The Chopin Currency - July 9th, 2008

Chopin Broadcasts:

Waltz in A-flat, Op. 69, no. 1 "L'Adieu"
Performance Today - American Public Media

Today's edition of Performance Today - the most popular classical-music show in the USA - will feature a performance from The Chopin Project: Chih-Long Hu's live interpretation of Chopin's Waltz in A-flat, Op. 69, no. 1 "L'Adieu"

Produced and distributed by American Public Media, Performance Today is broadcast on 245 public radio stations across the country and is heard by about 1.1 million people each week. Each station individually decides what time to air the program. To find out where and when to hear Performance Today, check out publicradiofan, an independent website that is an excellent guide to online streaming of US public radio stations. You'll also be able to hear the show on the Performance Today website for up to seven days after the broadcast.

Chopin News, Views, and Reviews:

Rudolf Firkusny, piano = SCHUBERT: Three Pieces, D. 946; MARTINU ...
Audiophile Audition - USA

Review of a BBC Legends CD featuring the renowned Czech pianist in a 1980 London recital at Queen Elizabeth Hall: "If Firkusny wanted to be Vladimir Horowitz, he could be."

The Chopin and Smetana offerings play as encores. The Op. 63 Mazurka is the pearl of the set of three--what Cortot called an exquisite, aristocratic dream--Firkusny’s touch is a mite pesant, but the natural lilt and grace of the shifting accents retain their innate, mesmeric charm.

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the Chopin Currency - July 7th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

A Souvenir From Vladimir Horowitz
New York Sun - United States

A just-released "souvenir" CD from "one of the great uneven performers in all history" Vladimir Horowitz's very last recital (from June of 1987) hits its highest points with Chopin: "The event took place in Hamburg, allowing the record label, Deutsche Grammophon, to call the album "Horowitz in Hamburg." A little alliteration is always appreciated."

We then have a Chopin mazurka, the one in B minor, Op. 33, No. 4 — and Horowitz plays it with perfect rhythmic sense. The bend and snap of that thing are amazing. He plays it very purely, too, with complete refinement.

In this piece — on this track — Horowitz is in total control of his fingers. There is no old-man faltering.

He ends the printed program with Chopin's "Heroic" Polonaise — so often associated with Rubinstein, but played for decades by Horowitz, too.

Does Horowitz have enough technique — in 1987 — to get through it? Yes. And he summons up plenty of charisma. Or rather, he doesn't summon it up: It simply flows from him, naturally.

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Discovering Poland’s heritage at St James Cavalier
Malta Independent Online - Malta

If there's Polish culture on display in Malta, Chopin cannot be far from the picture....

A piano recital by the pianist Pawel Mazurkiewicz from Poland preceded the opening of the exhibition. He performed works by Bach, Chopin, Scriabin, Grieg, Gershwin and Debussy.

Prizewinner of the prestigious Swiss music prize, Prix Credit Suisse – Jeunes Solistes 2003, Pawel Mazurkiewicz was born in Warsaw and graduated with distinction from the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw in 2000. In 2004 he graduated also with distinction and with Eduard Tschumi Music Prize from the University of Arts in Bern. He is currently assistant professor of the Piano class at the University of Arts in Bern, Switzerland. He has started composing, arranging and performing jazz music as an addition to his classical repertoire...

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

My favourite Chopin recordings
By Stephanie Delacey

A nice post that's both entertaining, and well-researched, with audio to boot: "Here are my top ten Chopin recordings (all, interestingly enough, historical recordings made more than fifty years ago…):" In the Top 10: Dinu Lipatti, Solomon, Alfred Cortot, and even Percy Grainger...

...
Stephanie's Pillowbook - http://pillowbook.co.uk

The Chopin Currency - May 20th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

A Country in the Moon, by Michael Moran
Independent - London,England,UK

Review declares Michael Moran's new book about Poland to be an "absorbing, exasperating and ultimately rewarding travelogue."

Moran emerges from these pages as a romantic, a bon viveur, a music lover and a film buff, equally versed in the polonaises of Chopin, the novels of Joseph Conrad and the movies of Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Kieslowski. He conducts a clandestine affair with unhappily married Zosia, and together they explore the historic cities of her country. His sojourn comes to a premature end when the project's rackety finances expire. The last chapters briskly fast-forward up to the death of Pope John Paul II. As for his romance with Zosia, reader, I wouldn't dream of giving the game away.

