The Chopin Currency - May 8, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

A Country In The Moon is a poetic exploration
Metro - London,UK

Echoes of Chopin abound in a new travelogue through post-Communist Poland by an Australian author '"honoring a deathbed pledge to his uncle– an eccentric concert pianist obsessed with the music of Chopin...."

Michael Moran spent the best part of two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall based mostly in brutalist Warsaw.

He also travelled extensively elsewhere through Poland, often in the footsteps of his beloved Chopin, who provides a silent accompaniment to his wanderings.

Recalling something of WG Sebald, Moran's poetic exploration of Poland's deeply chequered past mixes the recent rapid changes that followed the collapse of communism with Poland's wider, shifting history of loss, occupation and mass population displacement under the Russians and the Germans.

Moran is a sensitive, intelligent companion, as able to capture the rapacious spirit and chaotic conditions of modern Poland as he is the mournful, savage ghosts of its past - the result is moving and absorbing.

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A cellist with fervor, and maturity beyond her years
Boston Globe - United States

Fiery young cellist Alisa Weilerstein gets generally high marks for her performance and personality at a Boston recital with pianist Inon Barnatan , though her Chopin is hardly the high point....

...She closed the program with Barnatan returning to the stage for a jointly sensitive reading of Chopin's Cello Sonata (Op. 65). In this case, however, the Chopin sounded a bit too similar to the Beethoven, highlighting the way that Weilerstein's strong musical personality seems to flood everything she plays. In other words, she is still grappling with the paradox of how to perform with such a distinctive individual stamp while avoiding a creeping sense of sameness; how to have a strong interpretive voice while still granting the temperature, moods, colors, and sensibilities of a work their own radically independent lives

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Montero's true talent lies in the improv
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Milwaukee,WI,USA

Things go better for Gabriela Montero once she departs from the script...

Pianist Gabriela Montero played Chopin and Bach/Busoni as if she were making it up as she went along, and not in a good way.

Montero's bangy dynamics and lurching phrasing made for an awkward, inelegant Ballade No. 3. And that implacable forward drive that is the essence of Bach's Chaconne, as its chord pattern turns over and over, was nowhere to be found....

[...]

In the second half, Montero did make it up as she went along, and in a very good way.

Reviving a practice common in the days of Mozart, Clementi and Beethoven, she improvised on themes called out by the audience. The lively give and take between performer and patrons resulted in: Paganini's 24th Caprice for Violin, woven into clever and sophisticated two- and three-part inventions; "The House of the Rising Sun," percolating in ragtime and jumping in stride style; "Summertime," re-imagined as Rachmaninoff; "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring," in dizzying Art Tatum jazz turns and an intense Astor Piazzolla tango twist; and an "Amazing Grace" after Chopin at his most intimate.

In every case, she showed an astonishing ear, vivid imagination and canny sense of historical style. Every improvisation took the theme somewhere you never would have imagined but that made perfect sense in context. In every case, the theme went on a plausible but surprising harmonic adventure and came to satisfying closure. Montero wasn't just noodling over tunes, she was composing on the spot at a high level. Lots of pianists can play better Chopin, but almost no one can do what she did in the second half of this concert.

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Festival puts fleet fingers to good use
Ventura County Star - Camarillo,CA,USA

Italian pianist Giuseppe Albanese hits the Ventura highway...

Ventura Music Festival artistic director Nuvi Mehta had it just right when he said Saturday's concert was destined to create "an illusion that pianists have four hands."

Giuseppe Albanese, a 29-year-old Italian keyboard artist who made his West Coast debut at last year's festival, had his hands full with a program of some of the most demanding pieces in piano literature: Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata, Schubert's "Wanderer" Fantasie, Chopin's Polonaise-fantasie in A-flat Major and Liszt's "Reminiscences de Norma."

But the young Italian has more than fleet fingers. He also has a well-honed musicality that captures the relative buoyancy and melodic profusion of Schubert's "Wanderer," the Polish themes and rhythms so elegantly summoned by Chopin and the bravura style of Liszt.

