The Chopin Project is proud to present the first in a series of short videos that show you where Chopin lived while creating his magnificent music. This episode focuses on Nohant Manor, the country home of Mme George Sand. Hear a musical gem performed by Polina Khatsko, see photos of Nohant Manor and read about manor life. The story is based on the book Chopin’s Europe by Hanna and Juliusz Komarnicki and Pamela and Iwo Zaluski.

Order the book here: Chopin’s Europe: A Photographic Essay

Download Chopin Project release: Mazurka in C-sharp Minor, Op. 63 No. 3

Princess Cristina Belgiojoso, Underwriter of Hexameron

When Vincenzo Bellini, a great composer of bel canto opera and one of Chopin’s musical idols died in 1835, a group of pianist-composers in Bellini’s circle chose to honor him by writing a set of six variations on a march from the last of his operas, “Il Puritani.”

The six friends were coaxed into this project by Princess Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso, and led by Franz Liszt, who contributed a substantial part of this nearly twenty minute long collection. The Princess, who adored Bellini, is pictured here and is separately a subject of extraordinary interest as a Parisian-exiled Italian heiress, a music loving society celeb, feminist, author, social activist and political revolutionary, teacher and pioneer.

The Hexameron was not a new musical instrument come to market in the 1830’s. Though of biblical genesis, the title for this homage to Bellini was named Hexameron rather for the six separate components of this collaborative work. There had been a longstanding legend that at one time all the pianists were gathered in the salon of the enterprising Princess, to perform the variations on six pianos; but as an acclaimed exponent of this difficult work, pianist Raymond Lewenthal reflected in his comments on Hexameron, it would have been wonderful if that had occurred, but there’s not an iota of confirmation.

Vincenzo Bellini

Other than Liszt, composers of Hexameron were Sigismund Thalberg, Johann Peter Pixis, Henri Herz, Carl Czerny and finally Fryderyk Chopin. About fifteen years earlier, a similar type of multi-composer project bore a set of fifty variations written by fifty composers on a theme of Diabelli. This theme also inspired Beethoven, who independently created a magnificent set of thirty-three variations, Op. 120 (Diabelli Variations), which became one of his crowning acheivements.

In Hexameron we hear mostly virtuosic, bravura variations. Perhaps predictably Chopin’s contribution is of a different nature, as it offers the listener a rare moment of reflection. In Chopin’s hand, Bellini’s theme is intoned as largo (slow) and his dynamics are sotto-voce (soft), accompanied by nocturne-like left hand playing and rising and falling two-note chords. The only change of mood takes place in the middle of the variation, when more dramatic, sharper rhythms and fuller dynamics break the climate of meditation.

• Download Sheet Music for free for Variation No. 6 in E Major for the Hexameron, by Fryderyk Chopin

With a Foreward by Martha Argerich, the innovative format of “Chopin’s Europe” tells his story more from a geographical point of view and less as a chronological restatement of fact.

Concise but comprehensive text by acclaimed Chopin biographers Iwo and Pamela Zaluski, together with highly evocative and personal photographs taken by Hanna Komarnicki and painstakingly curated by her husband Juliusz,  ”Chopin’s Europe” really does bring to life the beauties, moods and aspects of Chopin’s continent, from remote Poturzyn in the sub-Ukrainian hinterland, to the wild beauties of Majorca to the mist-swathed Highland of Scotland.

Some news: “Chopin’s Europe” will be presented to the Chopin Society, UK on Sunday May 2 following a 3:30PM recital by Martin Kasik at St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden.

Watch a  slide show here:
[See post to watch Flash video]

Purchase here: Chopin’s Europe: A Photographic Essay

Lutz, Florida – The Chopin Project® today announced the initial release of 20 exclusive new recordings, including many Chopin rarities via The Chopin Project® iPhone App from the Apple® iTunes Store. The Chopin Project® App offers a growing discography of new studio recordings from the Chopin Project® Listening Library.

With performances by internationally acclaimed Chopin Project® pianists represented throughout these posts and pages including Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Arthur Greene, the Chopin Project® App introduces listeners to the magical world of Fryderyk Chopin and the exquisite poetry of his compositions for piano.

The Chopin Project® App is the first and only iPhone app in the world dedicated to streaming performances of Fryderyk Chopin’s piano repertory. In addition, the App’s functionality includes search and sort features as well as a capacity to create playlists by genre, key and date of composition.

“Fans of Chopin will be thrilled with the quality of these performances and the recordings,” says Chopin Project® Founder, Frederick Slutsky. “And the app ushers the genius of Chopin into the Digital Age.”

With over 50 recordings already in the vaults, and 30 more in current production, the Chopin Project’s® exclusive library of original new studio tracks will include everything from his lesser known and rarely performed repertory (including the Songs) to classic favorites. Most will be added to the app throughout the 2010-2011 “Year of Chopin” – a worldwide celebration of the composer’s 200th birthday on March 1, 1810.

Below are some of the screen shots.

'Tributo a Chopin' 80 x 36 Oil on Canvass ©Camargo Vilardy, 2009. Photo courtesey of Angela Bustamonte (c) 2009

Today’s posting embodies a grand fusion of the 19th century music of Fryderyk Chopin and the visual expression of twenty-first century Colombian sculptor and painter, Carlos Camargo Vilardy, whose love for Chopin’s music provided enormous impulse for the enterprise.

The creation of the painting presented here in video format occupied ten days in Tampa, Florida, where Vilardy and his son, Barranquilla filmmaker Felipe Camargo were immersed in the music, the painting and the experience.

Click on the video below to watch and listen. As always, we encourage your comments.

