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 10th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Rafael Viñoly's Musical Refuge
New York Sun - United States

The world-famous concert-hall architect somehow finds time to practice, practice, practice...

The Uruguayan-born Mr. Viñoly is no mere collector. He is a bona fide musician who once contemplated a career as a pianist; he attended a music conservatory before switching fields, and knows how to finger those 88 ivories.

"Amazingly, I should confess that I still do consider sitting down to work out something as it deserves to work out," he said. Scores by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and Schumann clutter his pianos.
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

All Robbins
By Philippe Boucher

Ballet-loving blogger goes to the Pacific Northwest Ballet program and finds more fulsome praise for Our Man Jerome and his unique take on Chopin...

In the Night was stunning set to the Nocturnes of Frederic Chopin, my favorite composer. Nocturne in F minor Op. 55 was played (a piece that I know how to play). What the program said about In the Night: Jerome Robbins' rapturous In the Night features three couples, in varying stages of relationships, who eventually meet in a dance for six. Each couple's pas de deux possesses a distinct character and in the end, all drift offstage in each others' arms like stars fading at dawn. Mesmerizing.
Last, but definetly not least The Concert (or, The Perils of Everybody): A Charade in One Act.It was just hilarious and gorgeous. The curtain lifts up and we see another curtain with a drawing by Edward Gorey. It lifts again. An empty stage with a grand piano to the left. From the right comes the pianist....

Le blog d'Anne - http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/leblogdanne/

Celebrities and Depression
By Alicia Sparks, NAMI Affiliation Leader

It's "Celebrity Health Week" on the Mental Health Notes blogstie, and Fryderyk finds himself A-listed on the Celebrity Depression List amongs Buzz Aldrin and Abe Lincoln...though what is this composition called "Nocturne" she speaks of?

Frederic Chopin, often regarded as the greatest Polish composer (I absolutely love Nocturne and am, as a matter of fact, listening to it right now) battled depression before his death 1849.

Mental Health Notes - http://www.mentalhealthnotes.com

The Chopin Currency - June 8th, 2008

Chopin News, Views, and Reviews:

'The Spies of Warsaw' by Alan Furst
Los Angeles Times - CA,USA

"Furst's books are like Chopin's nocturnes: timeless, transcendent, universal. One does not so much read them as fall under their spell and to fall in love with those Romantic impulses that compel men and women to act beyond their self-interests."

And, like Chopin, Furst is a Romantic. Regardless of their gender or nationalities, his characters share one immutable trait: a heroic belief in the transformative power of love, whether for a nation, an ideal or another human being.

"The Spies of Warsaw" is Furst's 10th novel. Like the others, it involves the work of European spies in the 1930s and '40s. Few writers tread such a narrow path so often. Fewer still do it without repeating themselves. Furst's genius is to revisit the same era and character types while making each journey new and fascinating.

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Author Q&A
Wall Street Journal - USA

No reference to Chopin, but a fascinating Q & A with author Alan Furst...

In Alan Furst's newly published espionage novel, "The Spies of Warsaw," he paints a convincing portrait of Europe in 1937, told in part through the eyes of a French military attaché. That Mr. Furst's book is atmospheric, convincing and filled with twists and turns will hardly surprise readers of his nine earlier spy books such as "Night Soldiers" and "Kingdom of Shadows."

Mr. Furst, 67 years old, turned to espionage after writing four earlier novels that didn't sell. A Manhattan native, Mr. Furst lives in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and periodically in Paris. He estimates he has lived in France for roughly 10 years of his life.

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A Night for Robbins to Give Chopin a Twirl or Three
New York Times - United States

This seems to be shaping up as the Year of Jerome Robbins...

Jerome Robbins would remain one of the most diverse, successful and appealing choreographers of all time if he had never set anything to the music of Chopin. Yet to imagine ballet without Robbins’s Chopin works is to imagine a painful diminution. Though the current Robbins retrospective from New York City Ballet has been successfully under way for over a month, its “Definitive Chopin” program, which opened on Wednesday night at the State Theater, brings us closer to the choreographer’s heart than any other evening this season.

The program contains just three ballets. (Robbins’s “In the Night,” to Chopin nocturnes, was part of a separate bill that went out of repertory Thursday night.) It begins with a film clip of Robbins in 1990 rehearsing Darci Kistler in his first Chopin work, “The Concert” (1956). She’s really good, but he’s much better, wonderfully funny in the way the music makes him go weak at the knees: not an immediate collapse, but a rich, rippling-through-the-body plunge...