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The Chopin Currency: April 22, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Pianist Born to the Colors of Chopin
New York Times - United States

Veteran New York Times critic Bernard Holland isn't thrilled about Ingrid Fliter's Beethoven and Schubert, but is charmed by her Chopin:

The Ingrid Fliter who appeared after intermission was a different person. She was born to play Chopin, and she knows it. The colors are many and subtle, the range of loud to soft is unusually various, and she has the sensibility for Chopin’s graceful, linear give-and-take. The pieces were the Nocturne in B and the B minor Piano Sonata. The Met Museum’s audience liked both very much.

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Cliburn Gold Medal winner's performance "impeccable"
Montgomery Advertiser - Montgomery,AL,USA

Meanwhile, a Montgomery (Alabama) critic finds the Beethoven and Chopin performances by Van Cliburn Competition winner Alex Kobrin to be indistinguishable, which is a good thing...

Six Chopin pieces followed – the heroic G minor “Ballade” to start this section, the dramatic F minor “Ballade” to end it, and in between four “Impromptus,” the last of which was the familiar “Fantasie-Impromptu” best known for its lyrical second theme.

For a gold medal winner, there is no need to comment on technique. It was impeccable as expected. But what distinguished this pianist was his thoughtful approach to every phrase. In the most cerebral, expressive phrases he slowed the tempo but never lost the intensity of those phrases and found significance in each note. He saved speed for the most impassioned sections.

His program showed a special affinity for the Romantics, drawing flowing melodies and dramatic climaxes from both Beethoven and Chopin. Both composers had much the same style in Kobrin’s playing.

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Phuong Nam to release 13 albums by pianist Dang Thai Son
VietNamNet Bridge - Hanoi,Vietnam

Vietnamese press agency announces the release of the biography and a baker's dozen of recordings by Vietnamese favorite-son pianist, (winner of the 1980 Chopin Competition) as he prepares to return to his hometown of Ho Chi Minh City...

Victor Entertainment permitted Vietnam’s Phuong Nam Film to release this collection. These are high-quality products which bring listeners poetic melodies by Tchaikovsky and romantic rhythms by Mendelssohn, Liszt, the sophistication of Ravel, and especially, immortal melodies by Chopin, whose music works account for around nine of the 13 CDs.

For the first time, the book “A pianist loved by Chopin – the Dang Thai Son story”, published by Yahama Music Media Corporation in Japan in 2003, will be published in Vietnam. The book’s author is Japanese journalist Ikuma Yoshiko, who loves the Vietnamese pianist’s music.

Dang Thai Son is the first Asian artist to win first prize at the Concours Chopin and the pianist holds the highest number of sub-prizes in the history of this music award. American pianist Isaac Stern (1920-2001), who received a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 1987, said Dang Thai Son is a musical genius.

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Richard Goode's Gilmore Festival Prelude recital worth the wait ...
Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com - Kalamazoo,MI,USA

Goode plays great Chopin (among other things) at the Gilmore....

Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48, No. 1, was first of several Chopin works. Goode's playing here showed superlative use of dynamics and miraculous control of octave runs. Of four Chopin Mazurkas performed, the E Minor, Op. 41, No. 2, most engaged the large audience by virtue of an ingratiating mellow effect. [...]

Three final Chopin pieces ended the program. Scherzo No. 4 in E Major, Op. 54, was my favorite. Goode invested drama in a work that featured a steady thematic line surrounded by bustling musical ornaments. Goode's quick hands gloriously executed chromatic runs and challenging arpeggios. The other pieces, fine overall, were blemished by Goode's stomping foot. The encore -- what else?: another Chopin "bijou."

Goode's greatest strength was a consummate ability to convey beautiful musical sense, without injecting a performer's egoistic detractions.

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Cultured Tangos
Blogcritics.org - Aurora,OH,USA

Yesterday it was Enrique Granados being called "The Brazilian Chopin." Today a Blogcritics magazine writer likens Chopin to Argentinian tango-master Astor Piazzolla...

It may be that in musical retrospect, from a luxury of twenty-twenty critical hindsight, that Astor Piazzolla will be seen as having done in the twentieth century for the tango what Frederick Chopin did in the nineteenth for the waltz. It is perhaps already an accepted position. With the waltz, Chopin took an established popular form and stretched its boundaries so that what an audience might have expected to be a little ditty was recast to express heroism, sensuality, pride, or even occasional doubt. The little dance tune then, in Chopin's slender hands, became an elegant art form, highly expressive, utterly Romantic in its ability to convey human emotion....

