The Chopin Currency - May 28th, 2008

Chopin News, Views, Previews, and Reviews:

Benjamin Grosvenor: Teenage Prodigy Comes of Age
Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom

An object lesson in how to nuture a burgeoning concert career... resulting in "a beguiling, stylish and richly rewarding performance of Chopin's E minor Piano Concerto played by the 15-year-old Benjamin Grosvenor."

Many will recall that he won the keyboard final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, when it was clear that he possessed a talent beyond mere technical accomplishment. Sensibly, in the years since, his gifts have neither been sensationalised nor exploited for short-term gain or fame. [...]

In this performance of the E minor Concerto, no allowances needed to be made for Grosvenor's age. You could shut your eyes and readily imagine that it was someone of far greater years, though at the same time a pianist who had not let familiarity with the music dull its freshness, exuberance and lyrical grace. His was an interpretation with a personality and impulse of its own, while remaining true to Chopin's spirit.

One crucial aspect of the music that Grosvenor had absorbed was the fine balance that exists between whim and structural security, the way in which Chopin's decorative filigree can seem impromptu or relaxed, while having an architectural purpose that fuels and sustains the overall shape and momentum.

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A season for Chopin
Warsaw Business Journal - Poland

"It wouldn't be summer in Warsaw without the echo of Frederic Chopin's music..."

The Sunday All-Chopin Recitals are a Warsaw tradition

Hundreds of people lounging on the lawn by the Frederic Chopin monument in the Royal Łazienki Park, listening as the Polish master's work is performed live by world-renowned artists - this is one of the fundamental Warsaw experiences. The charm of the Sunday All-Chopin Recitals, of which these concerts are part, has been captivating audiences for almost 50 years. The recitals are held every Sunday between May and August....

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The Chopin Currency - May 26th, 2008

Chopin News, Views, Previews, and Reviews:

Piano Archives: Arturo Benedetti Michelangelo = SCHUMANN: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54; LISZT: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major; RACHMANINOV: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 40; CHOPIN: Waltz

Audiophile Audition - USA

Chopin plays a bit part in this reissue CD that has this critic reaching for superlatives...

When you purchase this magnificent CD, better have asbestos gloves on and a fireproof CD player! Rarely have I heard even the great Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920- 1995) in such blistering form, his tensile strength and febrile temperament thoroughly in accord in all three collaborations, 1953-1956. For the collector, the Rachmaninov Fourth Concerto ( 12 May 1956), previously unpublished, with Franco Caracciolo (1944-1992) will more than complement Michelangeli’s commercial recording with Gracis for EMI. [...]

The posthumous waltz by Chopin hardly qualifies as “charming,” but it has a granite-like glitter thoroughly in keeping with the Rachmaninov lusters.

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BBCSO/Belohlávek at the Barbican
Times Online - UK

Today's Ingrid Fliter installment finds our heroine at the piano bench at the Barbican...

Turning up to a concert hall to find that Chopin has been substituted for Szymanowski is a bit like turning up to a dinner party to find that the roast beef has been swapped for crème brulée. But for the young Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter, Chopin is a serious business. And just moments into her dynamic performance of the Piano Concerto No 2 I had stopped missing the indisposed Piotr Anderszewski (originally down for Szymanowksi's Sinfonia Concertante) and was hooked.

Yes, there was a rich sweetness to Fliter's playing - you cannot have Chopin without sugar, not least in the luscious larghetto - but plenty of fibre and muscle as well. Not for nothing has Fliter been compared to her great compatriot Martha Argerich: there's a similar vitality, an engaging restlessness that imbued some of Chopin's most dreamy sub-plots with enough snappiness and tang to keep us on our toes.

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The Chopin Currency - May 2, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

From Georgia with love
Jerusalem Post - Israel

Georgian Pianist Alexander Korsantia prepares to play a concert with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, whose home venue of Henry Crown Hall just happens to be located on 5 Chopin Street...

I perceive Israel as my country," says pianist Alexander Korsantia, who will perform Chopin's Second Concerto together with the Jerusalem Symphony under Leon Botstein in a special concert celebrating Israel's 60th Independence day and 70 years since the orchestra's founding. "13 years ago Israel embraced me. Since then our relationship only strengthens and I try never to let down the local audience," the pianist adds. Korsantia's career received a significant international push after he won first prize at the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition in 1995.

