gondolier’s waves become Charybdis and could swallow the world. The comeliness and confidence of the piece–the ease of period transitions–shine through despite grim sonic reproduction. The E-flat Major Nocturne has Ignaz Friedman as its champion, but Kapell finds his own treasures in its pearly, unhurried elegance, several times hinting at the E Minor Nocturne, Op. 72, No. 1. Brilliance and blazing speed of the Horowitz order for the pounding Scherzo in B Minor, whose middle section lullaby Kapell softens the entire ethos, permitting the polyphonic voices their blessed, embowered noels. The two stunning da capo chords and the final pages are Kapell’s version of the Atomic Bomb.

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Ed Harcourt: Revolution Of The Heart MP3
Filter Magazine – Los Angeles,CA,USA

New Chopin-themed download from piano-playing UK singer-songwriter….

“Revolution Of The Heart” is Harcourt at his best: pouring his heart and soul out over Chopin piano progressions and delightful sha-na-nas, sung by members …
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Soloist and Friends
By Stephen Smoliar(Stephen Smoliar)

San Francisco writer blogs about a noontime concert by pianist William Corbett-Jones featuring new Preludes by Roger Nixon, and not Preludes, but polonaises, by Chopin…

There was at least one “Chopin connection” in the conception of the overall program: Liszt preceded the selections by Nixon and Mechem and Chopin followed them. The program concluded with two polonaises, Opus 40, Number 1 in C minor and Opus 53 in A-flat major. The latter is sometimes known as the “Heroic” polonaise, although, as the most familiar in the collection of polonaises that Chopin composed, it might better be called the “War-Horse!” Like the earlier “Military” polonaise, Opus 53 performs an interesting experiment with an ostinato pattern subjected to a gradual crescendo; and Corbett-Jones did a wonderful job of making that crescendo the backbone of the middle section of the work.

The Rehearsal Studio – http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/

Chopin News, Views, Previews, and Reviews:

Benjamin Grosvenor: Teenage Prodigy Comes of Age
Telegraph.co.uk – United Kingdom

An object lesson in how to nuture a burgeoning concert career… resulting in “a beguiling, stylish and richly rewarding performance of Chopin’s E minor Piano Concerto played by the 15-year-old Benjamin Grosvenor.”

Many will recall that he won the keyboard final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, when it was clear that he possessed a talent beyond mere technical accomplishment. Sensibly, in the years since, his gifts have neither been sensationalised nor exploited for short-term gain or fame. [...]

In this performance of the E minor Concerto, no allowances needed to be made for Grosvenor’s age. You could shut your eyes and readily imagine that it was someone of far greater years, though at the same time a pianist who had not let familiarity with the music dull its freshness, exuberance and lyrical grace. His was an interpretation with a personality and impulse of its own, while remaining true to Chopin’s spirit.

One crucial aspect of the music that Grosvenor had absorbed was the fine balance that exists between whim and structural security, the way in which Chopin’s decorative filigree can seem impromptu or relaxed, while having an architectural purpose that fuels and sustains the overall shape and momentum.

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A season for Chopin
Warsaw Business Journal – Poland

The Sunday All-Chopin Recitals are a Warsaw tradition

Hundreds of people lounging on the lawn by the Frederic Chopin monument in the Royal Łazienki Park, listening as the Polish master’s work is performed live by world-renowned artists – this is one of the fundamental Warsaw experiences. The charm of the Sunday All-Chopin Recitals, of which these concerts are part, has been captivating audiences for almost 50 years. The recitals are held every Sunday between May and August….

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Vaguely Chopin-connected News, Previews, and Reviews:
At Piano Showdown, Hard Choices
Washington Post – United States

“Year after year, standards of piano playing seem to improve, subtly yet perceptibly. The latest demonstration was Sunday afternoon in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, where a half-dozen spectacularly talented young pianists performed before a distinguished jury and a large, enthusiastic audience.”….and, it appears, a rather disinterested critic….

Esther Park, a 23-year-old American, was extraordinarily polished, with deft balances and voice-leading. Yet the sultry perfume of Granados and drama of a Chopin sonata seemed to elude her. [...]

At age 28, the Russian Sofya Gulyak was the oldest of the finalists. Her Mozart Rondo in A-Minor was the most satisfying classical playing of the afternoon. In her sensational performance of Liszt’s evocation of little bells in “La Campanella,” fierce technical demands took the back seat to flights of aural imagination and exquisite musicality. Gulyak was last year’s first-prize winner in the Kappell International Piano Competition. [...]

The Takemitsu was the only piece written since World War II, and it seemed almost an anomaly. It is in the romantic (Chopin, Schumann, Liszt) and early modern (Ravel, Prokofiev) repertoires in which these young players are most at home. After an hour’s deliberation by the judges, competition chairman Immanuela Gruenberg read the results, including the tally of audience ballots.

First prize: none awarded. Second prize: Gulyak. Third prize: none awarded. Audience prize: Wayne Weng.

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Concert to aid quake victims
Independent Community Newspaper – Bay of Plenty,New Zealand

Kiwis call on Chopin and other composers to aid Chinese quake victims…

A charity concert for victims of the devastating earthquake in China will be held in the Concert Chamber on Saturday.

The concert is being organised by the Rotorua Music Federation and will raise funds to aid the victims.

Well-known Rotorua musicians taking part include baritone John Bond, soprano Charlotte Christmas, and pianists Jim McGregor and Li Can Wei.

