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 - 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 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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The Chopin Currency - Feb. 12, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, & Previews:

CHOPIN: 24 Preludes, Op. 28; 3 Nouvelles Etudes; Prelude in A-flat ...
Audiophile Audition - USA

"Moravec--and now Tharaud--remind us how much of the Romantic keyboard rhetoric the Preludes subsume."
Tharaud performs his recital on an eight-year-old Steinway D, and its seductive character reveals itself in the less popular of the Chopin Preludes (1838), ...
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Concert Review: Piano recital
Jerusalem Post - Israel
By URY EPPSTEIN Sonia Rubinsky, a Brazilian-born guest pianist from Paris, presented a recital ranging from Mozart to Villa-Lobos to Chopin at the Jerusalem ...
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Pianist Fliter will perform in Fresno
Fresno Bee (subscription) - Fresno,CA,USA
Keyboard Concerts at Fresno State this week features Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter, a previous prizewinner at the Busoni and Chopin International Piano ...
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Chopin in the blogosphere:

I Like Chopin
By 330670996@qq.com(^-^)
I Like Chopin Remember that piano So delightful, unusual That classic sensation Sentimental confusion Used to say I like Chopin Love me now and again Woh... Rainy days, never say good-bye To desire when we are together ...
^-^ - http://330670996.qzone.qq.com

Impromptu Part Deux
By admin
In response to a classmate who believes that French author Madam George Sand (Judy Davis) in James Lapine's 1991 film Impromptu, is "attracted to Chopin [(Hugh Grant)] because she unconsciously learned to be more feminine like he was," ...
- http://identitygang.com

Are audiobooks the same as reading?
By cjwriter
It’s an audiobook called The Chopin Manuscript and is being billed as the first-ever audio serial book. It’s written by 15 successful thriller writers; Jeffery Deaver conceived of the characters, story and wrote the first chapter, ...
CJ Writer - http://cjwriter.com