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High praise for Chekhov at Hycroft
Vancouver Courier - BC, Canada

A rare Vancouver twin-bill of one-act plays by the Russian playwright reveals a heretofore hidden Chopin talent:

After the show, back home, I went scurrying to my Chopin CDs--Chopin because not only did actor Olesia Shewchuk completely steal my heart with her Natalia Stepanovna (in The Proposal) and Elena Ivanovna Popova (in The Bear), but she plays Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu on the Hycroft grand piano as part of the show. Multi-talented, she also translated "The Bear" from Russian.

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GILMORE FESTIVAL HIGH NOTES
Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com - Kalamazoo,MI,USA

From the behind-the-scenes blog at the Gilmore Festival in Kalamazoo, MI:

Rafal Blechacz CD wins rave

Rafal Blechacz, who performed Sunday at Western Michigan University's Dalton Center Recital Hall, is getting great press on his new CD, ``Chopin: The Complete Preludes'' (Deutsche Grammophon).

``Rafal Blechacz looks on his CD cover like he can't be older than 14 (he's 22),'' wrote Arizona Republic music critic Richard Nilsen in an April 6 review. ``But his new recording of Chopin's Preludes -- and a couple of Nocturnes to fill out the disc -- has to be one of the best debut albums since Glenn Gould's Goldbergs. It's that good.

``New young pianists pop out of the woodwork almost daily. Some have a great PR campaign behind them; others burst briefly from the many piano competitions before disappearing in the grind of concert tours with every second-rate orchestra in the world. Blechacz is different: He actually has something to say, and a personality that infuses his playing. ... This is truly refreshing pianism.''

-- James Sanford,

Kalamazoo Gazette

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

15 Questions to Freddy Kempf Can you tell who Freddy Kempf is by ...
By pianoplayer0123(pianoplayer0123)

From the "Solo Pianist" blogsite, an online Q & A with classical music's "Man in Black"...

I am at home, in London, – in my wife’s “office” as we have a good friend of ours staying in my room! I am feeling heart-broken and depressed because I have just spent the whole afternoon practising Chopin’s 2nd piano concerto – it is such a wonderful feeling! I also feel great as I went to the gym today and ran my usual 3km in record time – 9 mins. in fact... well just kidding but one day I’ll get it down to 9 minutes... Some day...

What’s on your schedule right now?
On my schedule? Well tomorrow I fly to Sweden to do Chopin 2nd with a really great conductor friend of mine. I’m really looking forward to it as we always seem to make such good music together as well as having such fun. He sent me an SMS today saying, “Hi Freddy. When you arrive? Dinner? Weather is rubbish orchestra is great."

Solo Pianist - http://lyudmilachudinova.blogspot.com/

---

The Chopin Currency: April 29, 2008

Chopin Video of the Day:

Woody Woodpecker: "Musical Moments from Chopin"

Woody Woodpecker and Andy Panda give a piano performance for an audience of barnyard animals. Soundtrack is provided by the duo-piano team of (Thomas) Saidenberg & (Edward) Rebner.


Revver Media RSS - http://revver.com


Chopin News, Reviews & Previews:

A Poet of the Piano, in the Company of His Forebears
New York Times - United States

Times critic finds "Listening to the pianist Richard Goode playing Bach and Chopin on Sunday was a perfect, soul-soothing tonic after a busy week..."

Both Chopin’s life and his music are sometimes overromanticized; his works are either imbued with a sickly sweet perfume and exaggerated rubato or used as Lisztian showpieces. But Chopin adored the music of Mozart and Bach and reportedly sometimes played “The Well-Tempered Clavier” to warm up before concerts.

When Mr. Goode played Chopin after works by Bach, it made musical sense, and each composer benefited from the diligence of his approach. He played with the clean articulation and voicing essential to Bach’s music, which also highlighted the intricacies and counterpoint of the Chopin selections.

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Young pianist enthralls
The Republican - MassLive.com - Springfield,MA,USA

18 year-old pianist Claire Huangci "brought the audience to its feet with her performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor. ..."

A recent Curtis Institute graduate and prize-winner in the 2006 Kosciusko Piano Competition, Huangci proved to be an elegant technician.