The programme ranges from Mozart, Chopin and Debussy to songs from the shows. Entry is by donation at the door.

Chopin News, Views, Previews, and Reviews:

Piano Archives: Arturo Benedetti Michelangelo = SCHUMANN: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54; LISZT: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major; RACHMANINOV: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 40; CHOPIN: Waltz

Audiophile Audition – USA

Chopin plays a bit part in this reissue CD that has this critic reaching for superlatives…

When you purchase this magnificent CD, better have asbestos gloves on and a fireproof CD player! Rarely have I heard even the great Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920- 1995) in such blistering form, his tensile strength and febrile temperament thoroughly in accord in all three collaborations, 1953-1956. For the collector, the Rachmaninov Fourth Concerto ( 12 May 1956), previously unpublished, with Franco Caracciolo (1944-1992) will more than complement Michelangeli’s commercial recording with Gracis for EMI. [...]

The posthumous waltz by Chopin hardly qualifies as “charming,” but it has a granite-like glitter thoroughly in keeping with the Rachmaninov lusters.

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BBCSO/Belohlávek at the Barbican
Times Online – UK

Today’s Ingrid Fliter installment finds our heroine at the piano bench at the Barbican…

Turning up to a concert hall to find that Chopin has been substituted for Szymanowski is a bit like turning up to a dinner party to find that the roast beef has been swapped for crème brulée. But for the young Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter, Chopin is a serious business. And just moments into her dynamic performance of the Piano Concerto No 2 I had stopped missing the indisposed Piotr Anderszewski (originally down for Szymanowksi’s Sinfonia Concertante) and was hooked.

Yes, there was a rich sweetness to Fliter’s playing – you cannot have Chopin without sugar, not least in the luscious larghetto – but plenty of fibre and muscle as well. Not for nothing has Fliter been compared to her great compatriot Martha Argerich: there’s a similar vitality, an engaging restlessness that imbued some of Chopin’s most dreamy sub-plots with enough snappiness and tang to keep us on our toes.

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Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Ingrid Fliter: ‘In the middle of my salad, he told me I’d won’
Telegraph.co.uk – United Kingdom

A “Get To Know Her” introduction to UK readers of It Girl Ingrid Fliter …

Born in Argentina and now living in Milan, Fliter (pronounced Fleeter) has in the past toured Japan and the US and won the silver medal in the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2000. But the Gilmore was an important catalyst, bringing her an EMI contract, management in the US and Europe, and a place on the BBC’s New Generation Artists scheme. And now a series of dates in the UK will introduce her to wider audiences, with a Wigmore Hall recital and appearances at the Cheltenham and City of London Festivals.

“The Gilmore changed my life deeply, completely,” she says. “In the beginning I had to deal with a lot of pressure and expectations,” she admits. “But after two years I’m now really starting to enjoy this very hectic, intense concert life.” Her London debut last year, together with her first disc of Chopin for EMI, confirmed her phenomenal technique and the spontaneity of expression she brings to music. There is also a fluent, singing quality to her playing. [...]

“Chopin made me discover the beauty of piano-playing,” she says. “I was very lucky to be introduced to his music from the very beginning. Pianistically speaking, it develops the imagination and good taste as regards rubato – where to give and where to take, in a natural way that a singer would do. Rubato in Chopin is very often exaggerated, but I imagine him as a Classical composer, not as a Romantic, though that doesn’t restrain you from being dramatic and dark. Sometimes the music reaches moments of deep sorrow.”

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The Chopin Experience, Radio 3
Independent – London,England,UK

More musings on the effect of the BBC’s Chopin Experience…

In conversation with the pianist Nikolai Demidenko, the latter revealed that Chopin knew his limitations as a composer, but said that he knew that his work appealed particularly to women. “A short, direct line straight to the heart,” he said, and Walker said “Mmm”, and I was reminded of a friend of mine who said that the only time he really “got” Chopin was when he was in love. So, if you were in love during the weekend of 17-18 May, then you will have enjoyed The Chopin Experience immensely.

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Who needs Rudolf Nureyev?
The Observer – UK

No question what’s the hot dance ticket in London town….this UK scribe says the current production of “Dances at a Gathering” (bodies by Robbins, soul by Chopin) is on par with the best ever…

Jerome Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering (1969) is a plotless work set to piano pieces by Chopin. Tender, dreamy and shot through with a sense of long-ago love affairs, the piece acquires a different dynamic with every cast. When the Royal Ballet danced it in the 1970s, it became a signature piece, a group portrait of an unforgettable constellation of stars. When the company performs Robbins’s piece today, the layers of allusion are dense. But in a good way: the new cast has new things to tell us and is not about to be crowded off the stage by ghosts….

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Chopin News from Outside of London:

After the Good Die Young
Wall Street Journal – USA

Beautifully-written article on the tragically short-lived pianist William Kapell, occasioned by the release of a just-discovered 1953 live concert performance in Australia that turned out to be Kapell’s last recording…

You’d think that Kapell’s youthful and spectacular demise would have captured the imagination of the listening public and ensured his lasting fame. Charlie Parker, who died two years later at the equally untimely age of 34, remains to this day a cultural icon. Likewise Jackson Pollock and James Dean, whose lives were cut short around the same time. Why, then, did Kapell slip through the cracks of renown? [...]