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Fun With Chopin

The planned Chopin marathon on BBC Radio 3 prompts a Brit blogger's musings on Chopiniana...

I ask him if he’s seen the romantic comedy Impromptu, starring a pre-Richard Curtis Hugh Grant as the consumptive composer:

http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0102103/

It’s one of my favourite movies that people haven’t heard of. The director is James Lapine, better known for the original stagings of Sondheim musicals like Sunday In The Park With George and Into The Woods, and it has the same sense of anachronistic wit in a period setting, not least Judy Davis’s constant exclamation of ‘Balls!’

In fact, it ties in with my theme of the other day - a romance between a butch woman (Ms Davis as the cross-dressing novelist George Sand) and a fragile, stuttering man with floppy hair (guess who). Add Emma Thompson as a dim aristocrat, and Mandy Patinkin in funny, swaggering Princess Bride mode, and it’s something of a gem. How much of the Chopin history is correct I have no idea, but I’d say the film could be compared with Moulin Rouge and the BBC version of Casanova (the one with David Tennant), in eschewing period accuracy in favour of unabashed fun.

Diary at the Centre of the Earth - http://dickonedwards.co.uk/diary

The Chopin Currency - April 21, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

The master songwriter turns maestro
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia

Legendary (and remarkably durable) hitman Neil Sedaka is poised to "return to his classical roots" Down Under...

Sedaka was an acclaimed junior pianist studying at the Juilliard School before he became a teenage songwriter turning out tunes from the hit factory that was New York's Brill Building.

On the road in the 1990s he drew on that classical training to put his own lyrics to the work of composers such as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Debussy and Chopin.

It is this work that will comprise the second half of his performances in Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney.

"It's a very ambitious concert tour," Sedaka says. "I am going to perform with each symphony in the respective cities. I do my big hits over the years and then the classical portion of my concert.

"I had a classical album where I put my lyrics to classical music. The fans who know me for those early hit songs, they're surprised that I can play the classical piano and surprised that I can sing in the Andrea Bocelli-Mario Lanza style which I never did before."

He wrote the songs while touring, scribbling them on napkins in restaurants and during flights, relying on memories of the music he learned as a young piano student. "It was not until I got to a piano months later that I could play them and hear them," he says.

"I had to collaborate with Frederik Chopin and Schumann and Tchaikovsky - this was not an easy feat; if you slipped and went over the line it would be hackneyed and corny.

"It's a unique album. It is not for the aficionados who can sit through a whole classical concert or a whole opera, but for those people who love the arias and the melodies. So I did it for people who are not diehard classical fans.

"We're also doing the world premiere of my first symphonic piece, which is a 12-minute piece called Joie De Vivre, in four movements."

When his initial career foundered - "After a while I overdid a good thing," he confesses, "there were too many tra-la-las, and too many do-be-dos" - he learned that the taste of having a hit record does not leave you.

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Grammy winner to close Tuesday Musical season
Hudson Hub-Times - Hudson,Ohio,USA
Ohlsson will give this year's Margaret Baxtresser Annual Piano concert with a program featuring works by Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Joio, and Chopin. ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Olé! Cuban Pianist Rocks the Sottile
By Lindsay Koob

Cuban virtuoso Jorge Luis Prats plays an all-Spanish (and Brazilian) program at the College of Charleston but Chopinesque comparisions still abound....,

Called by some “The Spanish Chopin,” Granados crafted quite a bit of gorgeous piano music that recalls the Polish master’s sense of musical poetry as well as his technical sophistication. All of it was amazing – but the heart of the work was El Amor y la Muerte (Love and Death) – a particularly intense number that echoes the epic grandeur of Chopin’s famous Ballades. The final El Pelele was a tour-de-force of “caliente” spirit and passionate virtuosity – and Prats brought the house down with it.

Eargasms | Charleston City Paper - http://eargasm.ccpblogs.com

Frederic Chopin's Romances

From the online "interactive magazine" Suite101, a discussion of Konstancja Gladkowska, Maria Wodzinska, and George Sand...

