The Chopin Currency - June 11th, 2008

Chopin News, Views, and Reviews:

A Comedic Ballet With Legs
Wall Street Journal - USA

WSJ critic marvels at the staying power of Jerome Robbins' Chopinistic comedic creation....

"Death," one showbiz quip has it, "is easy; comedy is hard." However savvy Jerome Robbins might have been in the mid-1950s as a still-budding master of both musical-theater dances and of classical ballet, he could hardly have predicted the staying power of "The Concert," the comedic ballet he created to Chopin in 1956 and called "A Charade in One Act" and subtitled "The Perils of Everybody."

Once his hilarious take on would-be concertgoers hit its stride with a 1971 restaging for his home-base company, the New York City Ballet, "The Concert" showed itself to be a deathless ballet comedy. In recent years, over a dozen ballet companies nationally and internationally, including one in Perm, Russia, have eagerly performed the work....

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Google Blogs Alert for: chopin

Robbins & Chopin at NYC Ballet
By oberon481

Dance-focused blogger's taken on the Chopin/Robbins night at the NYC Ballet:

I'm not sure an all-Chopin evening is a great idea; surely the most effective programmes are those that offer musical contrasts. But THE CONCERT was fun tonight with Sterling Hyltin showing a nice flair for comedy (and dancing very well) and several amusing character players including Andrew Veyette's henpecked, vengeful husband and Gwyneth Muller's priceless wife with her droll efforts to maintain a sense of decorum.

Oberon's Grove - http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/

Chopin in the Newsgroups:

Kobrins 2005 Chopin Preludes

From the rec.music.classical newsgroup, a discussion on the merits of Alexander Kobrin's Chopin interpretations...

Sure emphasizes the dark side, but very effective,original conceptions
seemingly not just for effect. He seems to empathize better with this more complex,subtle music than with the more
extroverted, emotional Rachmaninoff Etudes,IMHO. But this is
2005......

newsgroups.derkeiler.com: rec.music.c... - http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.music.classical.recordings

The Chopin Currency - June 6th, 2008

Chopin in the blogosphere:

Robbins’s Definitive Chopin at the NYC Ballet
By nahnopenotquite

The Jerome Robbins Celebration for the 2008 spring season at the New York City Ballet is on now. I saw a program last night called Definitive Chopin that consisted of three pieces set to the music of, uh, Frederic Chopin (who else?).

It is hard to me to overstate how much I loved this performance. Dance is the highest expression of human physicality, the absolute apotheosis of human grace and beauty. You can see why men were always falling in love with prima ballerinas in 19th century novels. Ballet is pure elevation of the female form, so feminine, so seductive, so… The dance exults in the human body, and the dancers perform with such strength and skill that I left the theater amazed and elated. I kid you not. It was genuinely sublime.

Nah, Nope, Not Quite - http://nahnopenotquite.wordpress.com

Chopin Videos:

Prelude in C Minor, Frédéric Chopin
By Hari Ram Narayanan(Hari Ram Narayanan)

From a blog called "Chronicle of a Student Pianist..."

Frédéric Chopin referred to as "the poet of the piano", is a polish composer. He composed almost exclusively for the piano. This piece is from his set of 24 preludes, each of which is composed in a different key. ...

The Chronicles of a Student Pianist - http://thechroniclesofastudentpianist.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency - June 5th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Preview: Playing a fugue of his favourite things
New Zealand Herald - New Zealand

Aussie pianist Piers Lane prepares to play a "friendly" in neighboring New Zealand...Chopin friends and colleagues Charles Alkan and Liszt, not to mention Liszt's student Eugene d'Albert are represented in the first half; Chopin after intermission....

The second half of Tuesday's programme will be the complete cycle of Chopin Preludes, a rare privilege in this part of the world. "Everybody knows certain of the Preludes, but there are others that people won't recognise, as you don't get to hear them apart from as part of the whole set," Lane says. "They are a wonderful kaleidoscope of ideas and emotions and it's extraordinary to hear how Chopin feels about each major and minor key on the piano because he goes through all 24 just as Bach did in his Well-Tempered Clavier."