She controlled the piano with warm assertion, bringing a broad timbral palette to bear in her execution of Chopin's singular manipulations of the instrument. Neither the bravura passagework general to 19th century piano music nor the whimsical filigree so intimately identified with the Polish master posed any difficulty for Huangci's flying fingers.

The consistency of certain tiny details (mannerisms in the playing of triplets, for example) seemed to reveal a studied expression rather than the appearance of spontaneous extemporization that will surely settle in with ensuing years of immersion in this repertoire.

That said, the fact that composer and player were virtually the same age (Chopin was only 19 when he wrote the piece and 20 when he played the Warsaw premiere), speaks volumes for the value of youthful energy and ardor.

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Pianist Rafal Blechacz displays grace, versatility in thrilling ...
Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com - Kalamazoo,MI,USA

The Chopin Competition winner lives up to the hype at his debut at the prestigious Gilmore Festival....

But a Polish pianist is expected most to have natural affinity with Chopin's music. This proved true with Blechacz performing all 24 of Chopin's Preludes, Op. 28 (1836-1839) -- a "tour de force." The artist elicited totally unique, individual "personality" from each short piece. No. 4 in E Minor was the epitome of sadness, for example, as Blechacz wrung every ounce of wistfulness from the score.

Everyone in the audience had his favorites, and mine included the utterly charming No. 9 in E Major, featuring the pianist's stunning left hand trills, a glorious No. 15 in D-Flat Major and a highly dramatic, affecting last prelude in D Minor, with blistering left-hand playing and dramatic chromatic runs in the right hand.

A genuine surge of approval came afterwards from the audience, leading to a brilliant rendition of a Moszkowski showcase jewel. Clearly, Blechacz had won the hearts of his discerning Gilmore audience.

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Review: Brubeck Braid at Glamour Bar
Shanghaiist - Shanghai,China

Don't know their music, but after the description, of the this piano/cello jazz duo, you may want to check them out!

The two mainly performed pieces from their album twotet/deuxtet including Wash Away (inspired by a dream in which Chopin meets Ray Charles),
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The Chopin Currency - April 13, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Wagner without the words
The Star-Ledger - NJ.com - Newark,NJ,USA

Emanuel Ax plays "a concerto by a composer who never wrote an opera but was deeply influenced by bel canto vocalism (Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2)."

For the Chopin concerto, the soloist is Emanuel Ax, always welcome.

With his avuncular presence belying an acute touch, Ax knows the Chopin concertos inside out, having even recorded them both on a period instrument. Orchestral writing wasn't this composer's thing, but Ax made the keyboard lines shine like a buffed pearl. In the melodic Larghetto, he coaxed sighs without ever being fey, the minute hesitations seeming like dramatic inflections in an unspooling aria.

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Pianist flexes mastery with daunting program
San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA

Cult-figure pianist Konstantin Lifshitz plays an ambitious program that starts with Bach. "He then tackled all 12 of Chopin's Op. 25 Études - and when was the last time you heard a pianist play the full dozen, and from memory? before conjuring the dread of midnight with some Schoenberg and wrapping up with Brahms' gargantuan Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel...."

The dozen Chopin studies, each demanding mastery of a particular technical concern, began with racing arpeggios, butterfly-soft, and ended with more racing arpeggios, stamped with a murderous clout. In between came galloping tempos and visits to windswept, desolate landscapes - and, except for a few short instances of over-pedaling, all of it was super-clear, voiced and colored to tell stories.

How the pianists in the audience felt listening to Lifschitz, it's hard to imagine. Because he was not only whizzing through Chopin's impossible sequences of parallel thirds (Étude No. 6 in G-sharp minor), hand-splitting sixths (No. 8 in D-flat major) and octaves (No. 10 in B minor), he was journeying through emotional worlds.

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Microphone Exhaustion
By GN

Pianist Grace Nikae blogs about her recording session....

Recording of the Schumann G- minor sonata was completed in the past two days, and due to scheduling conflicts for all the parties involved, recording of the Chopin third sonata will take place next month. If all goes well, ...