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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 2nd, 2008

Chopin News, Views, Reviews, and Previews:

'Chopin Manuscript' wins top Audie
Arizona Daily Star - Tucson,AZ,USA

And the winner is... The Audie Awards (the so-called "Oscars of the Audiobook Industry") hand out the top prize to The Chopin Manuscript -- a "serial thriller" named Audiobook of the Yearat the 13th annual Audie Awards banquet Friday in Los Angeles.

But don't go looking for "The Chopin Manuscript" on the bookshelf.

There is no print version.

For the first time ever, the top audio production is available only as a download from its producer, Audible Inc. Read by Alfred Molina, this World War II-era thriller revolves around the search for a document that may or may not have been connected to composer Frederic Chopin.

It is reported to have been hidden by the Nazis in Kosova. Nine best-selling mystery-thriller writers, headed by Jeffery Deaver, wrote "The Chopin Manuscript," which came out in serial form starting last September. This is very much the way Stephen King's "The Green Mile" debuted in 1996.

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Eternal Sonata Review
Game Reviews - Phoenix,AZ,USA

The Chopin-based video game gets high praise from the major game-review site TGM (8.5/10 overall)

Eternal Sonata, developed by Japanese studio tri-Crescendo and published by Namco, is a JRPG with a difference. It takes you on the final journey of famed Polish classical pianist Frederic Chopin through his final dream when lying in his bed just before dying in his house in Paris in 1849. It won’t come as a surprise to learn that the design team behind this captivating game are all musicians. Hiroya Hatsushiba is an audio programmer who has worked with fellow tri-Crescendo founder Motoi Sakuraba, who is in fact a composer, on many other JRPG’s including the likes off Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile for parent studio tri-Ace.

Eternal Sonata is one of those rare and wonderful games completely based on musical history. Throughout the game you will hear wonderful music from the famed pianist that the game is based on. In addition, there are some original songs that round off an amazing soundtrack....

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All-Robbins program doesn't miss a step
Seattle Post Intelligencer - USA

Another rave review for the Pacific Northwest Ballet production of two Chopin-based Jerome Robbins creations: "Into the Night, and "The Concert:"

One of the opening gambits of Peter Boal, as PNB artistic director, was "In the Night." It is among Robbins' most memorable ballets for its limpid moodiness and subtle shifts of tone. Three couples dance to Chopin's evanescent nocturnes, played with nuance by pianist Dianne Chilgren. The first is young and perfect; the second more formal and restrained, and the third restless and troubled. Pantastico and Olivier Wevers, who danced in the original cast, repeated their performances. They were a perfect realization of idealized love. The second couple, Ariana Lallone and Stanko Milov, were new to the roles, at least to me. They are a distinctive couple, and they offered distinctive dancing. The action of the third couple is realized more with the woman than the man. Nadeau, who danced in the original cast, was turbulent yet appealing. Karol Cruz was her able partner.

"The Concert" was given its PNB premiere at the fall gala. It was a sensation then and is so now. There is so much that is amusing or outright hilarious. It is supposed to be a parody of a concert, thus the name, but goes so far beyond those perimeters that one easily forgets the premise....

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All Robbins Showcases PNB's Acting Chops
Seattlest - Seattle,USA

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Best Audio Book Of The Year
By M.J. Rose

Amazement at the Chopin Manuscript victory: "As one of our esteemed authors said - beating God and Harry Potter is one thing -- but beating Colbert? Now that's impressive."

The Chopin Manuscript is an original serialized thriller created exclusively for audio by a stellar list of thriller writers -- for a joint project between Audible.com and ITW - a project that Steve Feldber and I only imagined would ...
Buzz, Balls & Hype - http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/buzz_balls_hype/

The Chopin Currency - May 31st, 2008

Chopin News, Views, Reviews, and Previews:

"All Robbins" is all pleasure at PNB
Seattle Times - United States

The Jerome Robbins Chopin-dance fever juggurnaut rumbles on in Seattle, with acclaimed productions by Pacific Northwest Ballet of "The Concert" and "In The Night."