Lane says he likes stories about the composers he plays and has thought about how Chopin might have played his own music. "Later in his life, he was frail. When he played in England towards the end, they complained they couldn't hear him at the back of the concert hall. In fact, his main criticism of other pianists was that they made the piano bark like dogs. He didn't like big-scale playing. His style was an intimate one; he drew people in rather than going out to meet them."

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Glasgow team piped into Paris to bid for role as City of Music
The Herald - Glasgow,Scotland,UK

More on the Glaswegan's bid to become a UNESCO City of Music...

... only nationally but internationally - Mendelsohn visited and was inspired by Scotland's landscapes, and Chopin took his first train ride in the city. ...

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Audible.com Wins Audiobook of the Year: The Chopin Manuscript ...
Business Wire (press release) - San Francisco,CA,USA

Multiple articles abound...

The Audie Award judges heralded the many innovative and collaborative aspects of The Chopin Manuscript, an original work that has continued to win praise ...

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Audible.com Wins Audiobook of the Year: The Chopin Manuscript ...
NEWARK, NJ----The leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment, Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary , today announced the groundbreaking, original novel The Chopin Manuscript has been named ...
eCocoma Web Consultant - Web... - http://www.ecocoma.com

The Chopin Currency - May 21st, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews

Must male pianists be pin-ups?
guardian.co.uk - UK

Provocative column from Guardian blogger about "making glamourpusses out of pianists..." The readers think it's more of a generation gap...

In the crisis-laden economy of classical music concerts, pianists today are often marketed as "hunka hunka burnin' loves," however inappropriately. A few years ago, I interviewed the talented, poetic young Chinese pianist Yundi Li in his New York manager's office. Then in his early 20s, gawky and skinny, with tousled hair under a baseball cap, Yundi looked like the provincial Chinese youth he was. I was amazed to see how his recording company packaged his remarkable CDs of Chopin and Liszt, adding heavy makeup and swooning poses for an androgynous look. Yundi Li's artistry was the same, but he became a different artist to look at.....

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Piano Lessons
Voice of San Diego - San Diego,CA,USA

Review of the San Diego premiere of "Beethoven As I Knew Him," the latest installment in Hershey Felder's trilogy of composer portraits....

First, Hershey Felder presented his fantastic one-man show, "George Gershwin Alone," and urged theater-goers to join in on a sing-along of Gershwin hits. It was like drawing flies to honey; the enthusiastic Felder inspired gleeful audience members young and old to sing their hearts out. It was a sight (and sound) to behold.

Then came Felder's portrayal of the emotionally intense Fredéric Chopin which gave audiences a peek into the cultural sophistication of the 19th century Parisian salon.

Now, the Old Globe presents the final installation (and world premiere) of Hershey Felder's "Composer Sonata" trilogy of one-man performances based on famous composers' lives with "Beethoven, As I Knew Him." [...]

A natural and engrossing storyteller, Felder was at his best during "Beethoven" at the piano bench. Using discourse and music, Felder took the audience through pieces like Beethoven's Fifth symphony, expounding on the famous fate-at-the-door theme. The "Moonlight" sonata rendering was exquisite. Throughout the night, Felder used anecdotes and visuals (conducting to the night sky of stars!) to enhance the overall musical performance.

Though starker and narrated at a more measured pace than both "Gershwin" and "Chopin," "Beethoven, As I Knew Him" offers a poignant introspection into the austere composer's beloved music....

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Prometheus celebrates a distinctive vision
Boston Globe - United States

20th-anniversary production by the Promotheus Dance Company of Boston gets high marks for everything but a Chopin-based performance...

The world premiere on the program, "Lignage," seems disappointingly tame in comparison. A work for eight women set to a series of Chopin preludes, it contrasts slow floor work with flurries of sweeping movement - swirling turns with arms outstretched, legs carving great arcs. The women roll, cradle one another, then rise in rushes about the stage. There are a lot of stops and starts, and it has the crowded, slightly aimless feel of a work created to showcase young dancers.

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The Chopin Currency - May 9, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Concert review: Young Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz dazzles ...
San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA

A Bay Area reviewer isn't quite ready to hand the Chopin crown to the hot young Polish pianist....

His performance May 4 at Le Petit Trianon in San Jose, which concluded with the Preludes, the full two dozen, was very, very good: Blechacz has an awesome command of the keyboard, plays with a stunning ease.