The Chopin Currency - April 11, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Finale at the Wichita Symphony
The Wichita Eagle - Wichita,KS,USA3

Three-paragraph preview of Ingrid Fliter's appearance in Kansas:

1) Fliter won the Gilmore Artist Award in 2006, with its top prize of $300,000. The cachet that came with the award elevated her career. Her calendar filled with concert dates and she signed on with the EMI record label to produce an all-Chopin CD. It was released this month.

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Review: Orchestra of Opera North with Evgenia Rubinova *****
Yorkshire Post - Leeds,England,UK

More praise for Evgenia Rubinova in Yorkshire...

A young musician who understands a composer's intentions and successfully conveys that to an audience is a delight indeed.

So it is with Evgenia Rubinova, a pianist fully in command of any technical difficulties. Her performance of Chopin's 1st Piano Concerto was enthralling, from her first entry, through the slow movement with which she held our breath with astonishing gentleness, to the light exhilaration of the finale. She is an artist with penetrating musical insight and a self-effacing calm that holds her listeners – not so much in the palms of her own hands, but more so within the composer's spirit.

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Famed pianist visits site of his debut at age 10
Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Pittsburgh,PA,USA

Acclaimed Chopin interpreter Byron Janis returns to his Pittsburgh hometown, filmmaker in tow...

He is in town as the subject of a documentary on his life by filmmaker Peter Rosen. With Janis' wife, Maria Cooper Janis (the daughter of actor Gary Cooper), they also are visiting the pianist's childhood home in Squirrel Hill and his elementary school, Colfax. Janis went on to a celebrated career as a interpreter of Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and more....
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Read Byron Janis' essay on Chopin here

A cultural plenary: Heritage label, jobs in culture, subtitles
EurofundingMag - Paris,France

A Chopin 2010 bill is afoot in the European Parliament...

Another proposal is for 2010 to be made the European year to celebrate the life of Chopin and 2011 the European year of Greek and Latin classics. ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Musical Interlude
By Mirek(Mirek)

A montage from a Chopin film...

... lonely day outside or that the actor reminded me somewhat of my son. Whatever the reason, this clip melted me. It is a montage of photos from a Polish Chopin film (CHOPIN PRAGNIENIE MILOSCI, 2002) scored with Chopin's Waltz no. ...

mirek blog - http://mireklipinski.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency - April 7, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Symphony in home stretch

Preview of upcoming concerts by the Springfield (Mass) Symphony Orchestra, including an appearance by the 2006 the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition winner...

Orchestral romance: On April 26, [Kevin] Rhodes leads the orchestra in a program of central European charm and elegance, featuring Rossini's "Overture to Silken Staircase" ("La scala di seta"), Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Brahm's Symphony No. 3 in F Major. Pianist Claire Huangci, the winner of the 2006 Chopin Competition, is the soloist.

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New Chopin Downloads:

Chopin Downloads on AmieStreet.com
By ArtMusicReview4818
Pianist hugh sung has just made his first set of solo concert grand works by The music of chopin available for purchase on Amie Street. hugh sung’s renditions of the Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69 No. 1, the Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. ...
Art Music Review - http://ArtMusicReview4818.rticlz.com

Chopin piano works Tracks on AmieStreet.com
By classicalpiano7861
Pianist hugh sung has just made his first set of solo concert grand compositions by Piano works by chopin available for purchase on Amie Street. hugh sung’s renditions of the Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69 No. ...
Classical Piano - http://classicalpiano7861.herhangout.com

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: March 31, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Pianist Emanuel Ax sparkles with the Madison Symphony Orchestra
Isthmus Daily Page - Madison,WI,USA

Madison reviewer likes the player, if not necessarily the repertoire...

For its March 28-30 concerts in Overture Hall, the Madison Symphony Orchestra's mandatory guest soloist is pianist Emanuel Ax, a fine musician always welcome. Would that his vehicle had been better chosen.

I must admit straightway that Chopin's two piano concertos have long ago worn badly for me. They were composed as necessary calling cards to launch Chopin's performing career. Chopin knew he was no master of the orchestra or of large-scale forms. His short concerted works are more satisfactory because they do not have to be fitted into classical multi-movement molds. It is significant that his only subsequent ventures into such established-form territory were his Cello Sonata and his three Piano Sonatas, which are at least written on a more congenially intimate scale.

