the Chopin Currency - July 7th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

A Souvenir From Vladimir Horowitz
New York Sun - United States

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

My favourite Chopin recordings
By Stephanie Delacey

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

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

The Chopin Currency - May 29th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

The scared boy who dreamed... and the man who triumphed
Yorkshire Post - Leeds,England,UK

Approving profile of Yorkshire pianist-turned-textile-magnate-turned-arts- developer-turned-philanthropist Sir Ernest Hall, developer of the renowned Dean Clough arts and business complex, upon the publication of his memoir "How to Be a Failure and Succeed." What lies ahead for him conquer? A certain composer...

The story of Dean Clough (he retired as chairman this year) will be told in a second book, which he hopes to finish by the end of the year. "But I'm very busy. I've still got the Chopin project," he says, with enthusiasm. It has long been his ambition to record the complete works of Chopin – 14 CDs in all, of which he has so far recorded seven. He plans to complete the project in time for the bicentenary of Chopin's birth, in 1810. "I shall be 80 years old," he says. At 78, he's still reaching, still transcending boundaries. "Dreams of achievement have an amazing power in your life," he says. "You find that you are elevated by ambition itself."

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Concerts at the Cadillac: "Piano for the People" by Chris Hess
Beyond Chron - San Francisco,CA,USA

If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to visit the Cadillac Hotel, for a concert called "Piano for the People: a Classical Piano Concert for Non-Classical Listeners."

Chris will connect music written from 1840-1960 with the present day Tenderloin to excite and educate a general audience. Chris will play Chopin, Rachmaninoff and other romantic composers, interspersed with personal stories. For example, he will syncopate different rhythms in the right and left hands, show you how, and explain why it builds community.

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MKM Attila ilhan Hall / Ingrid Fliter / 8:00 pm
Turkish Daily News (subscription) - Ankara,Turkey

No day is complete her at the Chopin Currency without an Ingrid Fliter posting, today in advance of an appearance at the Caddebostan Culture Center with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra...

"Chopin's music has been one of the great standards of the classical repertoire for generations, and many audiences have enjoyed hearing it played well; however, and especially in this unique class of the art, there is to be found a rare, untouchable nuance that speaks directly to the heart," as Fliter says, "and it is truly an extremely rare artist who can well demonstrate this treasure." She is in love with her work, and it is her love that gives life to her art, so much appreciated by the public.

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Kapell Rediscovered: The Australian Broadcasts - 2-CD set
Audiophile Audition - USA

Typically thoughtful (if a bit wordy!) review from esteemed online publication that nonetheless pithily summarizes the new-old release from the late William Kapell: "Collectors will listen to it often, in spite of the sonic defects that make some moments almost unbearable...

Kapell always performed Chopin as a strong suit, and I remain fond of the B Minor Sonata and several of his mazurkas, the Op. 50, No. 3 in particular. His Barcarolle opens with massive chords and flamboyant ornaments; nothing effeminate in those trills. The gondolier’s waves become Charybdis and could swallow the world. The comeliness and confidence of the piece--the ease of period transitions--shine through despite grim sonic reproduction. The E-flat Major Nocturne has Ignaz Friedman as its champion, but Kapell finds his own treasures in its pearly, unhurried elegance, several times hinting at the E Minor Nocturne, Op. 72, No. 1. Brilliance and blazing speed of the Horowitz order for the pounding Scherzo in B Minor, whose middle section lullaby Kapell softens the entire ethos, permitting the polyphonic voices their blessed, embowered noels. The two stunning da capo chords and the final pages are Kapell’s version of the Atomic Bomb.

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Ed Harcourt: Revolution Of The Heart MP3
Filter Magazine - Los Angeles,CA,USA

New Chopin-themed download from piano-playing UK singer-songwriter....

"Revolution Of The Heart" is Harcourt at his best: pouring his heart and soul out over Chopin piano progressions and delightful sha-na-nas, sung by members ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Soloist and Friends
By Stephen Smoliar(Stephen Smoliar)

San Francisco writer blogs about a noontime concert by pianist William Corbett-Jones featuring new Preludes by Roger Nixon, and not Preludes, but polonaises, by Chopin...

There was at least one "Chopin connection" in the conception of the overall program: Liszt preceded the selections by Nixon and Mechem and Chopin followed them. The program concluded with two polonaises, Opus 40, Number 1 in C minor and Opus 53 in A-flat major. The latter is sometimes known as the "Heroic" polonaise, although, as the most familiar in the collection of polonaises that Chopin composed, it might better be called the "War-Horse!" Like the earlier "Military" polonaise, Opus 53 performs an interesting experiment with an ostinato pattern subjected to a gradual crescendo; and Corbett-Jones did a wonderful job of making that crescendo the backbone of the middle section of the work.

The Rehearsal Studio - http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency: April 8, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:


Though Hyde did appear, Lang Lang mostly Jekyll
Chicago Tribune - United States

Chicago critic decides there are two sides - or perhaps two personas - in the Chinese virtuoso:

More and more I am convinced there are two Lang Langs. Both commanded the stage of Orchestra Hall at the Chinese superstar pianist's sold-out recital Sunday.