© Copyright Felipe Camargo

• Listen to Tarantella in A-flat, by Fryderyk Chopin

Self-appraisals are often too charitable; at other times, too critical. “I hope I won’t write anything as dreadful too soon.” Those were Chopin’s words about his own Tarantella in A-flat Major, Opus 43 (1841). Was there justification for his remark?

The Tarantella belongs to Chopin’s occasional compositions, such as Bolero and Berceuse — in other words, works he never revisited. We don’t know what prompted Chopin to compose it. It was probably not a commission from some publisher. We know Chopin adored the opera and was very fond of Bellini and Rossini. Possibly in his Tarantella he simply attempted to follow in Rossini’s footsteps by writing an instrumental work that was of a vocal provenance. He knew Rossini’s “La Danza” and indicated that fact in a letter instructing his composer-friend and copyist, Julian Fontana [to] “. . . check in Rossini’s collection, if his Tarantella is in 6/8 meter or 12/8.”

Thus as a typical composition of that genre, Chopin’s Tarantella is from beginning to end played “in one breath,” without a moment of rest. It has four different segments, not really varied, which might be a reason the work attained rather poor marks. The best “compliment” in defense of this miniature (giving new meaning to the work lukewarm) came from Arthur Hedley, a noted musicologist and Chopin  authority, proclaiming “the frantic character of the music is captured fine, except that without the Italian gaiety.”

The sentiments of Chopin and Hedley are certainly not universal. By popular demand, the folks in the great state of Iowa in America’s heartland, have requested an encore statewide Iowa Public Radio broadcast of Chopin Project pianist, Dmitri Vorobiev’s live performance of Tarantella in A-flat.

Listen to the performance and to Mr. Vorobiev’s discussion of Tarantella with host Jacqueline Halbloom on “Performance Iowa” Sunday April 4th at 1PM CDT

Iowa Public Radio’s brand new performance series, “PERFORMANCE IOWA” premiers tonight in celebration of Chopin’s 200th Birthday.

Host Jacqueline Halbloom presents Dmitri Vorobiev, Chopin Project pianist and UNI Assistant Professor of Music in live performance of two Chopin rarities: Tarantella in A-flat Major, Op. 43 (1841) and Allegro de Concert, Op. 46 (1834-41). Pianist Ksenia Nosikova, Associate Professor of Piano of University of Iowa will play pieces by Liszt and Schumann, each in honor of the composers’ association with Chopin in this Bicentennial year.

“PERFORMANCE IOWA” aspires to bring listeners closer to the music by including the views and observations of the performers.

Tonight’s performances will be broadcast live state-wide on Iowa Public Radio Classical frequencies. Listen at 7PM Central DT (00:00:00 UCT/GMT). A link to open the live player can be found at:

http://iowapublicradio.org/scheduleGridDay.php?dayOfWeek=5&signal=KSUI

then click the “listen online” link at the top of the page.

According to Wikipdia, a Contra Danse was an English folk dance incorporating two long rows of partners facing and moving towards or away from each other. At the end of the 17th century, these dances (then known as English country dances) were taken up by French dancers leading to hybrid choreographies. The French first called them contra-dance or contredanse. Usually set in 2/4 or 6/8 meter, the dances spread and over time were reinterpreted throughout the Western world. Eventually the French form of the name (following the erroneous belief that its genesis was French) came to be associated with American folk dances, especially in New England, where they have managed to survive.

The Contredanse in G-flat major, attributed to Chopin, was not discovered and published until 1934. This was more than 107 years after it was composed (at age 17). Though not subject to current debate, some speculation still exists as to its authenticity because the only remaining autograph (dated 1827) was not Chopin’s; the work is nevertheless believed by many to have come from Chopin’s pen.

It is a charming miniature though rarely performed, an engaging encore whose authorship   may, especially in this bicentennial year, engage the attention of a youthful listener intent on solving a musical mystery.

Listen Now to Chopin Project performer, Dmitri Vorobiev play this Chopin rarity. Then, please participate in the experiment, explained below:

The Experiment: Start the YouTube video but turn the YouTube volume down so you can’t hear it at all. While you’re watching the now silent YouTube video, watch it through while listening to the Chopin Contredanse. Please send us a comment about your experience.

Acclaimed Chopin Project pianist Svetlana Smolina will play Chopin’s Twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28 as part of her performance tomorrow at 4:30PM (Friday, March 5th) at the Winter Garden main stage in New York’s World Financial Center. Ms Smolina is among the virtuosi performing in the 200 hour Wall Street marathon celebrating the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth.

Chopin once wrote, “When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.”Upon further reflection, Chopin must have realized that this Waltz was an all-time keeper, a favorite of piano virtuosos and amateurs alike since Chopin’s own time. It was a notable favorite of Artur Rubinstein. In fact, the Chopin.Net site has a nice anecdote about Rubinstein:

When people asked him how he could continue to play the same waltz for over 75 years, he replied, “Because it’s not the same, and I don’t play it the same way.”

• Download sheetmusic for Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download Easy to play sheetmusic for Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin

With excitement and gratitude for Fryderyk Chopin’s music, we celebrate his 200th Birthday by introducing our newest feature – The Chopin Project Audio Player. Click the red “Listen Now” button and music will play. Click on a different title and it will (or should) play. Make a Playlist. Sort by Genre, Key and Year. Have some fun with it. Let us know what you think and how we can improve it.

Now that Chopin’s music is playing, enjoy a captivating view of the Global Community of Chopin Year Celebrants with Chopin Planet. Click the center of the spinning globe to activate a more complete visual experience. (If your browser isn’t responsive, try Firefox).The lights represent the cities of all visitors to the site during the past few months or so; the pulsing red lights represent current visitors, including you.