With mediocre thematic material and bland orchestral writing, the two concertos might easily have faded among the dozens of such diffident ventures that cluttered the second quarter of the 19th century. (Anyone for Kalkbrenner, Henselt, Moscheles, or their ilk?) The one saving grace for Chopin's two is their solo piano writing, which set the composer on course to create thereafter some of the greatest music ever written for his instrument.

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MSO matches superb musicianship, wise choices
The Capital Times - Madison,WI,USA

And now, an opposing viewpoint as to the merits of the Chopin concerto....

Ax, a perennial Madison favorite, performed Chopin's Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra in F minor, Op. 21. The pianist's superlative technique, tempered with his elegant style, delivered a wonderfully emotive, technically perfect performance that characterized the definition of great music. No other performer this season has captured the brilliance of a composition to the same degree as Ax.

The Concerto No. 2, written when Chopin was 19, captures the composer's sentiment at the height of romantic youth. Ax's technical mastery explores those passages benefiting from development, while controlling the composer's occasional excesses. The result of those efforts brought the audience to its feet, a show of appreciation rewarded by an impromptu encore, Chopin's Nocturne Op. 7, No. 21. Similar musical themes came forward from the solo piano performance, which was every bit as compelling as the longer orchestral work.

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

A Thoroughly Blessed Life
By Bill

A moving eulogy to a Boise piano teacher and her motivational techniques:

My next lesson came. I started playing the Mozart, and Mildred interrupted me and said, "Let me hear the Chopin." I was shocked because it was the last lesson we would have before the recital. I started playing the Chopin. I was still angry that I would not be playing it for the recital, and I played it with anger. Soon the room was engulfed with the sounds of Chopin coming from this grand piano. At some point during a very agitated part of the Polonaise, Mildred came over, placed her hands on my shoulders and said to me, "Feel the fire of that!" It was the most pivotal point in my music career. The fire she talked of was passion, and I realized that it had taken me over.

She then pulled out the program for the recital that had been printed up two weeks before. It listed me playing the Chopin. She had faith in me and knew how to motivate me, even when I didn't.

Bill and Kent's Place - http://billandkent.com/

The Chopin Currency - March 29, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Horszowski: CASALS: Prelude; CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor; Mazurka in B-flat Minor...
Audiophile Audition - USA

Review of a CD compendium of two recitals (in 1984 and 1987) given by the venerable Polish pianist at the Aldeburgh Festival:

If ever a musician could be “venerated,” it would have to be Mieczyslaw Horszowski (1892-1993), the Polish virtuoso who excelled as solo pianist, teacher, and accompanist, and whose “staying power“ at his chosen instrument lasted 80 years. A pupil of Theodor Leschetizky, Horszowski mastered every degree of nuanced keyboard playing without percussiveness, and the entire Slavic-German repertory lay under his command. [...]

Horszowski opens with an homage to his dear friend, Pablo Casals - an extensive Prelude that plays like a nocturne, dramatic in parts with touches of what sound like Rachmaninov’s famed C-sharp Minor effort. Horszowski takes a broad tempo for the first movement of the Chopin B Minor, allowing Chopin’s modal counterpoint to shine through as well as the second subject to bask in burnished space. The development becomes thick without succumbing to metrical sag or emotional pretentiousness. Horszowski has a few finger slips in the gnarly Scherzo, which he takes rather gingerly. Despite the flaws, the music enjoys the contours of a water-piece, Debussy not far away. The third movement Largo seeks a balance of nocturne and barcarolle, in which Horszowski imbues the repeated arpeggios and colored chords with timeless, singing reverie. Herculean efforts move the Presto movement forward, Horszowski’s attacking the galloping figures with the audacity of one two generations younger than he. At the last chord, the audience whoops its appreciation for the gallant efforts.

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'Chaos' comes to Beirut for the first time
Daily Star - Lebanon - Beirut,Lebanon

Review of a Beirut recital by Lebanese composer-pianist Rami Khalifé:

Khalifé began Wednesday's concert with a selection of Chopin "Etudes." Presumably he wanted to shake off the nerves and warm up his hands. Having the contemporary centerpiece prefaced by the work of one of the best-loved composers of the romantic period also satisfied those especially fond of a better established repertoire - indeed, the audience erupted with applause after each etude.