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Chopin master returns to Barboursville
Orange County Review - Orange,VA,USA

Somewhat confusing review of young Polish pianist Jacek Kortus' performance in Virginia Wine Country....

Kortus’ return engagement was the fourth in a series of benefit concerts for the Chopin Foundation. This year’s event was hosted by Barboursville Winery and sponsored again by Premier Virginia Properties. As a special treat, Washington National Opera Conductor Maestro Giovanni Reggioli introduced Kortus and the Chopin pieces he would perform in the first half of Thursday’s concert. [...]

Joking aside, the maestro described Chopin as “good music of the people” and said the composer’s works were “good for the first-time person or for the person who studies it for life.”

Kortus, a serious and intense young man of supreme focus, opened the program with Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne in C Minor Op. 48, No. 1. He followed with Waltz in A Flat Major Op. 34, No. 1 that conjured images of a gilded 19th century ballroom full of lords and ladies that finished with such an uplifting flourish everyone in the audience was smiling.

The third selection was Mazurkas in B Flat Major Op. 18, No. 1 and No. 4 in A Minor which began rather chillingly sad only to finish with an offer of hope. In his last selection before the intermission, he performed Chopin’s Sonata in B Flat Minor, Op. 35 where he balanced the emotion of the piece with his technical skill in moments both fiercely fast and smoothly slow. At times the piece sounded otherworldly with such vibrations it seemed the piano might simply explode from the music.

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The Chopin Currency - April 5, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

André Laplante: Piano virtuoso and artist
Barre Montpelier Times Argus - Barre,VT,USA

Previewing his appearance in the Vermont capital, Quebec pianist shares his approach to Chopin:

André’s first point was that Chopin (1810-1849) was a great pianist, and that the piano, not other instruments or the orchestra, was his medium.

“So, you listen to purely Romantic music that was extraordinarily written for piano,” André said. “A lot of pianists are interested in playing Chopin because it’s wonderfully written for piano and, also, it’s wonderfully expressive.”

“He has something to say, but it’s very atmospheric, very imaginative, very colorful,” André went on. “He knew absolutely what you could do with the piano.” Still, a lot depends on the performer.

“If you add structure and add a sense of line, it becomes even more beautiful because it is so well composed,” André said. “With Chopin, you have everything that is pianistic, everything that’s musical, and everything that’s well put together.” André cited the B-Flat Minor Sonata....

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Pianist Nieman entrances Symphony audience
Santa Cruz Sentinel - Santa Cruz,CA,USA

Former Gilmore Young Artist Adam Neiman plays scintillating Chopin in Santa Cruz...

The extreme precision of Neiman's playing displayed the details of Chopin's "Concerto No. 1" while his sensitive nuances imbued the work with emotional depth. Both soloist and orchestra dramatically contrasted the music's dainty passages with its fiery outbursts. The Symphony's fine Steinway, with its clear and vibrant tone, responded admirably in both the forceful and delicate realms. In the "Romance: Larghetto" movement, Neiman's piano set a dreamy ambiance above a seamless fabric of strings. The bassoon, played by Jane Orzel, sang beautifully in a rare romantic role. Though this concerto has no solo cadenzas, it brims with virtuosic passages, which Neiman executed with polish and verve.

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Music Review: Dutoit marshals PSO forces with elan
Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Pittsburgh,PA,USA

Applause for Ax and his approach to the other Chopin concerto:

In the mid-1990s, Emanuel Ax decided to get a more intimate connection to the music of Chopin by recording on an Erard piano -- the same type on which the composer wrote many of his most famous works. His playing of Chopin since then has been greatly informed by this wise excursion from the concert grand, and yesterday he again found a way to bring that more agile sound to the larger tone of the Steinway.

Ax's light attack not only fit Chopin's phrasing for the pianist, but lent the concerto an improvisatory spirit (I could swear he gave a few extemporaneous flourishes, too). The only downside was it further exposed Chopin's stilted writing for orchestra. Clearly the best parts of this work occur when the pianist plays. Ax substituted for Alfred Brendel three weeks ago. It would be a shame not to hear him again for a while.