But he also seems to realize - I'm projecting here - that he needs to transcend his mechanics, to plumb the depths. So, at least on Sunday, amid the stream of jaw-dropping technique, he kept making these stabs at introspection. They didn't exactly seem premeditated; in fact, they were charming. But they didn't reach their marks.

He needs seasoning, in other words. And it will be interesting to follow him the next few years, to see where his huge gifts and his intuition lead him. [...]

After intermission came Chopin's Preludes, exquisite and familiar.

In the first dozen, comprising Book I, Blechacz didn't get past what we already know about them. For instance, No. 4, the famous E minor "Largo," was all cliche: earnest melancholy.

But before beginning Book II, he drew out a handkerchief and wiped off the keys. It wasn't meant as a symbolic gesture, yet, from that point on, his performance gained traction: pointillist bursts in No. 18, the F minor; anvil chords and brokenhearted lyricism in No. 20, the C minor; scary agitation in No. 22, the G minor.

No. 24 in D minor, the closer, ran out of drama; Blechacz seemed tired. But he recovered for the last encore, Moszkowski's "La Jongleuse" ("The Lady Juggler"), a crazily difficult piece through which he flew with the greatest of ease. The amazing young man may as well have been pulling taffy.

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Magnetic Poles
guardian.co.uk - UK

Another glowing review for a journey through modern Poland by Australian author Michael Moran, who "had no links with Poland, other than a death bed pledge to his uncle to try to understand the patriotic roots of Chopin's music."

When Moran escapes the crumbling school, the book is lifted on to another plane. By following the course of the Vistula – one of the last great natural rivers in Europe – and then criss-crossing the country during the first international car rally in generations, he begins to fill the absences in our knowledge. On the road he relates – for example — the history of Partition, when thousands of intellectuals were forced to walk to Siberia – an 18-month journey – where they were chained to wheelbarrows night and day and worked to death. He considers our debt to the 8,500 Polish airmen whose élan and tactics helped to win the Battle of Britain. He details the iniquity of the Katyn massacre and betrayal of the Warsaw Uprising. He celebrates Chopin and the "frisson of close Polish dancing". His breadth of knowledge is profound, his views opinionated, his writing passionate and heart-felt. The result is the best contemporary travel book on Poland, reminiscent in its finest moments of Patrick Leigh Fermor's masterful Time of Gifts

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Gilmore Festival performer Stephen Hough masterfully executes ...
Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com - Kalamazoo,MI,USA

The British pianist (recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant) writes the notes, then plays the program, to memorable effect...

The printed program notes, written by Hough himself, explained the first half of the concert centered on "Variations," the second on the Waltz. He opened with Mendelssohn's "Variations Serieuses," Op. 54, comprised of two dozen very different variations. Quickly evident were Hough's incredible hands and touch. Master of pianissimo and presto, he also commanded double fortes and andante passages; meanwhile his octave runs were unfailingly prodigious. [...]

Wed to his sensitive insights was extraordinary keyboard technique, evidenced further in the remainder of the program featuring Weber, Saint-Saens, Chabrier, Debussy and, fortunately for all, Chopin and Liszt.

Two familiar Chopin Waltzes --the C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2, and the A-flat Major, Op. 34, No. 1 -- were gorgeously played. Each note was given full attention, as though never heard before. In the A-flat Major waltz, Hough showed uncanny ability to sound different melodic lines, played by a single hand. The effect was astonishing.

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Recital shows pianist Ohlsson at top of his game
Akron Beacon Journal - Akron,OH,USA

Whenever Garrick Ohlsson plays, Chopin is never very far away. First line says it all: "Garrick Ohlsson makes a virtue of middle age."

Continuing in the key of C-sharp minor, Ohlsson knocked out a thrillingly fast and accurate version of the Chopin Etude Op. 10, No. 4. It was a wild ride that could only make you smile.

''One more?'' Ohlsson silently mouthed to someone at the front of the audience, grinning as he asked. He proceeded with the Chopin Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2. Here, he dazzled with the delicacy and lightness of his playing.

Oh, yes, there was more before the encores. [...]