Making its PNB premiere, Robbins' 1956 comic work "The Concert" is set to sedate piano works by Chopin, played onstage by Dianne Chilgren and witnessed by a motley crowd in pale-blue leotards. The ballerina (a funny, loose Miranda Weese) practically embraces the piano in her joy, while a pair of hatted ladies (Lesley Rausch, Maria Chapman) cross their legs in exaggerated precision. A wife (Carrie Imler) scolds her cigar-chomping husband (Jonathan Porretta) — not noticing that his eye is on the ballerina.

And from these character vignettes, Robbins sweeps us into fantasy: a dimly lit umbrella dance that's both melancholy and lovely; a cast transformed into gossamer-winged butterflies, suddenly lighter and sillier than air. It's a wacky dream ballet, performed with airy precision, and the giggling opening-night audience rewarded it with a standing ovation.

"In the Night" is also set to Chopin (also played beautifully by Chilgren), but its velvet mood is a world away: three romantic pas de deux on a starry night. As the most tempestuous of the couples, Louise Nadeau and Karel Cruz were mesmerizing; though they initially seemed physically mismatched (he looks at least a foot taller than she), their shared recklessness and dramatic ardor cast a powerful spell. Ariana Lallone and Stanko Milov, arms reaching to the sky, brought regal strength to their more formal dance. Noelani Pantastico and Olivier Wevers, in their effortless lifts, personified youthful, sparkling love.


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Chopin Downloads of Apparent Legality:

Free Download of the Week: Chopin's Nocturne No. 1 in B Flat Minor ...
By Laura(Michael)

From the new site Musopen, boasting "copyright free classical music."

In the mood for a more melancholy tune? Take advantage of music in the public domain and download this beautiful piece by Chopin, courtesy of Musopen.com. Click to download Chopin's Nocturne No.1 in B Flat Minor, Op.9 ...

Fastcase - Accelerated Legal Research - http://fastcase.blogspot.com/

The Chopin Currency - May 24th, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

New Classical Tracks: The allure and the thrill of Chopin
Minnesota Public Radio - Saint Paul,MN,USA

Radio review of Gilmore Prize winner Ingrid Fliter's new CD...

The young Argentine musician Ingrid Fliter is one of the brightest rising stars in the piano world. The composer she's most identified with is Chopin, and his music is the focus of her latest disc.

For her part, Ingrid Fliter has just released a new solo recording featuring works by Chopin, a composer she believes she was born to play.

"It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that if it had not been for Chopin's music, I wouldn't have been born," she explained. "My mother noticed my father for the first time while he was playing some Chopin waltzes during a party!

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Ingrid Fliter replaces Anderszewski
Thenews.pl - Warsaw,Poland

Speaking of the Gilmore, one winner subs for another at the Barbican in London...

Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski was forced to cancel his appearance at London’s Barbican Centre tonight on the advice of his doctor. He is replaced by the Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter, Second Prize winner at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw in 2000. ...

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Royal Ballet Double Bill, Royal Opera House, London
Independent - London,England,UK

Rave review for the Royal Ballet revival of the Chopin-centric "Dances at a Gathering...."

Dances at a Gathering looks simple. Jerome Robbins' 1969 ballet puts 10 dancers on a bare stage, with a blue backdrop, set to Chopin piano pieces. The numbers are full of invention, yet they have to look easy. Robbins demands clean musicality and a sense of atmosphere. They're all there in this wonderfully fresh performance.

It's more than 30 years since the Royal Ballet put on Dances at a Gathering. People who saw it in its early years still go dreamy over it. The ballet's atmosphere is fragile. This revival, staged by Susan Hendl and Ben Huys, has real warmth....

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Mostly having to do with fallout and feedback from the BBC's Chopin Experience:

The Chopin Experience
By vhk10
I listened to bits of this all-Chopin weekend on Radio 3. (I used to listen to and indeed play Chopin’s music a lot, and though it has retreated a bit in my musical consciousness he is still a favourite of mine). ...

The best aspect was hearing recordings from different eras and with different interpretations, rather than just good recent performances.

I recommend trying the Chopin Audio Quiz, which is not trivial, mainly because the extracts are from the middle of pieces.