While a student at the Warsaw Conservatory he became smitten with a young soprano, Konstancja Gladkowska (1810-1889). In a letter to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, dated October 3,1829, he says,"O, perhaps unfortunately, I already have my ideal, whom I have served faithfully, though silently, for half a year, of whom I dream, to thoughts of whom the adagio of my concerto [No.2] belongs, and who this morning inspired the little waltz [Op.70, No.3, in D flat major ] I am sending you...."

Suite101: Classical Music Articles - http://ClassicalMusic.suite101.com/

The Chopin Currency: March 30, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Rachmaninoff fails to fill the hall
Arizona Daily Star - Tucson,AZ,USA

Not "news," but an interesting time capsule from February 1925:

Maybe folks went to the literature club’s discussion of “Modern English Novels” or possibly the talk at the Tucson Fine Arts meeting on “Artists of the Nineteenth Century,” but for some reason, on February 2, 1925, when Rachmaninoff performed in Tucson, he did not fill the auditorium. [...]

The Saturday Morning Musical Club was responsible for bringing many well-known artists to Tucson. They brought Rachmaninoff here as a special attraction. Tickets for the event were $1.50, 2.00 and 2.50. Season ticket holders received special rates.

The composer chose selections from Schuman, Liszt and Chopin, in addition to several of his own works. He played with only one brief intermission.

“Rachmaninoff was the quiet, reserved master of his instrument. Not for him the physical accompaniment of his forte passages with the sway of head or body, other than that wrought by flying arms, nor any eye-closed dreamy posture, for such dainty bits as Chopin’s “Ballade” offered.”

According to the reviewer, his playing of “Ballade” “may be likened only to delicate lace, the melody coming from beneath his fingers with magic ease, making a sweetly appealing selection, thrice applauded.”

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Pianist Ralph Votapek instills sweep and grandeur at Brock Hall ...
The Birmingham News - al.com - Birmingham,AL,USA

Ralph Votapek, the very first Van Cliburn Competition winner, wows 'em in Alabam...

He rendered Chopin's Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1, with sweep and grandeur. The "Tarantelle," Op. 45, was pure energy. The Chopin set converged in the perfect sturm und drang of the Ballade in F minor, Op. 52. Cascading chromatic scales were fluid, quick and flawless. With a masterful touch, Votapek shaped this work with countless gradations of dynamics while instilling it with Lisztian fervor.

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Chopin: Favorite Piano Works
By admin0

From a used-vinyl and CD site, a nod to a 1996 compilation by Vladimir Ashkenazy:

This is a masterful performance by the great Vladimir Ashkenazy of Chopin’s favourite piano works. If you love Chopin’s music and Ashkenazy’s magic touch, this 2-disc CD is a must.
Seek & Buy Audio CD - http://vinylrecords.890m.com/wordpress

Misc. Chopiniana:

The Chopin Hotel HDR
By nobody@flickr.com (David Giral)

Nice arty image of the Hotel Chopin in Paris, posted on flickr.com:

Photos from David Giral - http://www.flickr.com/photos/thepretender/

The Chopin Currency: March 22, 2008

Chopin & George Sand
Barre Montpelier Times Argus - Barre,VT,USA

A preview of a WordStage Vermont production of "Frédéric & George," — "an evening of letters, diaries, and memoirs penned by these two paradoxically matched lovers and some of their intimate circle."

"Mme. Sand, beware of Chopin! He is nothing less than a moral vampire!"

"You have no idea what Mme. Sand has managed to do with him in one summer! Consumption has seized that figure and turned it into a soul without a body. The poor creature does not see that this woman has the love of a vampire!"

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Young Chinese pianist shows his reverence for the masters
The Star-Ledger - NJ.com - Newark,NJ,USA

A preview of Yundi Li's scheduled appearances in Princeton and Newark, NJ, where he shares his knowledge of "rival" pianist Lang Lang:

Although there have been hints of rivalry between Li and Lang Lang, Li says they "bumped into each other at Beijing Airport, and it was the first time we met, about three years ago. We said, 'Let's go and hang around next time when we have time.' I think he's a talented pianist with his own style."