Kapell died too soon to record more than a handful of the large-scale works in his repertoire, but in recent years a fair number of live recordings have surfaced. RCA, his old label, has just released “Kapell Rediscovered,” a two-CD set of radio broadcasts made during a 1953 tour of Australia. They are his last recordings — he was killed flying home from that tour — and they include a number of pieces that he never recorded in the studio, among them Chopin’s B Minor Scherzo, Debussy’s “Suite Bergamasque” and Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata. The sound is only fair, but the performances are pure Kapell, headlong, vital and crackling with a vibrant immediacy that makes you feel as though he were playing in your very own living room.

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Chopin Nocturne in E MinorDedicated to Two Individuals
By Jeremiah Jones(Jeremiah Jones)

Chopin’s Nocturne in E-minor is one of my favorite Nocturnes. It is a short, yet profound work of art that takes the listener through several of life’s most important emotions. It can stir the soul and awaken the spirit. …
– http://www.signmypiano.com/

Jack Conte’s Video Song – The Giant, Radiohead/Chopin

By robkwok
A VideoSong is a new Medium with two rules:. 1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice). 2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds). The Giant. Radiohead and Chopin Combination …
Unquality: Retarded Videos for… – http://www.unquality.com

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

New Classical Tracks: The allure and the thrill of Chopin
Minnesota Public Radio – Saint Paul,MN,USA

Radio review of Gilmore Prize winner Ingrid Fliter’s new CD…

For her part, Ingrid Fliter has just released a new solo recording featuring works by Chopin, a composer she believes she was born to play.

“It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that if it had not been for Chopin’s music, I wouldn’t have been born,” she explained. “My mother noticed my father for the first time while he was playing some Chopin waltzes during a party!

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Ingrid Fliter replaces Anderszewski
Thenews.pl – Warsaw,Poland

Speaking of the Gilmore, one winner subs for another at the Barbican in London…

Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski was forced to cancel his appearance at London’s Barbican Centre tonight on the advice of his doctor. He is replaced by the Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter, Second Prize winner at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw in 2000. …

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Royal Ballet Double Bill, Royal Opera House, London
Independent – London,England,UK

Rave review for the Royal Ballet revival of the Chopin-centric “Dances at a Gathering….”

Dances at a Gathering looks simple. Jerome Robbins’ 1969 ballet puts 10 dancers on a bare stage, with a blue backdrop, set to Chopin piano pieces. The numbers are full of invention, yet they have to look easy. Robbins demands clean musicality and a sense of atmosphere. They’re all there in this wonderfully fresh performance.

It’s more than 30 years since the Royal Ballet put on Dances at a Gathering. People who saw it in its early years still go dreamy over it. The ballet’s atmosphere is fragile. This revival, staged by Susan Hendl and Ben Huys, has real warmth….

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Mostly having to do with fallout and feedback from the BBC’s Chopin Experience:

The Chopin Experience
By vhk10
I listened to bits of this all-Chopin weekend on Radio 3. (I used to listen to and indeed play Chopin’s music a lot, and though it has retreated a bit in my musical consciousness he is still a favourite of mine). …

The best aspect was hearing recordings from different eras and with different interpretations, rather than just good recent performances.

I recommend trying the Chopin Audio Quiz, which is not trivial, mainly because the extracts are from the middle of pieces.

VHK’s singing – http://vhkssinging.wordpress.com

Bad to the bone
By Sawyl(Sawyl)
I like to think of Radio 3 as the rebel of the BBC family, hanging back while the others chase after listeners, growing its toenails and listening to Chopin. A classical music-fancying rebel; every family needs one. …
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing – http://sawyl.livejournal.com

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Chopin’s Pianos

From the blog earideas, a chance to listen to one of the programs from the BBC’s Chopin Experience programs. (The BBC’s rather maddening policy is to pull all of their audio after 7 days). The audio is a bit distorted and “swimmy” and of a rather low bandwidth, but still worth a listen...listen for a performance of the Barcarolle, Op. 60, on the Pleyel piano to your left, from collector Alex Cobbe’s house in Surrey, England…

Catherine Bott, Radio 3’s early music guru, presents a programme about Chopin’s pianos, part of the station’s ‘Chopin Experience‘ from last weekend. Fascinating social and economic history plus loads of music. …

– http://earideas.com

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Young Cuban Pianist Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan Awarded win the Prize …
Cuba Headlines – Ciudad Habana,Habana,Cuba

Our first dispatch from the island’s news agency….

Virtuous interpretations of “Nocturne” by Frederic Chopin and Concert Studies of Franz Liszt made possible for the young Cuban pianist Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan to win the Prize “Cle d Or” of Superior level in France.

Gonzalez Buajasan, only 13, performed this Sunday in “Les Cles d Or” (Gold Keys) piano contest in the superior category, in Ile de France region, carried out in the Parisian locality of Villemomble.

He played “Nocturne Opus 27″, number two of Chopin and “A Sigh”, from Concert Studies of Liszt, with meticulous elegance.

He is a very talented-boy and plays with exquisite loudness, although he should involve slow movements when playing “Un suspiro”, members of the jury told the student of the Caribbean island when congratulating him for the prize obtained, Prensa Latina corroborated.

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Actions speak louder in dance story
This is London – London,England,UK

Jerome Robbins may say “no plot, no roles” in his hour-long “Dances At A Gathering,” but critic nonetheless finds plenty of story lines in his Chopin-based dance…

The solos, duets and group dances that follow may be an evocation of his past or just dances, as Robbins said. Either way Chopin’s music, and Robbins’s gestures and steps, evoke people falling happily in and resignedly out of love. There are flirtations and friendship, and the comforts and misunderstandings of each. The style is polite — these are pretty steps and tidy tears — but in showing us what we long for, Robbins reveals all that we don’t have.