Finishing the first half with Chopin's Sonata No. 3, Op. 58 was a move well calculated to get everyone buzzing with oohs and aahs. This was not the Chopin of a delicate aesthete but of a full-blooded romantic, with jaw-dropping fast runs and a galloping rhythmic drive in the finale.

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Ohlsson's performance (above) also inspires a video posting on the blog below:

Chopin Prelude Op 45 Prelude No.16 Op.25 Garrick Ohlsson
By Cheryl and Janet Snell(Cheryl and Janet Snell)

Janet took our mom to see this pianist last night. He played three encores after a finger-crunching program. The Chopin was a sonata, not this Prelude, but you get the idea.
Scattered Light - http://snellsisters.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency - May 4, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

New Recordings of Legendary Pianist
New York Times - United States

This Tuesday privately made recordings of the American pianist William Kapell’s last concerts will finally be available. Sony/BMG is releasing this two-disc set, which has works by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Bach, Mozart, Mussorgsky, Debussy and Prokofiev. Kapell was one of the great pianists of the mid-20th century when he died at 31 in a plane crash in 1953 while on his way home from a concert tour in Australia. A music lover in Melbourne had recorded radio broadcasts of several of his concerts on acetate discs, some of which made their way in 2004 through an intermediary to Kapell’s widow

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The passionate and powerful piano of Mihaela Ursuleasa
Minnesota Public Radio - Saint Paul,MN,USA

The Romanian pianists visits the studios of Minnesota Public Radio in advance of her recital...hear the story here:

Mihaela Ursuleasa is a commanding pianist and one of the biggest talents in the piano world. Small in stature, her music making is emotionally large and compelling. She stopped by Minnesota Public Radio to preview her weekend Frederic Chopin Society recital.

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Dancers celebrate Polish culture, constitution
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - Pittsburgh,PA,USA

A Steeltown celebration in Heinz Hall of Polish Constitution Day (May 3, 1791)

The music of Poland's greatest composer, Frederic Chopin, will figure prominently, of course, including an orchestration of his famous "Military Polonaise." And Migala says the traditional song "May Third" that will be sung has recently been authenticated as by Chopin.

Sunday's concert also is a celebration of 400 years of Poles in America, dating back to 1608 at the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. Migala acknowledges that their names "have been lost in history but they set up the first factories in America, which made pitch and tar that were useful for trading."

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Chopin, Preludes Op. 28 and Op. 45, with Three "New" Etudes and two works by Mompou. Alexandre Tharaud (Harmonia Mundi).
The Capital Times - Madison,WI,USA

Review of Alexandre Tharaud's new Chopin/Mompou disc on Harmonia Mundi...

Speaking of Tharaud, he has just released a volume with the cycle of Chopin preludes as a follow up to his highly acclaimed CD of Chopin waltzes. Once again, Tharaud is well served by his gift as an interpreter of baroque music (J.S. Bach, Couperin and Rameau) on the modern piano. Chopin always had great baroque and classical models in mind, which is why his Romanticism is tempered and moderated compared to, say, Schumann's....

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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 25, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews & Previews:

Award-winning pianist to perform here
Vancouver Sun - British Columbia, Canada

Both a review (of a new DG CD) and a preview of the pending May 2 appearance in Vancouver by Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz...

This is a real coup. Blechacz, who is only 23, jumped into the spotlight overnight when he won all five top prizes in 2005's Frederic Chopin Competition in Warsaw. For the first time in history, the jury decided not to award a second prize. The Vancouver stop is the only Canadian one in his first American tour of only five concerts. [....]

This first recording is a very exciting one, consisting largely of the works he'll be performing in Vancouver, the revolutionary 24 Preludes of opus 28. This is amazing playing, remarkable for its clarity, directness and honesty. He makes what can be treacherous sound natural and simple. His playing evokes that supreme Brazilian pianist, Guiomar Novaes, who was very hard to equal in playing Chopin. This is a very special recording.

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Bit of a draught at bathtime
Brisbane Times - Brisbane,Queensland,Australia

An Aussie visitor to the Czech Republic discovers a delightful tradition in the Spa towns where Chopin once took the cure...

A beer bath may be an innovation here in west Bohemia but it's certainly not the first time the region has been visited for its spas. The neighbouring towns of Karlovy Vary and Marianske Lazne, once frequented by Chopin, Nietzsche and Freud, are famous in western Europe for their magnesium-rich waters. Thousands of tourists visit for thermal treatments at exclusive health spas. Chopin probably never bathed in beer, however.

