The Chopin Currency – August 26, 2008

bkr — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:19:32 +0000

Chopin in the News:

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:

For those poor musicians in our readership trying to stay alive on compliments and cat food, and in need of sheet music for a favorite classical piece, the Mutopia Project might be a godsend. Much like analogous sites such as Project Gutenberg, the Mutopia Project is a volunteer-driven online source for classical material. Volunteer musicians transcribe sheet music for pieces by Schubert, Chopin, various Bachs, and other great composers. The music is then posted and made available for free download on the web site.

The music is formated as PDF files, and carries a Creative Commons license allowing free downloading, printing, copying, modifying, and recording. Computer-generated MIDI files are also available to give you a sense of the piece. Those wishing higher- quality copies can choose to pay for professional printing.

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Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp, Op. 36: Merely a “Drawing-Room Trifle?”

bkr — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:45:07 +0000

For years one of the knocks on Chopin’s music is that he was a “ladies’ composer,” spinning out his piano pieces for the sighing, swooning denizens of Parisan salons, the result being that his remarkable compositions were often trivialized or marginalized.

According to the Cambridge Companion to Chopin, the composer hated the association:

“Chopin enjoyed elegant feminine company, but he had harsh views of the fawning of his ‘adoring women.’ He himself used the phrase ‘music for the ladies’, but unhappily he meant it disparagingly. Another association with the salon was the ’sentimental drawing room composer” – the ’superficial genius’ – and the appellation was encouraged by a self-imposed limitation of meidum, but the connotations of small forms, and by the description titles assigned to his music by publishers…”

One publisher in particular who drew Chopin’s ire was a London-based German entrepreneur named Christian Rudolph Wessel. As you can see by the cover page, above, (courtesy of the fantastic Chopin Early Editions site at the University of Chicago) the publisher issued Chopin’s marvelous Impromptu No. 2 in a series he called “Les Agrémans au Salon” — loosely translated as “Drawing-Room Trifles.” With “friends” like that….

Nowadays, Chopin’s Impromptus are a robust staple of the concert hall. Hear pianist Noel McRobbie perform Chopin’s Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, Op. 36, in a concert performance at the University of Michigan’s Britton Recital Hall.

Download the sheet music from the Piano Society web site.