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For piano lovers in Madison, this is a week to savor
The Capital Times - Madison,WI,USA

Emanuel Ax comes to the Wisconsin capital, Chopin in tow....

It starts with three performances by the Madison Symphony Orchestra with Emanuel Ax soloing in Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor. (Actually it was Chopin's first concerto, but was published second.) The first might be more virtuosic and sophisticated in its composition, but the second has tender beauty to behold, nowhere more so than in the opening of the slow second movement, a love song by the 20-year-old composer.

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The Chopin Currency - March 16, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Chinese pianist hits all right notes in concert
Colorado Springs Gazette - Colorado Springs,CO,USA

Glowing review of pianist Joyce Yang's appearance with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic...

But it was her performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 that proved that she's also an assured and original interpreter. Above all, she's a master of ...
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MEET VIARDOT
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA

Preview of "Pauline Viardot and Friends," a full-length theatrical celebration of Viardot's life and art presented by San Francisco Performances and hosted by Marilyn Horne:

"...Pauline Viardot, the brilliant and charismatic mezzo-soprano who conquered the stages - and boudoirs - of 19th century Europe over the course of a long and varied career. Who knows of her today?

Her intellectual gifts - she spoke six languages fluently - brought her the friendship of many of the leading cultural figures of the day, including Chopin, ...
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Chopin a la Midi:

Etude #1 (Chopin) revised

MIDI version of Chopin's Op. 10 No. 1 Etude:

One more pass on this one, this time with an enhanced bass part. I don't know how I would percuss. this one, but I may revisit this in the future. Trying to work out the EQ and compression, but I am still new at the FL Studio controls. ...
bandamp - http://forum.bandamp.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 11, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Cellist Oh Ah-mi's Courageous Crossover
Korea Times - South Korea

The world's first self-described "crossover cellist," breaks conventions by adding dance moves to the still-standing cello performance. “I am inspired by Vanessa Mae’s passionate playing and Beyonce’s strong stage presence" she says...

`It's really demanding, so I just have to practice that much more,'' she said. Though not a trained dancer, Oh enjoys dancing and worked with a choreographer to create moves. In her first showcase performance at Seongnam Art Center tonight, her cello will be her dance partner as she waltzes to ``Chopin's Party of Dupin,'' which was inspired by the Waltze (Op. 64 No. 2).`\

Two were inspired by well-known Chopin and Dvorak music. ``(The composer and I) discussed our work a lot. I wanted to reinterpret the music and make them ...
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Review: Traces - Les 7 Doigts de la Main
The Dominion Post - Wellington,New Zealand

Chopin cheek-by-jowl with Chinese acrobats and skateboarders....

There's endearing Chopin played live on a wonky piano, and a girl made of rubber who reads on (and through, over, under, and off) an even wonkier armchair. ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

The Geometry Of Music
Partyvibes - Netherlands

From a Dutch blog: Chopin the cubist's delight, via Princeton professor Dmitri Tymoczko:

Tymoczko looked at the piece and watched the composition’s motion through his geometrical space, he saw that Chopin was moving in a systematic way among the different layers of the four-dimensional cubes. “It’s almost as if he’s an improviser with a set of rules and set of constraints,” Tymoczko says.

Music theorists have long found Chopin’s E minor prelude puzzling. , Although the chord progressions sound smooth to the ear, they don’t quite follow the ...
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Rajka - Group 3 - Tiny Murders
By seaglassgirl

To what nationality does Chopin truly belong? From an online writing workshop....

I am back in my chair, with the half-cup of Cappuccino. I put my feet up and listen, again, to Chopin. I wonder: to whom does he belong? To everyone, to no one. Another soul who transcends us all and makes us whole. Content, I listen.
Opening the Circle - http://writingfromtheheart.wordpress.com

The Chopin Currency - March 7. 2008

Chopin News, Previews, Rants, and Reviews:

Live: Lang Lang

Yesterday we brought you two views of Yundi Li; today it's the "other" superstar Chinese pianist's turn. Mark Swed of the LA Times is both impressed and appalled:

Tuesday night, he [Lang Lang] returned to Walt Disney Concert Hall for a recital. The place was, inevitably, packed. The audience was antsy, wanting fireworks, and Lang Lang eventually delivered. First, though, he had to prove he was a poet.