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The Kirov Ballet – Chopiniana/The Kingdom of Shades/Le Spectre de …
Stage – London,England,UK

More Chopin on the dance stage in the UK…

The second splendid programme, presented by the Kirov, is an excellent example of the diversity of this prestigious company. Chopiniana, with Fokine’s classical choreography set to Chopin’s music, is a superb showcase for the superior corps de ballet, which danced with precision timing but retained the important lyrical feel. Principals Anastasia Kolegova and Evgeny Ivanchenko also made a mark.

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Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews

Must male pianists be pin-ups?
guardian.co.uk – UK

Provocative column from Guardian blogger about “making glamourpusses out of pianists…” The readers think it’s more of a generation gap…

In the crisis-laden economy of classical music concerts, pianists today are often marketed as “hunka hunka burnin’ loves,” however inappropriately. A few years ago, I interviewed the talented, poetic young Chinese pianist Yundi Li in his New York manager’s office. Then in his early 20s, gawky and skinny, with tousled hair under a baseball cap, Yundi looked like the provincial Chinese youth he was. I was amazed to see how his recording company packaged his remarkable CDs of Chopin and Liszt, adding heavy makeup and swooning poses for an androgynous look. Yundi Li’s artistry was the same, but he became a different artist to look at…..

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Piano Lessons
Voice of San Diego – San Diego,CA,USA

Review of the San Diego premiere of “Beethoven As I Knew Him,” the latest installment in Hershey Felder’s trilogy of composer portraits….

First, Hershey Felder presented his fantastic one-man show, “George Gershwin Alone,” and urged theater-goers to join in on a sing-along of Gershwin hits. It was like drawing flies to honey; the enthusiastic Felder inspired gleeful audience members young and old to sing their hearts out. It was a sight (and sound) to behold.

Then came Felder’s portrayal of the emotionally intense Fredéric Chopin which gave audiences a peek into the cultural sophistication of the 19th century Parisian salon.

Now, the Old Globe presents the final installation (and world premiere) of Hershey Felder’s “Composer Sonata” trilogy of one-man performances based on famous composers’ lives with “Beethoven, As I Knew Him.” [...]

A natural and engrossing storyteller, Felder was at his best during “Beethoven” at the piano bench. Using discourse and music, Felder took the audience through pieces like Beethoven’s Fifth symphony, expounding on the famous fate-at-the-door theme. The “Moonlight” sonata rendering was exquisite. Throughout the night, Felder used anecdotes and visuals (conducting to the night sky of stars!) to enhance the overall musical performance.

Though starker and narrated at a more measured pace than both “Gershwin” and “Chopin,” “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” offers a poignant introspection into the austere composer’s beloved music….

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Prometheus celebrates a distinctive vision
Boston Globe – United States

20th-anniversary production by the Promotheus Dance Company of Boston gets high marks for everything but a Chopin-based performance…

The world premiere on the program, “Lignage,” seems disappointingly tame in comparison. A work for eight women set to a series of Chopin preludes, it contrasts slow floor work with flurries of sweeping movement – swirling turns with arms outstretched, legs carving great arcs. The women roll, cradle one another, then rise in rushes about the stage. There are a lot of stops and starts, and it has the crowded, slightly aimless feel of a work created to showcase young dancers.

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Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

A Country in the Moon, by Michael Moran
Independent – London,England,UK

Review declares Michael Moran’s new book about Poland to be an “absorbing, exasperating and ultimately rewarding travelogue.”

Moran emerges from these pages as a romantic, a bon viveur, a music lover and a film buff, equally versed in the polonaises of Chopin, the novels of Joseph Conrad and the movies of Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Kieslowski. He conducts a clandestine affair with unhappily married Zosia, and together they explore the historic cities of her country. His sojourn comes to a premature end when the project’s rackety finances expire. The last chapters briskly fast-forward up to the death of Pope John Paul II. As for his romance with Zosia, reader, I wouldn’t dream of giving the game away.

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Chopin master returns to Barboursville
Orange County Review – Orange,VA,USA

Somewhat confusing review of young Polish pianist Jacek Kortus‘ performance in Virginia Wine Country….

Kortus’ return engagement was the fourth in a series of benefit concerts for the Chopin Foundation. This year’s event was hosted by Barboursville Winery and sponsored again by Premier Virginia Properties. As a special treat, Washington National Opera Conductor Maestro Giovanni Reggioli introduced Kortus and the Chopin pieces he would perform in the first half of Thursday’s concert. [...]

Joking aside, the maestro described Chopin as “good music of the people” and said the composer’s works were “good for the first-time person or for the person who studies it for life.”

Kortus, a serious and intense young man of supreme focus, opened the program with Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne in C Minor Op. 48, No. 1. He followed with Waltz in A Flat Major Op. 34, No. 1 that conjured images of a gilded 19th century ballroom full of lords and ladies that finished with such an uplifting flourish everyone in the audience was smiling.

The third selection was Mazurkas in B Flat Major Op. 18, No. 1 and No. 4 in A Minor which began rather chillingly sad only to finish with an offer of hope. In his last selection before the intermission, he performed Chopin’s Sonata in B Flat Minor, Op. 35 where he balanced the emotion of the piece with his technical skill in moments both fiercely fast and smoothly slow. At times the piece sounded otherworldly with such vibrations it seemed the piano might simply explode from the music.