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Chopin to be performed at evening Dixie Forum ...
St. George Daily Spectrum - St. George,UT,US

A night of Chopin at Dixie State College in Utah, featuring DSC faculty member Dr. Nancy Allred and DSC alum Monica Hymas:

The duo will present “The Odyssey of Chopin’s Soul: The Four Ballades,” which will feature discussion on the history of these works. Hymas will perform Chopin’s "Ballade No. 1 in G Minor," and "Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major," while Dr. Allred will perform "Ballade No. 2 in F Major" and "Ballade No. 4 in F Minor."

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

ChopinConcerts in Castres

By LoGoRhythm(LoGoRhythm)

Blogger Lowri Blake muses on Chopin for cello in the south-west of France:

After a collection of short pieces and arrangements of music by Fauré, Debussy and Ravel, they played Chopin's Introduction and Polonaise Brillante Op.3. I was dreading hearing the usual souped- up fare (hybrid versions rewritten by various cellists who felt that the cello part was too unglamorous) but no, they gave a terrific account of the piece in its original form. Chopin's intention was to contrast the cello's beautiful melodic line with a more virtuosic piano part, not to compete with it.

brr brr brr...busy line - http://busyline.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency - Ides of March Edition

Chopin Video of the Day:

Kurikinton Fox - F.Chopin - fantasy impromptu in Guitar!!!

Not bad at all!

This is Fantasy Impromptu AKA Gino's piece. These guys did this in g-tar...Amazing:D.
music is everything, everything is music - http://fluteguitar.multiply.com/

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Concert pianist favourite returns
Huddersfield Examiner - Huddersfield,UK

Local favorita Evgenia Rubinova returns to play the Chopin First Concerto at the Huddersfield Town Hall...

In an evening full of festivity and celebration, she will be playing works by Shostakovich, Chopin and Prokofiev. Shostakovich’s Festival Overture premiered ...
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A Classic Contrast (Or So It Seems)
Washington Post - United States

Washington Post critic Anne Midgette weighs the consecutive recital appearances by Yundi Li and Lang Lang, and decide maybe they're not so different after all...

Tuesday's concert at the Kennedy Center bore out the idea (formed at several concerts over the past few years) that Lang Lang, after the stunning promise of his 2001 Carnegie Hall debut, has become one of the most maddening pianists on Earth. He can make any musical passage crass, coarse and bombastic. He can also create moments of breathtaking beauty. And a listener never knows which is coming next.....The Bartok sonata, played from sheet music with a spasmodic hysteria that produced the aural equivalent of dry heaves in places, and Chopin's A-flat Polonaise, of which he made an unequivocal hash, shredding the whole line of the piece in tantrums of pedal and fingerwork.

At Strathmore the following night, Yundi Li appeared a contrast indeed: well-bred, elegant, demure, the epitome of good taste, so sober as to be a little boring until he unleashed some virtuoso fireworks of his own. He opened with a supremely classical take on Mozart's K.330, crisp and light, and continued with a selection of his calling-card composer, Chopin, playing the Op. 33 mazurkas, the nocturne Op. 9, No. 2, and the showy Op. 22 "Grande Polonaise Brillante," with a detour into the Liszt/Schumann "Widmung" to underscore the lyrical singing lines of his playing. There is nothing effete about his Chopin; it is sensitive but strong.

.....

if both are expressing the same thing, Yundi Li is expressing it less colorfully. His program was the more conventional, the one we are supposed to like.But thinking it over afterward, I found I had, as a listener, been more engaged by my annoyance at Lang Lang than my distant approval of Yundi Li.

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Another Chopin Video

Cecile Licad Playing Chopin Ballade G-Moll Op.23
Philippines' Finest Cecile Licad playing Chopin (pronounced as Sho-pan) Ballade G-moll Op.
Everyone Has a Dark Side... I... - http://alexskywalker.multiply.com/

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Celebrities play chess
By Nikita

Look at the company Fryderyk is keeping at the Chessboard..