VHK's singing - http://vhkssinging.wordpress.com

Bad to the bone
By Sawyl(Sawyl)
I like to think of Radio 3 as the rebel of the BBC family, hanging back while the others chase after listeners, growing its toenails and listening to Chopin. A classical music-fancying rebel; every family needs one. ...
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing - http://sawyl.livejournal.com

The Chopin Currency - May 22nd, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Young Cuban Pianist Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan Awarded win the Prize ...
Cuba Headlines - Ciudad Habana,Habana,Cuba

Our first dispatch from the island's news agency....

Virtuous interpretations of "Nocturne" by Frederic Chopin and Concert Studies of Franz Liszt made possible for the young Cuban pianist Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan to win the Prize "Cle d Or" of Superior level in France.

Gonzalez Buajasan, only 13, performed this Sunday in "Les Cles d Or" (Gold Keys) piano contest in the superior category, in Ile de France region, carried out in the Parisian locality of Villemomble.

He played "Nocturne Opus 27", number two of Chopin and "A Sigh", from Concert Studies of Liszt, with meticulous elegance.

He is a very talented-boy and plays with exquisite loudness, although he should involve slow movements when playing "Un suspiro", members of the jury told the student of the Caribbean island when congratulating him for the prize obtained, Prensa Latina corroborated.

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Actions speak louder in dance story
This is London - London,England,UK

Jerome Robbins may say "no plot, no roles" in his hour-long "Dances At A Gathering," but critic nonetheless finds plenty of story lines in his Chopin-based dance...

The solos, duets and group dances that follow may be an evocation of his past or just dances, as Robbins said. Either way Chopin’s music, and Robbins’s gestures and steps, evoke people falling happily in and resignedly out of love. There are flirtations and friendship, and the comforts and misunderstandings of each. The style is polite — these are pretty steps and tidy tears — but in showing us what we long for, Robbins reveals all that we don’t have.

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The Kirov Ballet - Chopiniana/The Kingdom of Shades/Le Spectre de ...
Stage - London,England,UK

More Chopin on the dance stage in the UK...

The second splendid programme, presented by the Kirov, is an excellent example of the diversity of this prestigious company. Chopiniana, with Fokine’s classical choreography set to Chopin’s music, is a superb showcase for the superior corps de ballet, which danced with precision timing but retained the important lyrical feel. Principals Anastasia Kolegova and Evgeny Ivanchenko also made a mark.

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The Chopin Currency - April 24, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:
Piano Man on a Mission

Miami New Times - Miami,FL,USA

Fascinating story of the "self-taught classical pianist" Kristopher Hull, who's now taking his Chopin-heavy act to the streets of Miami as a "Pianist Errant"

This past February 27 would come to be known as Kristopher Hull's Worst Day Ever. Armed with a full-size upright piano, a repertoire of Chopin's etudes and nocturnes, and his nerves, the 33-year-old pianist planned to storm Lincoln Road, guerrilla-style. He was going to bring classical music out of the concert hall and into the streets.

Inspired by his fictional role model, Don Quixote, Hull was in the early days of his quest, which he called "pianist errantry." He was accompanied by a pal, Swedish-born photographer Victor Staaffe, who was documenting the whole thing. Together that sunny afternoon, they unloaded Hull's piano from the back of his aquamarine pickup truck....

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Concert will feature 'jazz on a classical guitar'
Post-Bulletin - Rochester,MN,USA

Jazz guitarist Gene Bertoncini is poised to showcase his classical chops with the Rochestra Symphony Orchestra...

He'll play three arrangements with the orchestra, two of them melding classical pieces with jazz tunes. The first combines Chopin's Prelude in E flat with Antonio Carlos Jobim's "How Insensitive." The second starts with Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez and becomes Chick Corea's "Spain."

The works fit the Latin theme of the concert. "You can't get more Latin than the title of 'Spain,'" Bertoncini said.

Jobim borrowed from Chopin's Prelude and added a bossanova beat for "How Insensitive."

"I heard a pianist do it the same way when I was on the 'Tonight Show,'" Bertoncini said. "I always remembered that." He simply transferred it to guitar.

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World-acclaimed Vietnamese pianist to release new CD
Viet Nam News - Hanoi,Vietnam

More about the Chopin-heavy CD-and-book releases in Vietnam by native son (and 1980 Chopin Competition winner) Dang Thai Son...

A CD compilation of Vietnamese high profile pianist Dang Thai Son’s favourite classical pieces hits the streets next Friday.