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Virtuoso introducing America toclassical music on the accordion
Las Vegas Sun – Las Vegas,NV,USA

“No, I don’t play polkas,” says Lidia Kaminska, “the first and still the only accordionist in the United States who has a doctorate in accordion (received from the University of Missouri, Kansas City). The Polish native is a proud graduate of the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw….

“I can play a four-voice fugue, no problem,” Kaminska says playfully with a thick accent, speaking from her home in Philadelphia. “But nobody asked me to play polka music in Poland.”

That’s probably because in Poland the accordion is accepted as a serious medium for classical music, particularly Baroque. And if you haven’t heard someone knock out a Bach chaconne on accordion, now is your chance…

As it turns out, there is a slew of original literature for accordion, composed mostly by Europeans. What isn’t written for the accordion can usually be transcribed. Same sonatas and concertos, vastly different instrument.

“Breaking Boundaries,” Kaminska’s debut CD, released in 2005, includes selections from Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” two pieces by Argentine tango composer Piazzolla and a sonata by Italian Baroque composer Scarlatti. Its mission was educational: Convince listeners, particularly those in America, that the accordion is a serious classical music instrument. It’s been an ongoing effort since she first stepped off the plane.

“We were not sure what was going on in America about accordion because I had not seen students from America in competitions,” Kaminska says. “So there were a lot of questions and I had a one-way ticket.”

She’s since performed with chamber orchestras, contemporary ensembles, dance groups and orchestras, and is a virtuoso unlike any other….

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Chopin News, Views, Reviews, & Previews:

‘Carmen’ reincarnated
Jerusalem Post – Israel

Russian-Israeli choreographer (and Kirov vet) Valery Panov’s dance company offers a twin-bill of Carmen and Chopin in Tel Aviv…

Les Sylphides, set to the music of Chopin by Russian choreographer Mikhail Fokine in 1908, is a Romantic, dreamlike piece, featuring 20 women and one man. For ballet enthusiasts, this will be a dream come true, as the male role is performed by Panov’s electrifying principal dancer Valery Kuklachov.

The May 18 performance will be attended by several dignitaries, Panov adds proudly. Among the invited guests are the ambassadors of the US, Lithuania, Germany and Belgium.

Another source of pride for Panov is the financial support he is receiving from the Ministry of Culture. “My dance company is growing like the cosmos,” he says.

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Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

A Chopin extravaganza
Times Online – UK

Nice Times of London summation of the BBC Radio 3 Chopin Experience:

After the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky Experiences and the Bach Christmas it’s time for Frédéric Chopin to sit in a deckchair in the Elysian Fields, sip a piña colada and wince as Radio 3 exposes every recorded note he ever wrote (including the bad ones, as only a mediocre talent is always at its best).

What’s different about The Chopin Experience (from today, 7am) is that Radio 3 has not redrawn its usual programme schedule to accommodate it. Which throws up a few apparent anomalies. Take, for example, The Early Music Show (today, 1pm). Or, in this instance, the Earlier Music than Now Show, since Chopin, era-wise, is no John Dowland.

That aside, it’s a fascinating listen in which three piano performances are compared – one Chopin’s, one by a pupil of his, and one given on a restoration of a Pleyel square piano similar to one that he might have played.

The cultural documentary strand World Routes (today, 3pm) is a better fit, in that Lucy Duran is in Warsaw, exploring some of the traditional folk forms associated with Chopin. Then, in programming guaranteed to further enrage those listeners who tune in to Radio 3 only to be enraged by it, Jazz Lineup (today, 4pm) includes a talk with the foremost proponent of classics-to-jazz, Jacques Loussier. He’s best known for reinterpreting Bach, but his trio has dabbled with Chopin, and his thoughts are illuminating.

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Fancy a Romantic weekend with Frederic Chopin?
Times Online – UK

Accompanying sidebar essay about “why many pianists find him too weepy.” Worth a read! And check out the recommended recordings (Perahia, Cortot, Rubinstein, etc) at the bottom…

Is the man worth this much fuss? In principle, yes. Chopin may not have had any imitators, but that’s only because his individuality as a composer is so strong. His melodies curl about and stick in the mind like no one else’s. His harmonies waft a pungent perfume all their own, and invite you into an imaginative, mercurial world unique in music history.

True, he wrote no epic symphonies, no operas, no oratorios, no sacred passions – none of the period’s usual outlets for lofty musical thoughts. But he used his preferred short forms with such a degree of innovation and imagination that even people who feel distaste at his music’s emotional atmosphere respect Chopin for his craft.

Well, not everyone respects him. In a 1981 radio interview the notoriously eccentric Canadian pianist Glenn Gould brashly announced that Chopin (and Liszt and Schu-bert) “had no idea of how to write for the piano”. On another occasion, Gould called Chopin “not a very good composer”. Heavens above, you might think, if those keyboard composers couldn’t get past Gould’s pearly gates who could?

Such idiosyncratic opinions should not be rejected completely. Chopin, for all his wide popularity, remains a complex, often misunderstood, figure, and if this weekend’s bonanza helps us to peer into his many-sided character and find a man who wrote much more than pretty music, the world will be a better place.

The truth is, Chopin is a tricky customer. Even pianists in full sympathy with him approach his music with some trepidation. The British pianist Stephen Hough, the veteran of a fine CD of the Ballades, declares his music to be so fearfully perfect, so polished, lacking a single ugly bar, that “if a piece doesn’t naturally sound beautiful it can only be the performer’s fault”.