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Proust Questionnaire: Eleanor McEvoy
Athlone Advertiser - Westmeath,Ireland

Irish singer-songwriter dishes on F.C...

Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

A: Listening to Chopin while sipping champagne in a hot bath filled with bubbles and the one I love.

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Composing while Computing

Princeton University The Daily Princetonian - NJ, United States

More on the "geometrical music theory" from Princeton scholar Dmitri Tymoczko....

In his analyses of different pieces of music, Tymoczko was particularly struck by the pictorial representations of two musically unusual pieces by Chopin — the E-minor prelude and Chopin's final composition, a mazurka in F minor.

"These are two pieces that people have really struggled to understand musically," Tymoczko said. "It turns out that they explore a very coherent space, a sort of necklace made with four-dimensional hypercube beads that are linked together by a shared vertex."

What's most alarming about this discovery is that Chopin composed during the first half of the 19th century, a time when mathematicians understood very little about conceptualizing four-dimensional space. Still, Tymoczko said, the incredibly close correlation between Chopin's music and four-dimensional geometry could not possibly be a coincidence. In other words, Chopin had some intuitive understanding of a branch of mathematics that would not be formally expressed or understood until decades after his death.

“It was an incredible point in history," Tymoczko said of the early 19th century. "Humanity's knowledge of the four-dimensional structure could only be expressed in the form of beautiful Romantic music."

It's a discovery that gives new meaning to the belief of mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz that "music is the pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting."

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The Chopin Currency - April 18th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

When Fame Can’t Cross the Atlantic
New York Times - United States

Fascinating story (and review) of Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov, lionized in Europe; barely known in America....

Classical music is supposedly universal. Language may still be a cultural barrier for writers and actors. Even visual artists, depending on the subjects they choose, won’t necessarily translate abroad.

That Mr. Sokolov, whose talent is beyond dispute, disproves this notion should remind us not only of our persistent parochialism but also of our delusions about technology. The Web, on which he can be found on YouTube, giving astonishing performances, clearly doesn’t substitute for hearing him live. Neither do discs, which, as a perfectionist, he stopped issuing in 1995 (this partly explains his American situation), although years ago Mr. Sokolov’s recordings sent me hunting for a chance to hear him in person. On one of those discs he played Chopin’s 24 Preludes with great sensitivity. He played them again the other night. It was, like all concerts likely to stay in the mind forever, nothing that could ever be captured digitally.

He gives about 60 solo recitals a year, so his manager told me; no chamber or orchestral music at the moment. He was born in Leningrad and won the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1966, at 16. Emil Gilels headed the jury. For a while Sol Hurok promoted him.

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Zimerman’s ovation in Rome
Thenews.pl - Warsaw,Poland

Returning to Rome, Krystian Zimerman surprises with a switch to Chopin...

The second part was taken up by an all-Chopin programme, instead of earlier-announced Brahms and Szymanowski.

The recital was Zimerman’s first appearance in Rome after a lapse of ten years. Some Poles in the audience remembered Zimerman’s concert and meeting with Pope John Paul II in the Vatican on Christmas Eve in 1980.

Fifty two year-old Krystian Zimerman is the winner of the Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1975. (mk)

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Yundi Li: Prokofiev/Ravel
Times Online - UK

Review (mostly positive) of Yundi Li's attempt to break out of his Chopin sterotype, along with the inevitable Lang Lang comparisions....

There comes a time in any young piano virtuoso’s life when the need mounts for breaking out of the core 19th-century repertoire into the wide, wild world beyond. You can’t always be wrapped around Chopin and Liszt. Alongside oriental trinkets, that smiling Chinese onslaught Lang Lang has become an improbable concert interpreter of the thickets of notes in Tippett’s Piano Concerto. For his second concerto CD, Yundi Li, Lang Lang’s compatriot (born the same year, too, 1982), has been more cautious. He has chosen Prokofiev No 2, in a Berlin live performance from May. [...]

