'There are the notes, there is what is behind the notes and there is what is between the notes' Ignaz Friedman Profile of the Reviewer Michael Moran https://en.gravatar.c atom/mjcmoran#pic-0 My contribution is a modest one (and even anachronistically written down in pen when there is time to do this). I am much constrained by the mechanics of life - eating, sleeping, writing, my birthday (!) note taking during the long performance day and travelling from my home to the Warsaw Filharmonia which lasts from 09.00 am to 11 pm. There are two hours for lunch and aural rest from detailed and tiring analytical listening to these masterpieces performed by some of the most brilliant young pianists in the world today. During the course of the competition I attended 154 live performances I have always believed together with Joseph Addison , the distinguished and influential 17th century English essayist, that : 'A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellen...
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995) There is little need for me to introduce Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, one of the greatest pianists and musicians of all time. I have been listening to a remarkable live recording of a concert he gave in Warsaw in 1955. His Bach/Busoni Chaconne from the Partita in D minor No.2 BWV 1004 is surely one of the greatest ever recorded. Michelangeli's knowledge and command of the piano as an instrument was unequaled, permitting his soul and ours to take unhindered flight. His total identification with the music, his majestic 'Olympian' and 'Apollonian' playing has often been described as 'unearthly' even to the point of bordering on the cold classicism of a perfect Athenian statue. I once heard him play Debussy and Beethoven many years ago in the Royal Festival Hall in London, performing on two distinct Steinway concert grand pianos, one for each composer, individually tuned and prepared by himself. His hea...
Please Click on Photographs to Enlarge - a far superior result Chopin in the Drawing Room of Prince Antoni Radziwill, Henryk Siemieradzki 1887 And so the 16th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition begins in Warsaw, arguably the most important event in the Chopin Year 2010. It runs from 30 September - 23 October 2010 I can hardly believe that five years have passed since I attended every single performance by every pianist in 2005. I shall not be doing that again this year. I have heard rather too much Chopin already in this bicentenary year. In 2005 I found the decision of the jury and the politicking as the pianists moved from stage to stage absolutely inexplicable to the point of questioning my own musical judgement. I now know a great deal more of what transpires ‘behind the scenes’ at this competition and I am afraid it is not as straightforward a contest as it appears. I have a suspicion that many young pianists of outstanding talent a...