Artists and musicians: Bono (U2), Madonna, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Guy Ritchie, Frank Sinatra, Salvador Dali, Ludwig van Beethoven, David Bowie, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Sting, Enrico Caruso, Ray Charles, Cher, Frederic Chopin, ...
Chessalee - http://chessaleeinlondon.wordpress.com

♯Five
By Frederic Francois Chopin(Frederic Francois Chopin)

Another installment from the pianopoet...(must be 14 to enter site...)

Am I truly happy with what I did? Thinking back on it now, I'm not so sure I am. I understand what all of us went through, the trials and tribulations we surpassed to get where we were. Then for everything to finally reach the end...the ...
The piano is his way of life - http://pianopoet.livejournal.com/

The Chopin Currency - Feb. 20, 2008

Chopin Reviews & Previews:

Ivan Hewett reviews Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Cédric Tiberghien at ...
Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom

French pianist Cedric Tiberghein receives rave reviews for his Chopin Ballades at his recital at London's Wigmore Hall; critic is less enamored of his Beethoven...

He glided on to the stage like a blond wraith, and as he played all four Chopin Ballades one after another, his hands seem to glance off the keyboard. ...
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Alexander Kanchaveli, RSAMD, Glasgow

Meanwhile, in Scotland, Georgian pianist Alexander Kanchaveli (Third Prize winner in the Chopin Competition in Rome) plays the Fourth Ballade....
The Herald - Glasgow,Scotland,UK
Kanchaveli presented a program of minimal fuss and followed the Sonata with Chopin's Ballade no 4 in F minor, op 52. This piece, though at times wildly ...
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Royal Scottish National Orchestra: Perth Concert Hall
Staying in Scotland, a nice description of Markus Groh making his way through the Second Piano Concerto....
Perthshire Advertiser - Perthshire and Kinross,Scotland,UK
The main work in the concert was a performance of Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, played by the German pianist Markus Groh. This was a virtuoso performance ...
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Allan, 80, receives the gift of music
Allan Marlow turns 80 today, (20/02) and is looking forward to the performance by Japanese pianist Haruko Seki....
Buckingham Today - Buckingham,UK
... industry for many years, has requested a programme of his favourite music including pieces by Debussy, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt and Gershwin. ...
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Painted Horse adds tasty kick to old faves
Nothing to do with Chopin save for the first line, comparing Rubinstein's keyboard confections with a chef's concoctions....
Arizona Republic - Phoenix,AZ,USA
... to eliminate any live-performance mishaps, the great pianist Arthur Rubinstein recorded a Chopin Polonaise with a few wrong notes and unsteady passages. ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Chopin and choping

Mixing Fryderyk and firewood in Somerset, England, apparently without benefit of a spell-checker....
By james hastings(james hastings)
Chasing up some contacts. Very exciting times for Speaking Out. Writing features on some amazing Christian ministries and ready to tackle the next stage of the book, while listening to some Chopin. Praise be God.
ClearView - http://foraclearview.blogspot.com/

Chopin Nocturne Op. 48 No. 1

Charming site devoted to student piano performances.
By pattisonpiano
This track was laid down by Stephanie at her lesson last week.
pattisonpiano - http://pattisonpiano.podbean.com

The Chopin Currency - Feb. 11, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Restoring Luster to Two 20th-Century Dance Legends
New York Times - United States
These mazurkas are danced to Chopin; Limón choreographed them after his company had enjoyed huge success in Poland, where he had visited the home of ...
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Pianist Ohlsson gets standing ovation
Thenews.pl - Warsaw,Poland
He played two pieces by Chopin as encores. The winner of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1970, Ohlsson is a frequent visitor to Polish concert halls. ...
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Keys to success
Daily News Tribune - Waltham,MA,USA
By Jeff Gilbride/Daily News staff For pianist Omar Soffan, the haunting melodies of Chopin's "Nocturnes" changed his life. "I first played piano when I was ...
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‘The Singularity’
Scoop.co.nz - New Zealand
By Afterburner Catherine McKay is more accustomed to mastering Chopin and arpeggios, than taking on acting roles. McKay expects her first acting role to be ...
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Music Society buys a piano: It's harder than you think
San Diego Union Tribune - United States
1, Bach's “Goldberg Variations,” Chopin's Concerto in E Minor and Mozart's Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 488. The one composition he played on every ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

chopin maybe
By Joe(Joe)
The Chopin performance at the university last night was good. It was by Charles Foreman, if that means anything to anyone. One of the two nocturnes he played was especially nice, and I want to get the sheet for it, and set it as the ...
- http://nightmareworld.blogspot.com/