The more Lang Lang’s performances drift into candelabra rhetoric – the Liberace style of playing – the greater the attraction of Yundi Li’s sobriety. Maybe this Prokofiev could be more tigerish, yet Yundi’s dizz dexterity and ability to shade colours within the composer’s dark and narrow band gave sufficient pleasure to me. To the Berlin audience also: the performance concludes with their roars of applause.

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The Chopin Currency - April 15, 2008

Chopin in the YouTubeoSphere:

href="http://www.youtube.com/v/0X-PRpqj7N4&hl=en">

VideoSong 4 - Radiohead/Chopin Matchup

See it to believe it....

1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).Radiohead's Exit Music for a Film matched with a prelude by Chopin, Op. 28, no. ...
Digg / upcoming - http://digg.com/

Chopin in the FloralSphere:

CHOPIN-ESQUE?
By Daniel Mount(Daniel Mount)

Did you know that there was a Chopin tulip?

This kaufmaniana tuilp "Chopin" is short but bold, as yellow as a yield sign with a flaming pointed petal form.
- http://danielmount.blogspot.com/

New Chopin Downloads:

Chopin Files on AmieStreet.com
By ArtMusicReview4818
Pianist hugh sung has just made his first set of solo keyboard compositions by Frederic 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

The Chopin Currency - Dyngus Day Edition - March 24, 2008

Dyngus Day to proclaim Polish pride
Buffalo News - NY, United States

Today we tip our hat to the venerable Chopin Singing Society, proud keepers of the Dyngus Day flame in Western New York...

For the clueless, Dyngus Day is a Polish-American tradition marking the end of Lent, the 40- day period of prayer and self-denial preceding Christianity’s joyous celebration of Easter. The unofficial holiday — typically observed with pussy willows and squirt guns — has been observed in Buffalo since the first Polish immigrants arrived in the 1870s.

However, after the Chopin Singing Society held the first modern celebration on Kosciusko Street in 1961, Dyngus Day began to outgrow its ethnic and geographic confines. It is now celebrated by Poles and non- Poles throughout Buffalo and Western New York.

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Preparing for a party
Cheektowaga Times - NY, USA

More on Dyngus Day...

Judge Ann Mikoll of the Chopin Singing Society agrees, noting that Dyngus Day is not a religious holiday.

"It's a social get-together that's based on a long-standing tradition over the centuries," Mikoll added.

The day has become so popular in the area that it inspired Jerry Darlak and the Buffalo Touch to record a song, "Everybody's Polish on Dyngus Day," that immediately became a local hit. One of the lead singers for the Touch, Ray Barsukiewicz, is credited with penning the lyrics.

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Other Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Dance Review: Complexions Contemporary Ballet
Jerusalem Post - Israel

Another modern ballet work set to the timeless music of Chopin, (though with yet another spelling of his first name!) on tour in Israel:

"Dear Fredric," which opened the evening, is perhaps a more ambitious work, set to music by Chopin. The strong and highly physical troop was challenged in this piece, which required stamina and rapid, powerful movements. With this athletic sprint approach, though, too little attention was dedicated to Chopin's spirit. It didn't take long before the congested dance phrases became tedious.

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Listening Post: Music from 'Heroes,' Switches, Mozart, Koz and more
Buffalo News - NY, United States

A Dyngus Day review of Alexander Tharaud's new Chopin/Mompou CD:

Chopin and Mompou, “Preludes and Etudes,” Alexandre Tharaud, piano (Harmonia Mundi). I like the thought that Tharaud gives to his music. He wants to perform Chopin’s 24 Preludes without a pause, so I’m guessing he recorded them that way — and you have to respect any pianist who doesn’t take advantage of modern technology to edit everything to death. Tharaud’s strength at the piano is his crisp, controlled tone. He can get wild, and sometimes his herky-jerky tempos can throw off the character of some of the more delicate pieces — the second of Chopin’s “Trois Nouvelles Etudes,” for instance. But he boldly brings out inner voices and draws your attention, gently, to harmonies you may have not noticed before. The approach gives poetry to the more harmonically challenging Mompou. _★★★ (M.K.G.)

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Chopin Videos:

Chopin Prelude e-minor
By Admin

Chopin on a dark Polish road...

... src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/atW2XWdR2b8/2.jpg" width="320" height="240" border="1" />Chopin Prelude e-minor

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/