While the composer’s music was sublime, his personality was another matter entirely

Chopin is no less fascinating for being a difficult personality. Novelist, journalist, pre-concert talker, blogger – Jessica Duchen joins others, including Chopin’s lover George Sand, in casting a critical eye on the musician’s relationships with others. The exquisite sensibility that produced music overflowing with feeling also made the composer hard to live with. — Eve

It’s never a good idea to judge art by the artist’s character, as we too often do these days, and there are few better examples of why not than Frédéric Chopin. He is set to be the romantic hero of 2010, his bicentenary year: concert halls and record companies are preparing a barrage of celebratory events and CDs. But anniversaries can be mixed blessings for the dead: look closely at any adored individual and it is likely that something less than savoury will be lurking. There’s no doubting the greatness of the Polish pianist-composer’s music; but that greatness came at a heavy price for those who were close to him, or tried to be . . . Click to read more

Emanuel Ax

Ring in the New Year

Stephen Dankner reports Polish-American pianist Emanuel Ax will present a solo recital at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, MA on Saturday, Jan. 2, at 7:30 p.m.  commemorating of the 200th birthdays of Frederyk Chopin and Robert Schumann, and promises a thrilling experience.

A brilliant young musician’s mysterious change in direction

A LOCAL LIFE: Preble Earle Donoho, 79

By T. Rees Shapiro
Washington Post

Starting in the late 1930s, when he was in knee pants, Preble Earle Donoho was the Washington area’s leading piano prodigy.Before reaching his teens, “Prib,” as he was known, was a veteran of major concert halls from Washington to New York. The Washington Post wrote that he played with “brilliance, speed, power and accuracy.” The Washington Star described him as “mature musically and technically beyond his years.” Click to read the full text of Mr. Shapiro’s story.

Newspaper obituaries used to be assigned to rookies. Now they have bylines. Obits can sum up the themes in a person’s life, the key meanings a person gives to those  left behind. Preble Earl Donoho (“Prib”) was a prodigy, a boy for whom music was a gift; and yet he abandoned Chopin recitals to become a newspaper typesetter. Mr. Donoho was raised to be a concert pianist; he wanted to be a spy. What’s the meaning? We all have multiple possible lives. A gift does not always carry with it a compulsion to be used. For Mr. Donoho, the mysteries of everyday life were ultimately more seductive than the melodies of Chopin. -Eve

Shanghai Marathon to Celebrate 200 Years of Chopin

SHANGHAI’S artistic directors are working overtime to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth next year.  Piano lovers are in for a treat as the world’s top interpreters visit for a series of awe-inspiring concerts, notes Nie Xin. 

For people in Shanghai, 2010 is a speical year. Besides the six-month World Expo, next year also marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of great pianist and composer Frederic Chopin.

The classical music stage in Shanghai has geared up to celebrate the master’s influence as a great Polish composer.

The first heavyweight event will be kicked off in January by Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) with its “12-Hour Chopin Marathon” at Shanghai Concert Hall. 

Read more: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=423710&type=Feature#ixzz0aehe6ePV

Arthur Greene:

“Today’s entry takes us into far more familiar Chopin territory. The Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9 No. 2 comes from around 1830, -after Chopin had left Warsaw forever. But the version I’m playing here has a bit of a twist. There are some scores of Chopin’s works that he marked up for his piano students, and they’ve been a fascinating find for musicologists. You can see where he marked things on the scores, adding fingerings and other instructions for his students. And in some of them Chopin added extra notes – and even little cadenzas! So if you know this beloved Nocturne, listen extra closely, and you’ll hear some things that aren’t usually there.”

From Britton Recital Hall, listen to Arthur Greene perform Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Op. 9 No. 2 (original cadenzas)

• Download sheetmusic for Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download Easy to Play sheetmusic for Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin

Performance Today is broadcast on 245 public radio stations across the country and reaches 1.1 million listeners each week. Since each station decides what time to air the program, the most direct route to hear the show is the Performance Today website (Program Archive June 1, 2009) until Tuesday, June 7th. 

On an earlier Performance Today program, host Fred Child, described the Chopin Project as

“. . . working towards being a comprehensive site of information about and music by, Frederic Chopin: lots of audio, lots of news bits, and . . . even a Chopin quotepage!. This is kind of Wikipedia-style project and they’re inviting YOUR feedback and YOUR information as well. ”

• Download the sheetmusic and learn more about “Three Ecossaises,” Op. 72

We thank you for your comments! 

“One is loath to believe that the echo of Chopin’s magic music can ever fall upon unheeding ears.  He may become old-fashioned, but, like Mozart, he will remain eternally beautiful.”

Even for a piece barely more than a minute in length, the “eternally beautiful” Chopin cited by writer and pianist james Huneker (author of the definitive book Chopin: The Man and his Music) is evident in this brief Cantabile.    This little gem often turns up folios and other albums devoted to 19th-century miniatures, though it didn’t actually appear in print until 1931, nearly 100 years after Chopin compoosed it.

Cantabile, after all, is defined as “to sing or play in a sweetly singing manner.”  See if you don’t think that’s exactly what Chopin Project Pianist Noel McRobbie does in this performance…

• Listen to Cantabile in B-flat, KK 1230 (1834) by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download a Public Domain edition of the sheet music for Cantabile in B-flat, KK 1230 (1834) by Fryderyk Chopin

Song to Remember

Louisville Courier-Journal – Louisville,KY,USA

Louisville paper’s local Answer Man recalls a 1940s Chopin biopic…

Dear David Inman: My husband took me to see a movie on our first date back in 1945-46 called “Polonaise.” I cannot find any information on that movie and would like to know who the actors were. Hope you can help. — B.C., Louisville

Dear B.C.: In the words of The Little Engine That Could, I think I can.

