Young Chopin in Warsaw (Episodes 1 & 2)




You may like to wander the streets of Warsaw with me in the footsteps of young Chopin before he left Poland on 2 November 1830 never to return

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995) and his Ferraris - not only an immortal Chopinist. Also Herbert von Karajan, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Andy Warhol and their cars

Image
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...
Read more

Composer Abuse - Truth Decay in the Life of Fryderyk Chopin

Image
Composer Abuse   Truth Decay in the Life of Fryderyk Chopin The Young Chopin (1810-1849) The recent, tendentious article entitled  'Chopin's interest in men airbrushed from history, programme claims' that appeared in The Guardian newspaper (Philip Oltermann and Shaun Walker, Wednesday 25 Nov 2020) clearly has an agenda that possesses only a passing relationship to serious music and more pointedly, sexual orientation in its depiction of the life of the Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin. Subtitle:  Journalist says he has found overt homoeroticism in Polish composer’s letters.  What is interesting is the fact that the Swiss public broadcaster SRF’s arts channel decided that this old 'sensationalist' chestnut was an important enough 'revelation' to have made a long programme entitled Chopin's Men concerning the issue. That his true sexual proclivities have been  'airbrushed from history' could only be seriously considered as 'Stop Press News...
Read more

The Pianist on Square d'Orléans. The Rediscovered Chopin Pleyel piano, Factory No.13214 (1847) Fryderyk Chopin's penultimate instrument

Image
Pleyel Factory Number 13214 (1847) The great English painter J. M. W. Turner once remarked  'always take advantage of an accident'.  In this case I am attempting to take advantage of a coincidence. The consideration is of two  Pleyel  Petit Patron grand pianos used by Fryderyk Chopin. These instruments followed each other to the same address in Paris as if in the manner of a metaphysical destiny.  I have already covered in detail the restoration in Warsaw of Chopin's last piano in Paris,  Pleyel  No .  14810 of 1848, and will follow this with an examination of the history and review a performance on the recently rediscovered penultimate  Pleyel  used by Chopin in Paris,   Factory No. 13214 of 1847.  The award-winning pianist and pedagogue Professor Hubert Rutkowski of the  Hochschule für Musik und Theater  in Hamburg explained the fascination  Pleyel  had for the P...
Read more