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Musicians offer new spin on songs
Colorado Springs Gazette - Colorado Springs,CO,USA

Preview of an unusual song-first transcription-later recital by pianist Michael Baron and soprano Jeanie Darnell, presented by the Rocky Mountain Music Alliance....

Baron said he can't resist the lure of playing vocal music arranged for piano.

"As pianists, we play on what we don't like to think of as a percussive instrument," he said.

"Many of us look at the voice as the ideal instrument. That's the challenge for me: to imitate a crescendo on a single note, or a perfect legato."

The program begins with "God Save the King" - known in the United States as "America" - followed by Beethoven's variations on the theme.

There will be songs by Beethoven, Schubert and Alabiev, each followed by Franz Liszt's solo transcription.

"Then we're doing the opposite," Baron said - a group of vocal arrangements of Chopin mazurkas by Pauline Viardot-Garcia, a singer of Chopin's era and one of the composer's close friends.

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The Chopin Currency - April 3, 2008

Chopin News, Previews, and Reviews....

Answering Bach’s Call With Color and Stamina
New York Times - United States

Chinese pianist Xiayin Wang impresses at Carnegie's Zankel Hall...

Even for the most gifted young pianist, it takes a lot to be noticed. Xiayin Wang, a doctoral student at the Manhattan School of Music, is clearly doing something right. In her native China, where she trained at the Shanghai Conservatory, Ms. Wang took first place in numerous competitions. Since her arrival here in 1997, she has added further prizes to her tally, played Carnegie Hall several times and released a well-regarded recital CD. [...]

She offered a well-wrought account of Scriabin’s Fantasy in B minor, the work of a young, earnest Chopin acolyte. She found considerably more poetry in Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat, underscoring its affecting melancholy through the dreamy reverie of her opening bars and her beautifully flexible phrasing throughout.

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Yundi Li shows more fire than poetry
MiamiHerald.com - Miami,FL,USA

Mr. Li goes against type in Miami...

Winner of the International Chopin Competition in 2000, Li offered the Polish composer's four Op. 33 Mazurkas. The perennial Mazurka in D major had the whirl of the ballroom, Li's firmly pointed left-hand adding a rustic edge to the dance rhythms.

Yet while polished and well played, considering this artist's reputation in Chopin his Mazurkas were a disappointment -- generalized and lacking the individual touch and subtle coloring to raise them above any number of well-drilled performances.

Li's Nocturne in E flat major was sensitively done with a hushed glowing coda and he showed his Lisztian bona fides in a steel-fingered account of Schumann's song Widmung.

Chopin's Andante Spianato proved more successful, the cascading notes as fresh and even as a flowing spring. The ensuing Grand Polonaise Brillant was a deft melding of bravura and elegance, with Li sailing through the tortuous complexities of the coda with impressive panache.

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Japanese piano virtuoso Yu Kosuge’s Savannah debut
Connect Savannah.com - GA,USA

Thoughtful interview with the pianist enroute to her Savannah Music Festival debut, triggering memories of earlier visits to the USA...

A good friend of mine, a cellist and conductor, was at the Mayo clinic for cancer treatment. I went there to visit him after in 2005 after my recital at Carnegie Hall. They had three or four excellent grand pianos in the lobbies, and I played on every one of them. I particularly remember the moment when he and many of the other patients came downstairs to listen to me. They wanted to hear more and more. I played Chopin’s Nocturne, and I could see my friend’s tears.

He was a very bright person and he didn’t lose hope until the end, but I realized how much he really suffered. It was the last time I saw and could play for him. It wasn’t a concert but at moments like those it becomes clear that it is so important to share our love for music, and how beautiful what we do actually is.

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Ghostbusting at the Queen Anne Hotel Pt. 2: Haunted by Onions
SF Weekly - San Francisco,CA,USA

Chopin provides the soundtrack to a Poltergeist Pursuit in Frisco...

When last I left off, I was about to enter a haunted room in the Queen Anne Hotel (see last week's Bouncer for part one of this column) after drinking at the Hotel Majestic. I went there with the San Francisco Ghost Society because the hotel is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Mary Lake.