There isn’t a movie actually titled “Polonaise,” but there is a piece of music by that title composed by Chopin. And the 1945 film “A Song to Remember” is a biography of Chopin in which he spends quite a bit of time on “Polonaise.” So I think that’s the movie you saw!

“A Song to Remember” stars Cornel Wilde as Chopin and Merle Oberon as his love, George Sand, who at one point says to Chopin, “Discontinue that so-called ‘Polonaise’ jumble you’ve been playing for days.” Ouch!

The movie’s on video, in case you were curious.

See all stories on this topic

Chopin Reviews:

PADEREWSKI: His Earliest Recordings, 1911-1912 – Ignace Jan Padereswski, piano…

Audiophile Audition – USA

The thorough online classical-CD review journal belies its “Audiophile” label to review some ancient recordings (on a Chopin-like Erard piano, no less!) by another Polish piano great from the past. “[Need we add - definitely not for audiophiles! The piano has long been the most difficult instrument to properly record, and 1911...well...good luck...Ed.].

Recording engineer Seth Winner has utilized the CEDAR process to remove the most obnoxious ticks, pops, surface abrasions without affecting the dominant acoustical signal, virtually a century old. Paderewski favored the Erard Piano, and its peculiar timbre and resonance manage to survive in varying degrees of presence. At their best, the acoustic discs sound as lively as good electrical recordings, and that is saying something. The A Major Polonaise of Chopin, for instance, rings clearly and establishes the nationalist and poet at once. Schubert’s “Hark! Hark! The Lark!” declaims without sentimentality, while Stojowski’s Chant d’amour suffers from poor sound and decidedly sheds a rueful tear. We detect in Paderewski’s technical arsenal a slight anticipation of the right hand in the left, the minute asymmetry adding to the textural piquancy of performance or the inaccuracy, according to a puritan’s lights. Otherwise filler passages often gain a sense of personal momentum and personality, and the rigors of metrical conformity do not bind Paderewski’s palpable adjustment of music to suit his unique personality.

The little Etude in G-flat of Chopin perfectly conveys this point, as sparkling and impish in its way as that of Hofmann. The Chopin Etude in F from Op. 25 struggles a bit, but when it does fly the effect is aerial. The A Minor Mazurka, Op. 17, No. 4 relates a marvelously bitter-sweet canvas, entirely idiomatic, with plastic grace-notes. Sweetly erotic nostalgia informs the Op. 15, No. 1 Nocturne in F, though the middle section offers some dark currents and intimations of muscular power that later technology might have served with more justice. Sensual flirtations mark the F-sharp Nocturne, Op. 15, No. 2, the seduction taking on more passion in its yearning trio….

See all stories on this topic

Hélène Grimaud CHOPIN / LISZT / SCHUMANN

By elhenry(elhenry)

From a blog called Music is the Key, which “aspires to share the taste for classical music and to promote its great composers and interpreters. If you like an album, buy it in order to support the artists and their work.” a classic Japanese-issue CD from Helene Grimaud gets the star of the day:

The Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 is the first of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin’s four ballades for piano solo. It was composed in 1835-36 during the composer’s early days in Paris, and is dedicated to “Monsieur le Baron de Stockhausen,” Hanoverian ambassador to France.
Chopin cited the poet Adam Mickiewicz as an influence for his ballades (this according to a rumour based on a remark by Robert Schumann concerning the genesis of Chopin’s second ballade). The exact inspiration for each piece is not clear.

Music Is The Key – http://orchestralworks.blogspot.com/

Warsaw

Bharath Devanathan’s blog – http://www.bhatta.net/blog

A travelogue around Eastern Europe from a Mumbai-born programmer…

Chopin Concerts

Warsaw is the home of Frederic Chopin, the great pianist and composer. During the summers, every Sunday, the famous Park Łazienkowski hosts free concerts, where professional pianists perform one of Chopin’s masterpieces. I happened to be there on a sunday and decided to check it out. Lots of people gather at the park, lying on the grass, around the water. Its a perfect setting for some soothing piano tunes on a lazy afternoon.

Today’s Desert Island Disc: Chopin Nocturnes (Angela Hewitt)

The Lost Art of Correspondence

Quotidian Vicissitudes – http://davidrochester.wordpress.com

Highly recommended reading from a blogger who isn’t a fan of Chopin’s music, but rather the composer’s writing:

Eye on Poland: Country at the Crossroads

CNN – USA

Announcement of an in-depth five-part series on Chopin’s native land to air in October:

“Eye on Poland: Country at the Crossroads” is a week-long CNN International series focusing on the color and contrast of one of Europe’s fastest developing nations; from business and politics to pop culture. CNN offers a series of wide-ranging reports on this complex country tackling a time of transition; from Warsaw to Sopot, to Gdansk, Krakow and Lodz.

Solidarity Avenue, the Chopin Monument, and the Palace of Culture and Science are just some of the backdrops for CNN’s live broadcasts during a week of programming hosted from Warsaw by Fionnuala Sweeney.

See all stories on this topic

How the classical concert took shape.

New Yorker – United States

The publication of two new books tracing the history of concert manners prompts the latest column from critic Alex Ross:

The audience sometimes participated without any prompting from the stage. Once, when Liszt was beginning a performance of the “Kreutzer” Sonata with the violinist Lambert Massart, listeners began calling out “Robert le Diable!”—meaning that they wished to hear instead Liszt’s fantasy on themes from the Meyerbeer opera. Liszt acceded to the demand and launched into his “Robert” fantasy. Imagine what would happen today if, just as Maurizio Pollini was playing the first of Chopin’s Études, concertgoers were to shout, “ ‘Claire de Lune’! ‘Claire de Lune’!”