For Simon Trpceski, responsible for one of the most volcanic of recent CD Chopin recitals, playing this composer also carries risks. “There’s a Macedonian saying,” he says, “about going with your hat to break a wall.” And we should remember Tamás Vásáry’s comment to Jeremy Siepmann in the 1990s about Chopin leaving nowhere to hide. “With Chopin,” he said, “you often feel quite naked.”

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Chopin Videos:

The Film – “None of Us Are Free”

How “current” is Chopin? Look no further for powerful testimony than from this current PSA produced on commission from MTV networks to raise awareness for disaster relief in Myanmar (a/k/a Burma). First, watch the film, which uses Chopin’s music (beginning with the Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48, No. 1) to compelling effect:

Now, some details as to how Fryderyk C’s music got involved, courtesy of motiongrapher.com:

When and how the music was incorporated?
The music played a huge role in setting the tone and pacing of the piece. We knew that it would be huge in setting the right mood so it had to be perfect. We listened to a lot of tracks when we were cutting the first previz [sic] edits and when we heard Chopin’s nocturnes, we knew we found the right music. It had all the right elements, movement, and form. [Ed. note: - it's actually one nocturne and the Fantaisie-Impromptu.]

Dante Nou who was working in—house with us took the two pieces we had roughly cut together and started tweaking them. Nate, our editor had some ideas about cadence and drawing out notes and keys and we just started fucking with it. By the time we finished the edit, the music had developed equally—it was then the foundation of what we took to Good Sounds. They replayed the original pieces and put their own loveliness in the mix—more sound design and tweaking, and by the time we finished the picture the music had finished as well.

There’s more about the “making of” the PSA on Gossipfeast.com as well, quoting from the MTV Press Release: “With the powerful melody from the feted virtuoso pianist Chopin, viewers will watch the beautiful red flowers float and dance towards Burmese soil.”

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Gilmore artist Ingrid Fliter, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra team up …
Kalamazoo Gazette – MLive.com – Kalamazoo,MI,USA

The penultimate performance at the Gilmore Fest draws raves…

One might consider Mozart as Fliter’s specialty — until she played Chopin.

Chopin’s “Concerto No. 2 in F Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 21,” the evening’s final work, offered Fliter the perfect vehicle for her numerous keyboard strengths. Here, she cultivated a different musical voice. Controlled rubato throughout lent effective freshness and variety. Fliter was born to perform Chopin.

Her runs at first sounded overly fast but not for long. Pianissimos were a favorite for Fliter, who possessed a magical light touch. Yet the opening “Maestoso” also could reflect intense drama.

“Larghetto” became a personal cadenza for Fliter, she massaged malleable passages into her personal vision of Chopin’s intents. Runs were pearly smooth, and limitless technique helped master filigreed passages. The music here was mesmerizing.

The closing “Allegro Vivace” became a frolicking dance comprised of continuous runs soaring across the keyboard. The KSO kept pace, as baton deferred to soloist. A standing ovation and six callbacks from the audience only hints at the ardor felt for Fliter.

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Bill Holm named McKnight Distinguished Artist
Minnesota Public Radio – Saint Paul,MN,USA

Radio piece about Minnesota poet and essayist Bill Holm, $50,000 richer thanks to an award from the McKnight Foundation. The author reveals that his immediate plans include reconsidering (and mastering) Chopin:

Listen to feature audio

Holm also has a book of poetry about Iceland to finish. In fact, he said he has a goal of writing better poetry and improving his skills at the piano, particularly with the works of Bach.

“And I’ve started another project that pianists shouldn’t avoid for too long, and that is trying to play Chopin decently. I used to make fun of Chopin, but now, the more I play him, the better he gets,” said Holm. “He’s an extraordinary genius. So I am going to see if I can play a half dozen Chopin pieces decently before I can’t remember who Chopin was.”

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Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Sejm declares 2010 Year of Chopin
Thenews.pl – Warsaw,Poland

The Polish Parliment makes an Official Proclamation, preceded by “lively debate.” And just what DID happen to the Piano in the House?

The Sejm, Polish lower chamber of parliament, has unanimously passed a bill declaring 2010 the Year of Frederic Chopin.

The vote on the bill was preceded by a lively debate. Minister of Culture Bogdan Zdrojewski stated that the primary objective would be to celebrate and popularize the work of Chopin, adding that the celebrations around the Year of Frederic Chopin, which also marks his 200th birthday anniversary, will require a certain amount of organized effort.

Zrojewski concluded in saying that some work is already in progress, like renovating the seat of the Frederic Chopin Association (TFIC) in Warsaw.

Wide-ranging preparations for the Chopin Year also include a thorough refurbishment of the manor house in Zelazowa Wola near Warsaw, the composer’s birthplace, and the opening of a Chopin Centre in Warsaw.

MP Tadeusz Cymanski from the Law and Justice (PiS) opposition reminded his colleagues that there was a piano on display in the parliament’s building since 1989 but it was sold last year in what could be regarded as rather unclear circumstances. Cymanski expressed hope that the instrument will return to the Sejm.

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Chopin: 10 steps to greatness
Telegraph.co.uk – United Kingdom

Coinciding with the launch of the BBC Radio 3 Chopin broadcast extravaganza – a Top Ten-type list of reasons of what makes Fryderyk so distinct:

4 Conquering the world

Chafing in Warsaw, the 21-year-old Chopin set off round Europe, pitching up in 1831 in Paris. Within a few months he was friendly with writers such as Victor Hugo, painters such as Delacroix and of course musicians including Liszt and Berlioz. All these arts were becoming more “poetic”, but what Paris lacked was a “poet of the piano”. Chopin was attractively melancholy, always à la mode, and had impeccable manners.