[...]

You'd think I'd be freaking during all of this, but I wasn't that surprised. I believe in ghosts, after all. Mostly I just lay there and snoozed to the strains of Chopin.

Then something terrifying happened.

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Since Day 1
By admin

From the Alternative Music Blog, a post-modern view of the music industry in Chopin's era..

I was talking with a young pianist the other day about composers like Paganini and Chopin, who tended to specialize on a particular instrument. Paganini was the business model for this era of composers and he took violin technique ‘where no man has gone before.’ He also wrote mostly violin pieces. No symphonies, not much chamber music; I can only think of a duet for violin and guitar.
Ditto for Chopin, only for piano. I can only think of a ‘cello sonata and the rest was piano music,solo piano pieces long and short and piano concertos.
I ventured my theory that this was due, in part, to the fact that the music business had already become extremely formatted....

dizzyobrian.org Alternatives in Music - http://www.dizzyobrian.org

It’s Chopin again
By admin

Music and memories triggered by Fryderyk, and a classic video to boot....

There was the sound of Chopin’s Nocturne No.2 in E flat major from apartment B part of the house when I came home. It was a little choppy, but it didn’t stop me from falling back to the year of 2002, the year that I was frantically trying to apply for a college in the US. I was taking buses and trains all over the place to take exams like SAT or TOEFL, and on those trips I’d listen to a CD that has a collection of Chopin’s music. With the music playing I’d be thinking about something like, “wow I’m traveling,” or “I’m so far away from home I’m independent now,” or “I wonder if that boy is thinking of me now” stuff like this.

art omelette - http://www.art-omelette.com/

A Fool's Day Squib
By Martin Langeland(Martin Langeland)

Memories of a classic April 1 gag starring Chopin and the CBC...

Chopin perform the Minute Waltz in something like 68 seconds. This was more than the title called for, but rather less than the vast majority of pianists managed, as somebody hastily sent to the disk library for examples proved.

Over and again was the wonder that we listened to Chopin himself.
And what did we think of that?

Then the canker worm raised its head. A listener called in to report that Bob might want to examine the mast head.

There it was: "Issue 0401." The rage for a lost penny wasn't in it.

Dum Luk's - http://dumluks.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency - March 23, 2008

Today's Yundi Li Installment:

Yundi Li, pianist
Financial Times - London,England,UK

From the Financial Times, Yundi Li shares his fashion faves:

I wore this today because it's comfortable but tonight (in Hong Kong to accept the South China Morning Post and Harper's Bazaar Style Award for Performing Arts) I will wear a Gucci suit. I like Gucci because it's fashionable and modern. I also buy Dior Homme because it has a unique and special look that I love. A classical musician has no choice but to wear a traditional outfit when performing. Armani sponsors the tailcoat I wear for performances....

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Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews (Besides Yundi Li):

Frederica von Stade sings Pauline Viardot
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA

After all of the advance stories, a bona fide review of the Pauline Viardot program:

After performances in London and Paris, "Pauline Viardot and Friends" had its U.S. premiere Thursday at Herbst Theatre. With Marilyn Horne serving as armchair narrator and host, a la Alistair Cooke, the program unfolded as a genial, if sometimes labored, introduction to a figure who is surely new to most listeners. The emphasis landed where it belonged - on the variety of sweet-natured, charming, sometimes melodramatic and occasionally gripping music Viardot wrote.

Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, soprano Melody Moore and baritone Vladimir Chernov performed 14 selections by Viardot, and three by other composers. The Viardot pieces ranged from airy meditations on nature and a winsome Chopin mazurka transcription to a feverish "Incantation" and a love duet from her operetta "Cendrillon.

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Canadian piano virtuoso Louis Lortie performs Chopin Etudes on the ...
Ottawa Start (press release) - Ottawa,ON,Canada

Preview of the Canadian pianist's March 31 appearance in Ottawa...

Following a recital by Canadian pianist Louis Lortie of Chopin Etudes in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Financial Times wrote: “Better Chopin playing than this is not to be heard, not anywhere...."

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Review: Chopin Vodka

By cnull

From "The Essential Blog for the Discriminating Drinker:"

You’re a famous 19th century composer. What are the odds that someone is going to take your good name and turn it into a vodka 150 years later?