See all stories on this topic

Prom 60: Lang Lang/Marc Yu at the Albert Hall/Radio 3

Times Online – UK

The Chinese superstar teams up with the 9-year old “Little Mozart” for a recital at the Royal Albert Hall; London critic suggests the “Little Mozart” deserves a better mentor….

As for Lang Lang, the remainder of his glitzy recital encompassed the full range of his freewheeling brilliance and completely infuriating mannerisms.

When it worked, it was tender, supple and, even in the cavernous Royal Albert Hall, surprisingly intimate.

Mozart’s Piano Sonata in B Flat Major unfolded with dream-like spontaneity.

Two thunderous Rachmaninov preludes, by contrast, were as bold and invigorating as a shot of double espresso. But, frothed into a gilded soufflé, Chopin’s Andante Spiniato and Grande Polonaise can have seldom sounded so empty.

See all stories on this topic

Marin Alsop To Lead Philharmonic in Four Concerts

Broadway World – New York,NY,USA

The charismatic Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director lands a prestigious guest-conducting slot in the Big Apple, with a Chopin wunderkind in tow…

Marin Alsop will lead the New York Philharmonic in four concerts, each featuring Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, October 7, 10, and 11, 2008. The programs on October 7 at 7:30 p.m. and October 11 at 8:00 p.m. will comprise Bartók’s The Wooden Prince Suite; Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with Rafał Blechacz making his New York Philharmonic debut.

Pianist Rafał Blechacz was born on June 30, 1985, in Nakło nad Notecią, Poland. He began studying the piano at the age of five and completed his formal education in 2007 at the Feliks Nowowiejski Music Academy in Bydgoszcz, studying with Professor Katarzyna Popowa-Zydron. He won second prize at the Arthur Rubinstein Young Pianist Competition in Bydgoszcz in 2002 and at the Fifth International Young Pianist Competition in Hamamatsu, Japan, in 2003. In 2004 he garnered first prize at the Fourth International Piano Competition in Morocco. In 2005 Mr. Blechacz won first prize at the 15th International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw; in special recognition of his achievement, the jury decided, for the first time in the competition’s history, not to award a second prize. He also won four special prizes, including the Polish Radio Award for best performance of the mazurkas, the Polish Chopin Society Award for best performance of the Polonaise, the Warsaw Philharmonic Award for best performance of a concerto, and the award founded by Krystian Zimerman for best sonata performance.

See all stories on this topic

Chopin: Préludes (Music Review)

EDGEnewyork.com – http://www.EDGEnewyork.com

From the NYC GLBT online journal, quoting the Bay Area Reporter: “Even though his recordings for Harmonia Mundi have ranged from Couperin and Rameau to Kodaly and Ravel, it’s tempting to think of Alexandre Tharaud as a Chopin pianist, so regularly has the Frenchman returned to the music of the quintessential composer for his instrument. His new CD of the Opus 28 Preludes, that seminal work in which all of Chopin is on display, has caused a considerable stir…..”

Pianist Alexandre Tharaud.    (Source:Courtesy Harmonia Mundi)

Though Tharaud’s interpretations of the extraordinary miniatures are nothing if not individual, the extent to which they hew to the contemporary French inclination toward rowdy, big-boned, take-no-prisoners Chopin comes almost as a surprise. What gives them such high definition is Tharaud’s conviction, spelled out in the disc’s fascinating accompanying notes, that these extraordinarily familiar, listener-friendly pieces are “shot through with violence and death,” mortality-obsessed works conceived during the composer’s trip to Majorca in a futile attempt to deal with his tuberculosis.

So from the agitated arpeggiations of the first, C Major prelude until the railing defiance of the last, in D minor, darkness prevails. Even in the lacey textures of the vivace G Major, there’s a sense of febrile looking over the shoulder. It’s not a view of the work I’d want for everyday, but its integrity is beyond question…..

Chopin on the Web:

Buenos Aires Celebrates the Great Composer Chopin

By Gwen E. Kirby

From the “Online Guidebook to Argentina,” information on Festival Chopiniana 2008:

Chopiniana 2008 is a major classical music festival organized by the Fundación Chopiniana de Buenos Aires to recognize the works of that famous composer, Frederic Chopin. Chopin, born in Poland, composed in the 19^th century is known throughout the world as a famous Romantic. He wrote pieces primarily for the piano, and the piano will be the focus of the festival. According to My Buenos Aires Travel Guide, the festival consists of eight recitals in total, each happening on Wednesday night at 8, from August until October. Tonight will be the first of these recitals at the Teatro Santa Maria. The festival is supported by several embassies, including the Polish embassy, and tickets can be purchased for 30 pesos from the theater itself.

Argentina’s Travel Guide – http://argentinastravel.com

]]> http://www.chopinproject.com/2008/08/28/the-chopin-currency-august-28th-2008/feed/ 0 http://www.chopinproject.com/2008/08/27/the-chopin-currency-august-27th-2008/ http://www.chopinproject.com/2008/08/27/the-chopin-currency-august-27th-2008/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:04:31 +0000 bkr http://chopinproject.com/?p=591 Chopin in the Gaming World:

MOVIE: Eternal Sonata (aka Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream) (PS3)

Strategy Informer RSS News Feed – http://www.strategyinformer.com

The Chopin-inspired video game Eternal Sonata gets its own movie trailer in Japan (we think)…

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Fryderyk Chopin

By BondBloke

Bondwoman and I have…

Chopin in the Gaming World:

MOVIE: Eternal Sonata (aka Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream) (PS3)

Strategy Informer RSS News Feed – http://www.strategyinformer.com

The Chopin-inspired video game Eternal Sonata gets its own movie trailer in Japan (we think)…

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Fryderyk Chopin

By BondBloke

Bondwoman and I have a friend of Polish extraction who walked with us part of the way to the Dean Gallery on Sunday and who was overjoyed when his attention was drawn to this plaque…

Edinburgh Day by Day – http://edinburghdaybyday.wordpress.com

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“It is rarely played.  Its absolute simplicity of texture may lead performers to experiment with ornamentation, but I believe that it is an expression of Chopin’s new direction, in the difficult few years at the end of his life, towards a directness and purity of expression.  The Polonaise-Fantasy has somewhat the same mood, although it is much more elaborate.  The little nocturne is a tragic whisper.”

