....a roundup of Chopiniana: current news, views, reviews, recordings and performances in the runup to the 200th birthday of the matchless Polish keyboard composer.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Chopin Currency - May 7, 2008



Chopin News, Reviews, & Previews:

A scintillating fiesta of melodies
The News - International - Pakistan

It's not often we get Chopin reviews from Karachi!

The evening’s programme opened the Polish-French composer Frederick Francois Chopin’s Waltz in F Major. Ayesha Tariq gave a delightfully precise interpretation of the composer’s characteristic style, buoyant, perky and lively. The way her fingers moved over the keyboard in quick time with perfect ease, really made the rendition come alive with exuberance and vivacity.

Ayesha, originally from Uzbekistan, and married to a Pakistani in Karachi, is a graduate of the Tashkent Conservatoire and has been playing the piano since she was seven. She certainly stole the show of the evening with her wizardry at the keyboard.
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Review: Fliter plays with passion, precision
Kansas City Star - MO,USA

Ingrid Fliter's fingers fly impressively in KC....


The second half of the program displayed Fliter’s comfort with Chopin, from the intimacy of the Nocturne in B Major, Op. 9, No. 3, to the complexity of the Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58.

While Fliter impressed with the ascending left-hand chromaticism of the Allegro maestoso and the presto flash of the opening measures of the Molto vivace, it was the third movement, the Largo, that was representative of this 34-year-old pianist’s manner: a flow of beauty in the arpeggios, and a delicate precision of melody and passionate crescendoes.

Fliter played two encores, the first was the crowd-pleasing Minute Waltz.

But it was the second that provided another highlight (besides the Chopin Largo): Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s “Danza del gaucho matrero.”

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:


Chopin in Motion: Simplicity, Virtuosity, Structure
By George Jackson

A Danceviewtimes review of an Isadora Duncan revival in Bethesda, MD takes a fascinating detour into the history of Chopin and Dance....

Six of the pieces were to Chopin’s music and particularly the “Prelude” (Duncan 1902; Chopin Opus 28 #7) and the “Mazurka” (Duncan undated; Chopin Opus 33 #3) reminded me of Mikhail Fokine’s ballet “Les Sylphides” that historians tell us was “supposedly” influenced by Duncan. . The Duncan dances move persistently, they pulse musically and posses a purity and simplicity [...]

There were other Chopin ballets in the early 1900s. Stockholm had one and so did Vienna. The Viennese one, “Chopin’s Dances”, might have influenced Fokine. Formally at least, it sounds like the first version Fokine made of his Chopin ballet and titled “Chopiniana”. “Chopin’s Dances” premiered two years earlier than the Fokine, on 16 April 1905 at the Court Opera in Vienna on a bill with the operas “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “I Pagliacci”. It had choreography by Josef Hassreiter and initially was to have told a bit of a story – “… Chopin would have appeared on stage, and loved and died in the course of a pas de deux and ballabile”. That “starting” notion was rejected. The result was plotless. “Chopin’s Dances” proved to be long: an hour and a quarter’s worth of national character and classical dances. “The unfortunately piecemeal nature of the music was countered by the charm of the dances.” Particular praise went to the “Minute Waltz”, a pointe variation for ballerina Irene Sironi. “The familiar and beloved music together with the precision and dance joy of the ensemble earned the work much applause and secured it a place in the repertory”. Actually, “Chopin’s Dances” lasted only three seasons in its entirety and totaled just 20 performances in the years 1905 to 1907. However, some of its numbers were added to the divertissements in Johann Strauss’s operetta “Die Fledermaus."....

danceviewtimes - http://www.danceviewtimes.com/



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....is a roundup of all things Chopin leading up to the 200th anniversary of the matchless Polish composer for the piano in March 2010.