There is Lang Lang the Maturing Musician, the 25-year-old artist who, under the regular tutelage of Daniel Barenboim , is learning to place his immense technical gifts at the service of art.

Then there is Lang Lang the Barnstorming Virtuoso, the compulsive showman who dazzles the gallery by playing things louder and faster than anyone else, simply because he can.

This Jekyll and Hyde act sometimes can throw up a barrier between the listener and the music, and one never quite knows which persona will pop up next.

For example, Lang Lang ended his program with a torrential tear through Chopin's "Heroic" Polonaise (A-flat Major, Opus 53) that only succeeded in vulgarizing the piece, although the crowd loved it. This was followed by an encore, Chopin's Etude in E (Opus 10, No. 3), that was similarly hectic in the middle pages but ineffably tender in the outer sections. Go figure.

Clearly, Lang Lang can deliver remarkably sensitive playing when he is in the mood to channel his inner poet. Fortunately, much of Sunday's recital found him in the mood...

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Evgenia plays Chopin with both elegance and great subtlety
Huddersfield Examiner - Huddersfield,UK

"Our Correspondent" in Huddersfield likes how Evgenia Rubinova and the Opera North Orchestra work together..

Chopin’s First Piano Concerto is therefore something of a surprise, for its rippling delicacy and orchestral restraint.

Perhaps the latter factor is not unexpected. Chopin was, after all, a renowned pianist, and would have wanted the orchestra in a subservient role. Even so, the almost minimalist nature of much of the orchestral scoring is notable, and probably presents particular technical challenges.

Conducted by Frédéric Chaslin, the Orchestra of Opera North displayed admirable restraint and clarity of texture during Saturday’s performance of the Chopin concerto, although the musicians made the most of their opportunities, when announcing themes at the beginning of movements, for example.

The soloist was the prize-winning Evgenia Rubinova, who obviously has the full range of technical accomplishments, but she displayed no pianistic bombast in her performance. Instead she brought out the elegance and the improvisatory qualities of Chopin’s writing. It was a subtle performance, all the more musical because there was no hint of showing off.

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Chopin in the Moonlight, Drenched in History Yet Fresh in the West
New York Times - United States

A New York Times review the considers both the performance, and the history of the ballet Chopiniana, as presented in by the Kirov Ballet...

"Chopiniana" which opened the Kirov’s recent quadruple bill at City Center of ballets by Michel Fokine, is 100 years old this year. This is the plotless, Romantic dream-world, poet-muse ballet that used to be known — very well known — in the West as “Les Sylphides,” the title Diaghilev gave it in 1909 when he also gave it a different overture and a new décor, by Alexandre Benois. It was said to be Diaghilev’s favorite ballet, and for decades it was the epitome of what many dancegoers wanted from ballet: atmosphere, romanticism, poetry. [....]

Though these Kirov performances weren’t ideal, they were in basic respects exemplary: no soppiness, just focused evocation of the changing moods of this moonlit nocturne. “Chopiniana,” by far the richest of Fokine’s pure-dance compositions, is brimming with history. He had been inspired by an all-Chopin recital given by Isadora Duncan on her 1904-5 visit to St. Petersburg, including some of the same music here; you can still feel her rapturous way of carrying gestures around the stage and her way of turning simple runs, walks and poses into images of inspiration. [...]

“Chopiniana” in turn became the archetype of a whole 20th-century genre of ballet in which the prime subject was the music. Without its kaleidoscope of moods, the Chopin ballets of Jerome Robbins would probably have never happened; his “Dances at a Gathering” is its radical update. Balanchine’s “Serenade” and “Emeralds” are especially indebted to its Romantic groupings.

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Review: Illinois Symphony Orchestra performance a playful one
Springfield State Journal Register - Springfield,IL,USA

Meanwhile, another Springfield-based symphony (see yesterday's post) gets into the Chopin concerto swim with soloist Sa Chen..

Chen was this season’s latest guest-artist pianist who was a finalist or winner at 2005’s Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The technical oomph of Chopin’s concerto (the first he wrote but the second he published) could make it hard to channel its warmth, but Chen found incredible nuance even as the concerto grew impossibly fast.

Chen’s voracious approach was fitting given her pronounced pounce before each segment. Her force matched the concerto’s flourishes and each cascade was a stunner. Her lyricism truly dazzled in the larghetto movement, evocative of a love discovered. Bass-clef strikes sounded like shouts of affection, while trilled upper-register notes felt like heart flutters. Closing with a mazurka (a Polish folk dance), Chen proved her talent wasn’t just in amazing technique, but in the touches of emotion.

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The Chopin Currency - Ides of March Edition

Chopin Video of the Day:

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

Not bad at all!

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

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Concert pianist favourite returns
Huddersfield Examiner - Huddersfield,UK

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

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

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

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

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

.....

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

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Another Chopin Video

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

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Celebrities play chess
By Nikita

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

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

♯Five
By Frederic Francois Chopin(Frederic Francois Chopin)

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

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

The Chopin Currency - March 14, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Martha Argerich Plays Chopin: The Legendary 1965 Recording
By admin0

Superlatives for a long-suppressed recording out on CD:

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

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

♯Four
By Frederic Francois Chopin(Frederic Francois Chopin)

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

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