Chopin Biographer Arthur Hedley once wrote: “From the great Italian singers of the age [Chopin] learned the art of ’singing’ on the piano, and his nocturnes reveal the perfection of his cantabile style and delicate charm of ornamentation.”

Recent scholarship by some musicologists hear the song of a sorrowful Venetian gondolier (borrowed from Italian opera composer Giaocchino Rossini, whom Chopin greatly admired) in the undulating Nocturne in C minor, the 21st and final essay in the genre that Chopin perfected. It dates from 1847, just two years before Chopin’s death, but was not published until decades later.

• Listen to Nocturne in C Minor, KK 1233-5 by Fryderyk Chopin
  performed by Arthur Greene recorded live at the University of Michigan’s Britton Recital Hall
• Download sheetmusic for Nocturne in C Minor, KK 1233-5 by Fryderyk Chopin

Bank commercial angers political party

Thenews.pl – Warsaw,Poland

Thin skin in Polish politics, and Chopin supplies the soundtrack…

Opposition politicians are outraged at a TV commercial, complaining that a bank manager character is clearly an attack on President Lech Kaczynski.

The politicians from the Law and Justice party think that well-known actor Marek Kondrat was parodying President Lech Kaczynski in a spoof address to the nation. Although the commercial for a leading bank appeared on television only last weekend, it is already hugely popular on the internet.

The commercial shows the actor delivering an address to the nation, accompanied by music by Fryderyk Chopin and with patriotic flags in the background.

Many see it as a spoof of the president’s address to the nation, which caused some controversy in March.

“Fellow countrymen: everything is better. And it’s going to be even better… than it is. The European Union already feels our hot breath on its affluent back. Our food has already outdistanced their food. For example…our sausage… The time has come to say: let’s enrich ourselves,” says actor Kondrat in the commercial.

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(On the subject of Polish Bank Commercials: Check out this John Cleese Video:)

John Cleese – Polish Bank Commercial (sorry, no Chopin)

Free sheet music from Mutopia Project

WalletPop – VA,USA

The MuTopia Project comes to the attention of a US blogger:

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Martha Argerich: The Collection 1

Musical Criticism – London,UK

High words of praise for a remastered and reissued series of Martha Argerich’s original sides for DG – presented in chronological order, dating back to her 1961 debut recording.   The early Argerich is heavily Chopin-centric, to telling effect….

In Argerich’s debut recording…we have what amounts to a manifesto of her astonishing brand of piano playing. A scintillating version of Chopin’s Third Scherzo – have its defining double octaves ever sounded so effortless at such an exacting pace? – is followed by Argerich’s big-boned and passionate Brahms (the two Rhapsodies Op.79). There’s more Chopin in the Barcarolle Op.60, which, along with Ravel’s Jeux d’eau, shows her ability to coax an array of colours from the piano. A furious Prokoviev Toccata and a Liszt finale – the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody – give a further demonstration of a technique of such thoroughbred robustness that no music seems to hold any fears for it. Restored here is also the original LP cover – it was replaced in 1967 by the better known black and white photo used for the Originals reissue as well as the cover of this box – which helps to remind us just quite how prodigious the young Argerich was (she was only nineteen at the time of the recording).

Although all the recordings here are all well known it’s fascinating to have this opportunity to relive the releases one by one, placing them in the context of Argerich’s far from conventional career. It was not until six years after her debut that her next solo recording – an all Chopin affair – was released. EMI recorded a recital with Argerich in 1965, the year of her triumph at the Warsaw Chopin Competition, but legal reasons prevented this from being released until relatively recently (1999). Common ground between the EMI recording and the next disc in this set, recorded for DG in 1967, comes in the significant form of the Third Sonata, the ‘Heroic’ Polonaise Op.53 and three Mazurkas Op.59. For DG Argerich also included the Polonaise-Fantasie Op.61. Here some of the excessive forcefulness that some have criticised in Argerich’s playing is apparent, most noticeably in the sonata’s opening movement. Jed Distler, who provides brief introductions to all the recordings, writes ‘how Chopin would have reacted to Argerich taking the B minor Sonata first movement’s Allegro maestoso as a veritable Allegro con fuoco is anyone’s guess’ and the effect is an inevitable reduction in the movement’s great lyricism. But by the time we get to the blistering account of the finale, it’s difficult not to have been won over by the sheer force of Argerich’s interpretation.

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Pianist Wang enjoys unpredictable schedule

Schenectady Gazette – Schenectady,NY,USA

When your star pianist (including Martha Argerich!) cancels, who ya gonna call? 21-year old Joyce Yang, it turns out.  And she owes it all to Chopin…

Wang’s maturity as a performer is as much a surprise to her as it is to the many audiences and critics she impresses, she said. Until she was 10, she’d never heard a recording of classical music. Her first CD was of Maurizio Pollini playing Chopin Etudes.