The connection is Poland, where Chopin lived and vodka was (allegedly) born. Chopin is a traditional potato vodka, from Polish potatoes. Despite the fancy, frosted glass bottle, it has a very traditional flavor for potato vodkas, too. ...

Drinkhacker.com - http://www.drinkhacker.com



eternal sonata

By david carlton

Another review of the video game...

I pretty much decided I had to play it as soon as I heard that it took place in the imagination of a dying Frederic Chopin; they didn’t do as much with that theme as they could have, but there were other compensating virtues. ...

malvasia bianca - http://malvasiabianca.org

The Chopin Currency - March 18th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Belbin, Agosto taking a classical approach
Boston Globe - United States

Chopin turns out to be the missing ingredient in the ice-dancing tandem's Quest for Gold....

[Tanith] Belbin and [Ben] Agosto are the most successful dance team the US has had, and the Olympic silver medalists seem to break new ground every season. But when coach Igor Shpilband suggested they consider a classical piece for this year's free dance, they worried it might be too much of a stretch.

They turned down some Bach he suggested. When he came back with Chopin, though, they agreed to try it, and the flowing, romantic program has turned out to be the perfect showcase for their skills. It highlights their chemistry, expression, and speed, their traditional strengths. But it has also allowed them to show a maturity and depth of emotion they didn't have three or four years ago.

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Prince of the piano worthy of crown
Albany Times Union - Albany,NY,USA

Hey! It's another Yundi Li review!

"The 25-year-old piano prince then caught the audience's attention with his Chopin: four of the Mazurkas, followed by the well-known Nocturne in E flat and "Andante Spianato" and "Grande Polonaise." The Mazurkas are more relaxed and reflective pieces and quickly showed Yundi is more than a technically proficient virtuoso. He was particularly effective in the fourth number, which recalls the work of Robert Schumann, a friend of the composer."

The young Chinese musician won the International Chopin Competition some years ago, and has made four recordings for the prestigious Deutsche Gramophon ...
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Lang Lang delights, confounds with his individualism
Philadelphia Inquirer - Philadelphia,PA,USA

Hey! It's another Lang Lang review!

Sure, his recital of Schubert, Bartók, Debussy and Chopin was full of strangely mannered playing. But there's a trade-off: His ideas, all his own, are convincingly expressed...

....Here, on this night, marginalization of classical music was a specious myth. After a particularly convulsive and artless reading of Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major (Op. 53), "Heroic," an audience of seniors, teens, hipsters, nerds, 20ish Asian girls, aficionados, newbies, and a surprising number of 6- to 9-year-olds jumped to their feet. Whistles and cheers. Flowers. Flashbulbs.

Who else on the classical stage can claim as close a connection with as diverse a public? Right now, maybe no one.
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Chopin Videos:

Artur Rubinstein Plays Chopin Polonaise “Heroic”
By admin
Lovely excerpt from the 1947 movie Carnegie Hall. Great close-ups of Rubinstein's fingers in action, though the music is quite obviously dubbed...


From picture “Carnegie Hall”. ShareThis.
Next VDO - http://nextvdo.com/







Literary Chopin:

♯Six
By Frederic Francois Chopin(Frederic Francois Chopin)

Another installment from the pianopoet...

[Private//Easily Hackable] I have been thinking about that world again....The world I once called just a passing dream. Traveling in that world, I faded faster than it. It was mostly due to my physical state more so than my mental state ...
The piano is his way of life - http://pianopoet.livejournal.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 - March 14, 2008

Kicking against convention: a scene from The Concert, a clever and ...
This is London - London,England,UK

Another one of Jerome Robbins' famous interpretations of Chopin, from the New York City Ballet performance at the London Coliseum....(be sure to read the Comments for an opposing viewpoint)

The Concert, for example, is a clever and poignant take on Chopin that gently mocks the absurdities of ballet and the suggestibility of music. ...
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'I Think of Us as a Musical Species'
Spiegel Online - Berlin,Germany

Chopin is on the mind of noted neurologist and author ("Musicophilia") Dr. Oliver Sacks...