Impromptu
By admin
She drifts between the despair of being married and the despair of her freedom, searching for the happiness which can only be found in Chopin’s (Hugh Grant) love. Along the way, she makes her own rules just as she does within their ...
The Identity GANG - http://identitygang.com

Impromptu Deux
By Kim S. Clune
This post is in response to a classmate who believes that French author Madam George Sand (Judy Davis) in James Lapine’s 1991 film Impromptu, is ”attracted to Chopin [(Hugh Grant)] because she unconsciously learned to be more feminine ...
BRAIN DRAIN - http://atticfox.wordpress.com

Chopin's Ballade no. 1
By Joy(Joy)
I think Chopin was wanting to create a new atmosphere for an ancient gernre for this piece by writing a ballad for an instrument. In the structure, it could be broken down into a large strophic form. I also see similarities in sonata ...
Romantic Literature - http://joysromanticdream.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency - Jan. 29, 2008

Chopin In the News:

Chopin, With Progenitors and Progeny
New York Times - United States
In a brief program note Mr. Goode called the concert “a kind of homage to Chopin.” In practice, this meant surrounding Chopin’s works with music by German ...
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Hamelin takes his piano off-roading
Boston Globe - United States
The second half began with some beautifully supple Chopin (Barcarolle, Op. 60 and Ballade No. 3) and proceeded with Liszt arrangements of more Chopin and ...
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Why hospitals make you sick
Independent - London,England,UK
Colin Ludlow is not so sure There is a scene in one of Ken Russell's musical biographies where the consumptive Chopin coughs up blood over his piano. ...
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Art Talk: Which is the best single piano piece ever written?
The Capital Times - Madison,WI,USA
Lately, my music of choice has been the Ballades of Frederic Chopin (in a photograph, taken near the end of his life in 1849, at left). ...
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Premiera "Living With The Classics"
Onet.pl - Poland
Fryderyk Chopin "Sonata No. 2" in B-Flat Major, Mvt. 4 (Presto) Flavio Varani, piano 11. Modest Moussorgsky "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks" from Pictures ...
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Chopin In the Blogosphere:

CHOPIN - Thru Chopins' Eyes
Lecture & Piano Recital: Classical Romantic Music:Chopin: Join us for an unusual view into the history of Poland and Paris through the eyes of Chopin in the 1800's. Through his aristocratic Polish friends, Chopin knew the influential ...
Massachusetts Performers & Programs... - http://www.semls.org/performer/index.asp

Music calms dogs in animal shelters
By Therese
For dogs, a growing body of research indicates they bark less and suffer fewer anxiety attacks when listening to Bach, Schubert and Chopin. In the Inland area, piped-in chamber music, concertos and sonatas waft through county animal ...
The PetsitUSA.com Blog - http://petsitusa.com/blog

Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 58
By The Avant Gardener
Martha Argerich: Chopin - Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 58 - I. Allegro maestoso (composed 1844, recorded 1965), from the Martha Argerich Plays Chopin: The Legendary 1965 Recording (EMI, 1999)
Good Vibrato - http://goodvibrato.org

The Chopin Currency - Jan. 28, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews

Stark-Iochmans: No flash, but a workmanlike effort
Providence Journal - Providence,RI,USA
Stark-Iochmans turned to Chopin to close out the afternoon, the composer’s Fourth Ballade in F Minor. Again this contained some beautiful playing, ...
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Chopin: Waltzes, Impromptus
By Bl'ogre(Bl'ogre)
This RCA Red Seal CD boasts Arthur Rubinstein's interpretation of Chopin. I would have to admit that it is until these recordings that I have a new feeling regarding Chopin. Before, I enjoyed the virtuous line as a chain of fioriture, ...
BListener's Choice - http://blistener.blogspot.com/

Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2
By Candy Mok(Candy Mok)
By Yundi Li.
Cotton Candyland - http://candymok.blogspot.com/