“I had no music in my head. I had no imagination until I came here,” she said.

People at home in China called her a prodigy, but her teachers were always very critical and made sure she had a good technical foundation. That impressed Gary Graffman, who, in 2002, took her on as one of his students at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

She graduated this June, which was almost a non-event for her, she said. In the past two years she has barely been at the school because she’s been out giving up to 100 concerts a year. Now, she has to decide where she wants to live or if she wants to live in North America, she said.

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Learn to play Funeral March by Frederic Chopin

http://www.songpond.com/songs/funeral-march

From a new site called Songpond (“where you learn to play your favorite songs”), they invite you to subscribe and learn to play a Chopin favorite via an instructional video:

Learn this Classical song that has become an anthem in pop culture for death and funerals. It was adapted to appear as Darth Vaders theme in the Star Wars film. Learn this classical piece with step by step easy to follow video lessons. Techniques you will learn and apply in this lesson include: identifying thematic sections, block chords, two note chords, repetition, transposing up the octave, tertial harmony, the minor key, 2 finger over thumb, dynamic contrast. This lesson is most suitable for a Beginner pianist. It is rated Easy. Running time: 19.04 minutes.

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Chopin on Performing

By J.C. Combs
Amaranth Arthouse Music – http://jamescombs.wordpress.com

Nice and timely quote from Chopin….

Today, as was yesterday, pianist composers are expected to perform. Similarly, I suspect there is more money in performing. Yet one king in the history of the piano wasn’t too confident about performing. Preferring small parlors. intimate settings, Chopin did not at all match in performing personality the pianists who champion his works.

“I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience intimidates me, I feel…” – Chopin

Another Round of Nielsen and a Hunt Lieberson Encore

New York Times – United States

A roundup of reviews by Times music critics includes a glowing account of pianist Alexander Tharaud’s unique and dynamic reading of the 28 Preludes by Chopin: ‘At times Mr. Tharaud treats the Preludes as a Chopinesque “Pictures at an Exhibition.”’  

CHOPIN’S Preludes are not typically thought of as forceful, insistent and assertive these days, and if you are put off by the notion of a performance that grabs you by the lapels and won’t let you go until it has had its say, then Alexandre Tharaud’s recording is not for you.

Mr. Tharaud’s performance argues that only a live-wire interpretation, with hard-struck chords and tactile textures, reaches the music’s core. He is remarkably persuasive, even if you feel he has gone too far when he describes the Preludes, in a booklet interview, as “shot through with violence and death.” His view is not far from that of Schumann, who called the Opus 28 Preludes “eagles’ pinions, wild and motley pell-mell,” that contain “much that is sick, feverish, repellent.”

Still, Mr. Tharaud is clearly not out to recreate a 19th-century Chopin style. He is too inventive and idiosyncratic a performer for that. Some of the faster works — the short G major Prelude, for example — are played at a daunting clip but with jackhammer clarity. Even the slow, regal pieces have stormy, portentous undercurrents.

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Martha Argerich: The Stuff of Legend

New York Times – United States

Provocative contrarian view of Martha Argerich DVD (discussed in an earlier posting)  that cites the loss of a legendary Chopin interpreter as having a profound impact on Argerich’s career..pointed out  in a letter to the New York Times editor…

The best example of this is the assumption that the beloved and super-talented Martha Argerich (whom I met in Brussels 44 years ago, a year before she won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw) could ever be classified as shy.

I remember Ms. Argerich as quite aggressive, absolutely fearless and eager to be on the stage. Quite a logical attitude for a pianist with extraordinary technical equipment. If Ms. Argerich refuses to play recitals, her memory and still outstanding dexterity aren’t the reasons. It is the lack of an interpretative guru, like the Polish pianist Stefan Askenase (who died in 1985), a powerful force in remolding her while in her mid-20s.

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Close-up: Gabriela Montero

Independent – London,England,UK

Speaking of Martha Argerich…her name pops up again in this dispatch about South American pianist Gabriela Montero, making her debut at the Edinburgh Festival: 

She’s been playing piano since before she could talk and made her debut with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra aged eight. She can play “La Cucuracha” in the style of a Chopin Polonaise, Beethoven’s Fifth as a Piazzolla tango. But it wasn’t until a late-night conversation with the Argentine pianist Martha Argerich in 2001 that Gabriela Montero felt she could improvise on stage “without feeling I was doing something wrong”.

At 18, Montero considered a career in psychology before taking a place at the Royal Academy of Music, London. When she met Argerich, she had all but given up again, despite winning the Bronze Medal in the 1995 Chopin Competition.

Now 38 and based in Massachusetts, the Venezuelan is at last “very much at peace”. With a series of EMI discs, and an international concert schedule, she is on a roll, playing programmes in which one half is core classical and the other improvised. “The first half I get into who Chopin was, who Schumann was,” she says,”while the second half is really my world. I have no plan, no road-map.”