Oliver Sacks: A Chopin mazurka is coming to me. It is one in B flat major, and I feel an itch in my hands to play it. I can sort of see the keyboard in ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Lang Lang @ Kennedy Center
ionarts by Charles T. Downey | Thursday, March 13, 2008

D.C.-area arts & culture blog weighs in on Lang Lang's Monday night recital: Praise for Bartok; horror for Chopin:

With the final work, Chopin's A-flat polonaise (op. 53), and the encores, Lang seemed to be making up for lost time, trying to inject a whole evening's virtuosity into the space of a few minutes. The Chopin came across like a Duchamp-esque rewrite of a familiar masterpiece, played so fast that all of Chopin's operatic relish of bel canto flourishes was simply steamrollered over in the process. The first encore, a Chopin étude (op. 10, no. 3), was calm and sad, with a blindingly fast middle section.

Martha Argerich Plays Chopin: The Legendary 1965 Recording
By admin0

Superlatives for a long-suppressed recording out on CD:

Lost is Found, finally
This Argerich Chopin performance, recorded by EMI in 1965 while she was actually under contract to DG is formidable for an artist so early in her career. Both the artistry and sound are superb and it’s a shame we fans had to wait so long for this recording to appear. These Chopin performances completely justify the competition judges decision to award her the grand prize at the 1965 Warsaw International Chopin Competition. It’s a collection must have!

Chopin himself would have gone into ecstasy listening to Martha Argerich play his music. It is impossible to find anyone else with such incredible, awesome, impossible ability to impart such emotional energy to a piano. ...
Seek & Buy Audio CD - http://vinylrecords.890m.com/wordpress

♯Four
By Frederic Francois Chopin(Frederic Francois Chopin)

Another "journal entry" from our favorite poet of the piano....(note: must be 14 to enter site...)

So it would seem I have been using my days to find inspiration for my music, and have yet to come across any such inspiration on my part. It is rather down hearting to not be able to find anything I can use as inspiration for my music; ...
The piano is his way of life - http://pianopoet.livejournal.com/

The Chopin Currency - March 13, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Pianist’s intense preparation and talent have brought him global ...
Schenectady Gazette - Schenectady,NY,USA

Another preview for the current recital tour of 2000 Chopin Competition winner Yundi Li, who'll play Sunday March 16th at the acoustically-rich Troy (NY) Savings Bank Music Hall. In this installment, we learn:

His role models for pianists were Maurizio Pollini of Italy and Krystian Zimerman of Poland, both of them previous winners of the Chopin competition who had gone on to major careers.

Since his incredible win at the 2000 International Chopin Competition at age 18 when he was the first competitor to take home a gold medal in 15 years and ...
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Unremarkable night salvaged by Israeli's rendition of Schubert
Ha'aretz - Tel Aviv,Israel

Meanwhile, at the Artur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Tel Aviv, the local critic is more impressed by an old film of the master in action than any of the flesh-and-blood contestants....

The second contestant, Rem Urasin of Moscow, strived to project an especially "deep" message, yet the result was boredom. The mazurkas of Chopin proved heavy and artificial, the antithesis of the Rubinstein approach, of which I was reminded while in the vestibule of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The museum was screening footage of Rubinstein leading a class in 1979 at the "Mishkenot Sha'ananim" in Jerusalem. It is worthwhile to stop and observe the old craftsman in action, demanding "simplicity" and emphasizing articulative rendition that needed to stem from genuine, internal emotion. For him and for musicians that managed to connect with him, such comprehensive instructions contained meaning.

The mazurkas of Chopin proved heavy and artificial, the antithesis of the Rubinstein approach, of which I was reminded while in the vestibule of the Tel ...
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Konstantin Igumnov = CHOPIN: Mazurka No. 33 in B Major, Op. 56, No ...
Audiophile Audition - USA

Another reissue review:

Another in the series The Russian Piano Tradition, this installment celebrates the artistry of Konstantin Nikolayevich Igumnov (1873-1948)--Moscow Conservatory teacher of notables Jakob Flier, Lev Oborin, and Bella Davidovich--with inscriptions Igumnov made 1935-1947 in fair to moderately passable sound. ....Chopin’s B Major Mazurka, which despite the tinny sound that haunts all Soviet inscriptions, reveals a fine sense of legato and good inner pulsation.

