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.

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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/2008/08/11/the-chopin-currency-august-11th-2008/ http://www.chopinproject.com/2008/08/11/the-chopin-currency-august-11th-2008/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:27:03 +0000 bkr http://chopinproject.com/?p=584 Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

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…

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

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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