"He is a poet. But he is an immature poet with a nuclear arsenal, and that makes him a very dangerous poet. The nuclear part of the weaponry is a killer technique. The threat is in the delivery system. He has the charisma to hold an audience in his power. Responsibility, though, is another matter....

"Lang Lang has inherited Liberace's curse. Once the audience knows what he can do, he must give it what it wants. And each time, he must outdo himself. In the single encore, Chopin's Etude, Opus 10, No. 3, he outdid himself....

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Flashy pianist Lang startlingly graceful in Houston show

The headlines says it all...Houston Chronicle reviewer Everett Evans on the hand is pleasantly surprised...

"Lang Lang is renowned for flash as well as artistry — and he didn't disappoint fans on either count in his performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 Thursday night with the Houston Symphony. Yet the predominant quality that distinguished his performance was grace.

"The famous mannerisms, swaying moves and transported expressions — symbols of the artist not only performing but feeling the music — were present, but less frequent and more subdued than in some of his past performances. But then Chopin is not Beethoven nor Rachmaninoff and this work calls for a more quicksilver approach, more moments of delicacy and fewer of bravado."

Houston Chronicle - United States
By EVERETT EVANS Lang Lang is renowned for flash as well as artistry — and he didn't disappoint fans on either count in his performance of Chopin's Piano ...
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Renowned pianist next door

A preview of a Baltimore-area recital by Korean-turned-Columbia, MD resident Eun Joo Chung, which includes with a bravura piece of Chopiniana:

Chopin paired the serenely rippling Andante spianato with its extroverted and rousing opposite, the Grande Polonaise Brillante in E flat major, which was originally written for piano and orchestra..

While Sunday's program certainly requires virtuosity, Chung hopes that the audience will take away something more. "If the performer is able to invite me into the music, I feel that it is a very intimate conversation taking place as opposed to a show or a display," she says.

Baltimore Sun - United States
With the exception of the Chopin, the music on the program is based on variation; a short musical phrase is repeated and developed, becoming more intricate ...
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Chopin: Preludes; etc, Alexandre Tharaud

A more tepid review of the new Harmonia Mundi CD from the UK Guardian. Critic Andrew Clements likes the Chopin all right, but is less taken by the pairings...

He follows the Op 28 set of the 24 Preludes with a curious little sequence that interleaves more of Chopin's miniatures, including the three posthumous studies and the much more substantial C sharp minor Prelude Op 45, with three pieces by Frederic Mompou. Tharaud describes the Mompou as "a more recent, more intimate echo of the Chopin" and plays it with the same care and sensitivity he lavishes on the more famous works, without ever disguising the fact that it has very little real musical substance.

Guardian - UK
Though his repertory ranges from Couperin right up to Kagel, Chopin seems to be a speciality of Tharaud's. This disc of the Preludes follows an earlier one ...
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CHOPIN: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11; Piano Concerto No 2...

Nice review of Music & Arts reissue of pianist Paul Badura-Skoda's recording of the two piano concertos with Artur Rodzinski and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra:

"Badura-Skoda passes off Chopin’s roulades and tricky accents in the manner of an intimate series of etudes, here much closer to the Chopin who dazzled George Sand. Rarely does Badura-Skoda take a repeat in the same manner, always shading the rhythm or the harmony with subtle touches of diaphanous color. Formidable!"

Audiophile Audition - USA

The Viennese tradition in Badura-Skoda pays elegant stylistic homage to Chopin, though we could argue that the performances are more of Hummel than the ...
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Popcorn Panel: The Other Boleyn Girl

A trio of Canadian film critics nominate historical films they like a lot better than the current Portman/ScarJo bodice-ripper..."Impromptu" gets the nod from one.... "an emo late-80s movie about the love affair between Chopin and George Sand. Hugh Grant is appropriately floppy-haired as Chopin, and Judy David is an extremely overwrought George Sand. And Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin are in it for no apparent reason."

National Post - Toronto,Ontario,Canada

Almost as much as I loved Impromptu, an emo late-80s movie about the love affair between Chopin and George Sand. Hugh Grant is appropriately floppy-haired ...
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