5 Being the perfect romantic

In 1832 Chopin gave his first concert in Paris. He hated the experience, and in all his life gave no more than 30. But those were enough to make him the perfect image of the romantic pianist. One critic said: “Nothing equals the lightness, the sweetness with which this artist preludes on the piano.” Chopin’s Nocturnes and Waltzes are the perfection of the Romantic miniature – but small doesn’t mean negligible. “Guns buried in flowers” is how Schumann described them.

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Whatever Happened to Michal Baranski?
All About Jazz – Philadelphia,PA,USA

A check-in on the careers of a trio of teen prodigies from Poland, including jazz/classical pianist Mateusz Kolakowski:

Nine years ago, the clarinetist, improvisational whistler and musical educator Brad Terry hosted in the United States three young musicians he had worked with in Poland. I mean young.

Mateusz Kolakowski, the pianist, was thirteen. In this picture from that period, we see him with Terry. Bassist Michal Baranski and drummer Tomek Torres were fifteen. Terry toured the country with them in his old Dodge van, overnighting in RV parks and driveways and playing whenever they could, sometimes in paying gigs.
[...]

As for Baranski’s former trio mates, Kolakowski is still pursuing Chopin, Paderewski and jazz. Torres, though he is Polish, is exploring his Latin heritage.

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Pianist Hamelin sets high bar
Denver Post – Denver,CO,USA

A preview to a Denver recital appearance by pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, where he reveals his Chopin-inspired composing ambitions:

In addition to a couple of Haydn sonatas, two Chopin works and Leopold Godowsky’s Symphonic Metamorphoses on Johann Strauss’ “Wine, Women and Song,” Hamelin will perform two of his recently composed etudes.

“They are part of my soon-to-be-completed project to compose an etude in every minor key,” said the virtuoso, who began his piano studies at age 5 on the urging of his pharmacist father. “I was much younger when I started the project, but then, composing was never the preponderance of my work. I think of myself as a pianist who writes, not the other way around.”

Hamelin describes his compositional style as “tonal with lots of chromaticism.”

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Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Felder completes composer trilogy with ‘Beethoven’ premiere
North County Times – Escondido,CA,USA

Really having more to do with Ludwig than Fryderyk, a preview of Hershey Felder’s new one-man show in San Diego…

Like the other two plays, “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” is a roughly 100-minute, intermissionless play with music written by and starring Felder (a piano prodigy who grew in Canada’s Yiddish theater circuit) telling the composer’s story in words and music from the piano bench.

“Gershwin Alone” features the brash, Brooklyn-born Jazz Age composer recounting his life up until his tragic 1937 death from a brain aneurysm at age 38. “Monsieur Chopin” finds the Polish composer Frederic Chopin in his Parisian salon a few years before his 1849 tuberculosis death at age 39, explaining his struggle with “melancholy” (bipolar disorder), his love affair with George Sand and his life and music.

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From disparate halves, a thrilling whole
Buffalo News – NY, United States

Gabriela Montero’s first half gets the better grade in Buffalo, though Chopin still suffers…

The two halves to Montero’s concert were vastly different. The first half was all classical — the Bach/Busoni, then Chopin’s Ballade No. 3, then the Sonata No. 1, by Alberto Ginastera.

You would have to have been dead not to have been thrilled and excited by that Bach. Busoni knew how to work a piece for showmanship, how to bring out its contrasts and climaxes, and Montero played right along. Besides drama, the piece had depth and emotion.[...]

The Chopin sounded a bit frantic, not as romantic as it could have been. Poor thing. It was sandwiched between that Bach and the stormy Ginastera, and Montero might have worked herself into a bit of a lather…

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Montreal pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin wows crowd at the Gilmore Festival
Kalamazoo Gazette – MLive.com – Kalamazoo,MI,USA

Meanwhile, in Kalamazoo, the parade of A-list pianists continues, with generous amounts of Chopin on their programs:

The Chopin Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58 presented a different set of challenges in its stark contrasts between virtuosic outbursts and tender, thinly scored romantic tunes. Hamelin displayed remarkable control at the lowest dynamic levels, caressing every note of Chopin’s beautiful melodies.

The second movement Scherzo had incredible drive as a result of his very ambitious tempo and meticulous articulation. The precious nature of the scant two- and three-part writing of the third movement Largo was nurtured along with the utmost care. Then, Hamelin unleashed a hitherto unheard power in the “Finale: Presto” non tanto that proved a perfect foil to the delicate third movement.

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Chopin Downloads, Legal and otherwise…

Chopin – 24 Preludes op 28, Grigory Sokolov

By admin
Composed by Fryderyk Chopin Grigory Sokolov, piano Live Paris 17th June 1990. Grigory Sokolov (born April 18, 1950 in Leningrad) is a Russian pianist. Sokolov began studying the piano at the age of five, entering the Leningrad …
Music-Download.cc – http://www.music-download.cc

Jorgeous : Tributo a Chopin
By Jorgeous

Starts off sounding more like Satie than Chopin…

Jorgeous – Tributo a Chopin. Jorgeous – Tributo a Chopin.
Jamendo – http://www.jamendo.com/

Chopin Photos:

Chopin.
By nobody@flickr.com (ianharrywebb)

Click on the link to see the row house in the Scottish capital…

ianharrywebb posted a photo:. Chopin. Chopin’s home while in Edinburgh.
Uploads from ianharrywebb – http://www.flickr.com/photos/iansdigitalphotos/

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Concert review: Young Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz dazzles …
San Jose Mercury News – CA, USA

A Bay Area reviewer isn’t quite ready to hand the Chopin crown to the hot young Polish pianist….