Distributed by the Phuong Nam Film Company, the collection includes 13 CDs, previously released by Japan’s Victor Entertainment Inc. (JVC). The CDs include Tchaikovsky, Men-delssohn, Liszt, Ravel and Debussy scores, and nine devoted entirely to Chopin.

According to director of Phuong Nam Film Phan Mong Thuy, the company has spent four months securing distribution rights from JVC.

"In presenting the CDs of famous pianist Dang Thai Son, our company is doing its utmost to bring Vietnamese audiences valued musical products," Thuy said.

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SFIFF: Ashes to ashes
San Francisco Bay Guardian - San Francisco,CA,USA

Another mention of the acclaimed indie documentary film Forever:

SFIFF One of the greatest pleasures of the 50th SF International Film Festival was Forever, Heddy Honigmann's 2006 study of the living among the dead at Paris' Père-Lachese cemetery. Between footage of the sun-dappled necropolis in all its hushed, springtime glory, Honigmann (who received last year's Persistence of Vision award) profiles several regular visitors, who in the course of discussing an attachment to a particular resident — whether that dweller be Frédéric Chopin or a deceased husband — reveal a great deal about how we commune with memory in our daily lives.

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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Dancing about music
By Thomasina

A "distinterested plug" by a Down Under blogger for a quadruple-bill Jerome Robbins Celebration, by the Australian Ballet...

1. The Concert
This is one of the sweetest, funniest, most entertaining ballets I’ve ever seen. The pianist on stage performs a recital of Chopin. The dancers are the audience – behaving in all the ways that audiences do, including sitting in the wrong seats – and they dance out their fantasies in the most delightful ways. Did I mention I adore this ballet?

Thomasina’s last waltz - http://frindley.typepad.com/colophon/

Chopin and Callas worshippers
By Gillibrand(Gillibrand)

Can be found at the Church of St Julien le Pauvre in Paris. Since 1889, the home of the Melkites in Paris.

Catholic Church Conservation - http://cathcon.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 - March 14, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Martha Argerich Plays Chopin: The Legendary 1965 Recording
By admin0

Superlatives for a long-suppressed recording out on CD:

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

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

♯Four
By Frederic Francois Chopin(Frederic Francois Chopin)

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

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

The Chopin Currency - March 12, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Method & madness: The oddities of the virtuosi
Independent - London,England,UK

This just in: A lot of great pianists of the ages have been more than a little crackers. A dissection on the eccentricities and downright madness of Shura Cherkassy, Glenn Gould, Artur Benedetto Michalangeli, Vladimir Horowitz, and a host of lesser knows, including...

Some pianists based brilliant careers on seeming mad, when they weren't, the most notable being the diminutive Viennese "pianissimist" Vladimir de Pachmann, aka "the Chopinzee", whose antics prompted George Bernard Shaw to write of his "pantomimic performance, with accompaniments by Chopin"

Yet his Chopin and Schumann had such panache that dozens of live recordings have been issued since his death. I regret never having heard Arturo Benedetti ...
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Nanowires prefer Deep Purple
ABC Science Online - Australia'

In the brand-new world of silicon nanowires, Chopin lags behind Deep Purple in promoting their growth - though it seems there are "kinks" to work out....

Parlevliet tested the effect of Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water', Chopin's 'Nocturne Opus 9 No 1', Josh Abrahams' 'Addicted to Bass', Rammstein's 'Das ...
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WEST SIDE STORY SUITE – Standing Ovation for San Francisco Ballet ...
SanFranciscoSentinel.com - San Francisco,CA,USA

Account of San Francisco Ballet program currently in production that includes Jerome Robbins' "In the Night," danced to a recording of three Chopin Nocturnes by Artur Rubinstein...(Opus 9 No. 2, Opus 27 No. 1, Opus 55, No. 1 and No. 2.)

The evening includes three separate works featuring the music of Leonard Bernstein and Frédéric Chopin. 2008 marks the 90th birthdays of Bernstein and ...
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"Her Name Is Sabine,"
IFC - USA

Review of new indy film by French actress Sandrine Bonnaire "making a patient, respectful, thoroughly unnarcissistic documentary about her own handicapped sister, and stumping for policy change as she considers painful mysteries about family and the passage of time in the process. "Her Name Is Sabine" (2007) is a simple, unpretentious piece of work..."

... teen and young adult, she was different, "off," but lucid, literate, energetic and capable of playing Chopin. She went without diagnosis for decades. ...
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