Igumnov claimed supremacy in the romantic repertory, particularly in the music of Chopin, Schumann, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, and Tchaikovsky. ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Chord Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Idolator - New York,NY,USA

More about musicologist Dmitri Tyomoczko's intriguing video linking math, chords, Chopin, and spatial relationships.....and just how is it that scientists keep linking Chopin and Deep Purple?

There, he shows a Chopin chord progression represented as movement around a circle, and since a 12-point circle is a clock, it's easy to follow. ...
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CHOPIN-WALTZ

A blogger's selection of favorite Chopin waltzes on YouTube...

Sergio Fiorentino plays Chopin Waltz Op 18 (GRAND WALTZ)--LEARN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXqfMj7xj5M Yundi Li plays Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 --LEARN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvxS_bJ0yOU Horowitz plays Chopin Ballade 1 ...
NONIK'S SITE - http://ininonik.multiply.com/

Loving Coq - Rooster - Ballet Review
By Vance(Vance)

A Toronto blogger weighs in on the National Ballet of Canada's "32" [sic] Preludes" - apparently too dazzled by the outfits to note that there are actually only 24 of 'em....

And then there's the first piece, 32 Preludes by Chopin that is weird and wonderful and modern and abstract and very very cool. Did I mention everyone is in tights? Tights that are transparent and only strategically covered by small ...
Tapeworthy - http://tapeworthy.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency - March 9, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Pianist Alfred Brendel to give his final Chicago performance

Chicago Tribune - United States

On his farewell tour of the USA, pianist Alfred Brendel is not in the mood to second-guess his repertory choices over the years:

At the same time he makes no apologies for avoiding the piano works of Chopin, believing that he could never surpass what the legendary French pianist Alfred Cortot achieved in his Chopin performances and recordings from the late 1920s and early '30s. The only major piano piece Brendel regrets never having performed is Bach's "Goldberg" Variations.

He takes a somewhat jaundiced view of the present generation of pianists, finding fault with many of them for what he believes is their rather cavalier disregard of the composers' intentions as stated on the printed page. "I still would like to hear a decent performance of a Mozart or a Beethoven concerto from one of them," he says dryly.

At the same time he makes no apologies for avoiding the piano works of Chopin, believing that he could never surpass what the legendary French pianist ...
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Yundi Li Recital in La Jolla
SanDiego.com - San Diego,CA,USA

Another mixed review for the young Chinese pianist and Chopin Competition winner, this time from a San Diego critic who finds his performance uneven and puzzling...

At age 25 he has earned his celebrity, but during the first half of his oddly mannered Friday recital at Sherwood Auditorium, La Jolla, the young Chinese virtuoso seemed to be asking the Peggy Lee question, “Is That All There Is?”His bouquet of Mozart and Chopin—staples of his repertory—seemed a bit withered....

...Another disappointment was the familiar Chopin E-flat Major Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 2, which Li made overly cautious and precise, a teacherly example for a slow student. That Chopin staple, the "Andante spinato et Grande Polonaise Brillante," Op. 22, rushed past the listener full throttle, but without much interpretive comment. "Here it is; take it or leave it," seemed to be the performer's message.

There were a few moments, however, when Li’s creative musical personality burst through this ennui. The opening and closing minor-mode mazurkas of “Four Mazurkas,” Op. 33, sounded as if they were being improvised on the spot, with impetuous verve and a vibrant sense of pulse.

At age 18, he won first prize at the 14 th International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland, and the following year launched a spate of CD recordings with ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere

I'm not a big fan... of Chopin
By Nick(Nick)

Blogging violist from Boise State is not impressed by Chopin's creations...

I went to see a fantastic doctoral recital (by some Arizona Post-Grad, BSU doesn't have a Doc program) programmed entirely of Chopin works. I was slightly apprehensive, as I've never taken a deep liking to Chopin, but I went anyway, ...
- http://bsuviolist.blogspot.com/

Evolution of Classical Music - Bach to Chopin
By katyzzz(katyzzz)

???

click here for the link to this video.
katyzzzplace.com - http://katyzzzplace.blogspot.com/