His performance May 4 at Le Petit Trianon in San Jose, which concluded with the Preludes, the full two dozen, was very, very good: Blechacz has an awesome command of the keyboard, plays with a stunning ease.

But he also seems to realize – I’m projecting here – that he needs to transcend his mechanics, to plumb the depths. So, at least on Sunday, amid the stream of jaw-dropping technique, he kept making these stabs at introspection. They didn’t exactly seem premeditated; in fact, they were charming. But they didn’t reach their marks.

He needs seasoning, in other words. And it will be interesting to follow him the next few years, to see where his huge gifts and his intuition lead him. [...]

After intermission came Chopin’s Preludes, exquisite and familiar.

In the first dozen, comprising Book I, Blechacz didn’t get past what we already know about them. For instance, No. 4, the famous E minor “Largo,” was all cliche: earnest melancholy.

But before beginning Book II, he drew out a handkerchief and wiped off the keys. It wasn’t meant as a symbolic gesture, yet, from that point on, his performance gained traction: pointillist bursts in No. 18, the F minor; anvil chords and brokenhearted lyricism in No. 20, the C minor; scary agitation in No. 22, the G minor.

No. 24 in D minor, the closer, ran out of drama; Blechacz seemed tired. But he recovered for the last encore, Moszkowski’s “La Jongleuse” (“The Lady Juggler”), a crazily difficult piece through which he flew with the greatest of ease. The amazing young man may as well have been pulling taffy.

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Magnetic Poles
guardian.co.uk – UK

Another glowing review for a journey through modern Poland by Australian author Michael Moran, who “had no links with Poland, other than a death bed pledge to his uncle to try to understand the patriotic roots of Chopin’s music.”

When Moran escapes the crumbling school, the book is lifted on to another plane. By following the course of the Vistula – one of the last great natural rivers in Europe – and then criss-crossing the country during the first international car rally in generations, he begins to fill the absences in our knowledge. On the road he relates – for example — the history of Partition, when thousands of intellectuals were forced to walk to Siberia – an 18-month journey – where they were chained to wheelbarrows night and day and worked to death. He considers our debt to the 8,500 Polish airmen whose élan and tactics helped to win the Battle of Britain. He details the iniquity of the Katyn massacre and betrayal of the Warsaw Uprising. He celebrates Chopin and the “frisson of close Polish dancing”. His breadth of knowledge is profound, his views opinionated, his writing passionate and heart-felt. The result is the best contemporary travel book on Poland, reminiscent in its finest moments of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s masterful Time of Gifts

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Gilmore Festival performer Stephen Hough masterfully executes …
Kalamazoo Gazette – MLive.com – Kalamazoo,MI,USA

The British pianist (recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant) writes the notes, then plays the program, to memorable effect…

The printed program notes, written by Hough himself, explained the first half of the concert centered on “Variations,” the second on the Waltz. He opened with Mendelssohn’s “Variations Serieuses,” Op. 54, comprised of two dozen very different variations. Quickly evident were Hough’s incredible hands and touch. Master of pianissimo and presto, he also commanded double fortes and andante passages; meanwhile his octave runs were unfailingly prodigious. [...]

Wed to his sensitive insights was extraordinary keyboard technique, evidenced further in the remainder of the program featuring Weber, Saint-Saens, Chabrier, Debussy and, fortunately for all, Chopin and Liszt.

Two familiar Chopin Waltzes –the C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2, and the A-flat Major, Op. 34, No. 1 — were gorgeously played. Each note was given full attention, as though never heard before. In the A-flat Major waltz, Hough showed uncanny ability to sound different melodic lines, played by a single hand. The effect was astonishing.

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Recital shows pianist Ohlsson at top of his game
Akron Beacon Journal – Akron,OH,USA

Whenever Garrick Ohlsson plays, Chopin is never very far away. First line says it all: “Garrick Ohlsson makes a virtue of middle age.”

Continuing in the key of C-sharp minor, Ohlsson knocked out a thrillingly fast and accurate version of the Chopin Etude Op. 10, No. 4. It was a wild ride that could only make you smile.

”One more?” Ohlsson silently mouthed to someone at the front of the audience, grinning as he asked. He proceeded with the Chopin Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2. Here, he dazzled with the delicacy and lightness of his playing.

Oh, yes, there was more before the encores. [...]

Finishing the first half with Chopin’s Sonata No. 3, Op. 58 was a move well calculated to get everyone buzzing with oohs and aahs. This was not the Chopin of a delicate aesthete but of a full-blooded romantic, with jaw-dropping fast runs and a galloping rhythmic drive in the finale.

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Ohlsson’s performance (above) also inspires a video posting on the blog below:

Chopin Prelude Op 45 Prelude No.16 Op.25 Garrick Ohlsson
By Cheryl and Janet Snell(Cheryl and Janet Snell)

Janet took our mom to see this pianist last night. He played three encores after a finger-crunching program. The Chopin was a sonata, not this Prelude, but you get the idea.
Scattered Light – http://snellsisters.blogspot.com/