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FROM LEARNING TO KNOWING

Calcutta Telegraph – Calcutta,India

A very different kind of recital review from Calcutta, that connects Chopin with ’70s crooner Morris Albert: “When singing in public from little slips of paper has become de rigueur with the Tagorean orthodoxy in Calcutta, it was most reassuring to hear 20-year-old Gaurab Dutta perform with increasing aplomb a long and devilishly difficult programme of Classical and Romantic music for the piano entirely from memory. This was Dutta’s debut concert as part of the Monsoon Concert Series at the Calcutta School of Music on July 19…”

After the interval, Dutta played Schubert’s Sonata in A minor, beautifully interpreting the exquisite melancholy of its Allegretto quasi andantino. He then played one of Moritz Moskowski’s Études de Virtuosité, which was the cleverest way of preparing himself for the profoundly meditative Nocturne in E minor and a rousing Valse Brillante, also in E minor, both by Chopin. For the encore, he played, with a sort of inspired audaciousness, an arrangement of Morris Albert’s mid-Seventies popular song, Feelings, managing to make it sound like something Chopin had composed in his early teens. There is a difference between ‘learning’ a piece of music and ‘knowing’ it — a difference that a sensitive listener would pick up at once. Everything that Dutta played that evening with such impressive technical daring was impeccably learnt and committed to memory. But the first Scarlatti, the Schubert Andantino, the Chopin Nocturne and, oddly enough, Feelings at the end sounded like music that he has come to know deeply, and has begun to make his own

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The Good Daughter

New York Times – United States

New York Times magazine Q & A with author Amy Tan, prompted by her first foray into opera — Tan wrote wrote the libretto for “The Bonesetter’s Daughter,” which will have its premiere at the San Francisco Opera next month and is based upon Tan’s novel of the same name.    Tan notes in the Q & A that her mother “wanted me to be a concert pianist, and that would be on weekends.  My day job would be a brain surgeon.”

Why do you play the tambourine instead of the piano after all your years of lessons? Chopin is not what you play when you’re in a rock band.

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Dutoit muscles perfection in stunning opening night

The Saratogian – Saratoga,NY,USA

Review No. 3 of the Philadelphia Orchestra/Charles Dutoit/Emanuel Ax in Saratoga Springs….

Soloist for Wednesday’s program was the stellar pianist Emanuel Ax, stepping in on a few days’ notice to substitute for scheduled guest André Watts. Ax played Chopin’s Concerto No. 2, rather than the programmed Grieg Concerto, and his choice reflected both his experience (he has recorded much of Chopin’s works) and his heritage.

Ax was born in Poland, and Chopin is an enduring and beloved symbol of that often war-torn country’s culture.

Ax handled Chopin’s music on this night as if it was a new discovery. His statement of the slow, second movement’s lyric message was fresh and alive with romance, appropriate to a piece written when the composer was barely 20.

Soft-edged and self-effacing, Ax lets his hands speak for his heart and head. In the few moments of this work that the piano had rests, Ax beat the rhythm into the air by his side as the orchestra played.

The fast third movement of the concerto is filled with handfuls of slippery passages, and Ax skated right through them while still keeping each note distinct. The music sparkled and sang.

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Recordings show the strengths and weaknesses of Kissin

Fresno Bee (subscription) – Fresno,CA,USA

Reissue on Brilliant Classics of Evgeny Kissin’s early Russian recordings get mixed reviews, but his Chopin concertos earn top marks:

Evgeny Kissin, “The Early Recordings: Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 12 and 20, Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3, Schubert’s ‘Trout Quintet’ plus works by Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Scriabin, Liszt and Brahms” (Brilliant Classics) Grade: B

In Concert: “Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1, Chopin Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 plus works by Liszt and Schumann” (Brilliant Classics) Grade: A )

The first volume, titled “The Early Recordings,” is the most collectible since it contains some of Kissin’s least-circulated concerto recordings. And though the performances are well-played and judiciously interpreted, they do make you wonder if his child-prodigy years were overrated. The “In Concert” set from 1987 gives the opposite impression, lending credence to piano pundits who claim Kissin never was greater than in those early years.

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Chopin on the Web:

Chopin Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:01:14 PST
By chopin@perfectpeople.net (Chopin)

A new “celebrity site” called Perfect People gives the celeb treatment to Our Man Chopin…

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2

By charliend
Charlie Media Blog – http://charlie-blog.com/media

This just in: “Chopin is definitely a legend in the field of classical music.”

But suddenly, I remembered one music that my mother used to play at home, usually on sunday evening. Because of that, I really like this song, it transpose me in the past. Chopin is definetely a legend in the field of classical music.

Triumphal return for Philadelphians

Albany Times Union – Albany,NY,USA

The Philadelphia Orchestra launches its 43rd summer season in Saratoga Springs.   Bravos for the Beethoven, but the orchestra’s reading of a Chopin concerto with Emanuel Ax is in need of some Posturpedic treatment…

Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 featured soloist Emanuel Ax, whose pearly tone and always elegant touch can show off the composer’s solo repertoire to wondrous effect. But with Chopin’s billowy soft orchestration, it was just too much cushy comfort. One needs some firm back support as well as a soft place to rest the head.

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Philadelphia Orchestra puts on a terrific show in debut

Schenectady Gazette – Schenectady,NY,USA

Same concert by Chief Conductor Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra; different takeaway from the Schenectady paper…

Ax was a superb interpreter of the Chopin. His fluid streams of notes were flawless and he gave the phrases much room to breath.

His dynamics were especially delicate and he didn’t hesitate to be forceful when the music called for it.

That energy lent a vigorous quality, which was a nice balance to the filagree.

In the slow second movement, Ax etched the sublime melody like the craftsman he is.

There was much delicacy in his very finished phrases.

The final movement was virtuosic, speedy and very charming in its sometime use of dance styles, such as the mazurka.

Throughout, Dutoit was the perfect partner.

The orchestra knew how to keep its balances and yet provided exuberant support when called for.

Ax was very pleased with the result as was the crowd, which gave everyone a standing ovation, long applause and several curtain calls.

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Lang Lang keys up Olympic gig

Variety – Los Angeles,CA,USA

Expect to see lots of stories on this subject in coming days…

Lang, who records for Deutsche Grammophon, has famously been filmed playing Chopin using an orange. With daring references to kung fu and videogames peppering his discussions of the great composers, Lang has made classical music accessible to many in China, which has some 30 million piano students.

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