© Protected - Selected Classical Music in Poland and the Europe of Chopin - Reviewer's Notebook

If you are not already watching the Tchaikovsky Competition piano section streamed on 'Paraclassics' you really must do so. Trifonov gave one of the greatest live performances of Op. 25 I have ever heard. So passionately committed to this music it was electrifying. I could trot out all the poetic cliches in the book but  what use would that be? Pathetic words signifying little. Really you must watch this although it may not be to everyone's taste - the involvement of this pianist in the extreme emotions and fiery virtuosity of Chopin's youth makes one almost uncomfortable and leaves one questioning one's own personal musical committment. Here we have a young man possessed of a unique and ardent love, nay passionate joy in this music that only  illusioned youth is capable of, unfettered by mature experience and deep reflection. I have always believed that Chopin is played best by young pianists of the same age as Chop...

I have been so busy writing my latest book on Edward Cahill (in a way dying to life in order to create it) that I have not been able to follow the Rubinstein competition in detail. However I sat up late last night to watch the finalists on that incomparable television channel Mezzo. Trifonov played the Chopin E minor Concerto Op. 11 with all the ardent love, sensitivity, grace and classical style that I had expected of him from his performance of the same work in the Chopin competition here in Warsaw last year. His interpretation of the Romance-Larghetto movement brings one close to tears - all of the romantic, illusioned yearning that young love is capable of - the finest I have ever heard including Lipatti and Pollini (just after his win of the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 1960). I was overjoyed at this result. This win absolutely confirms my conviction that Trifonov was one of the greatest Chopin players in Warsaw (see my extensive October 2010 posting on...

I have neglected this blog terribly but I am overwhelmed with reading, researching and writing my work on the increasingly remarkable story of the Australian pianist Edward Cahill. I have also neglected my own piano and harpsichord practice which is worse. I manage to get to the gym three or four times a week but maintaining  mens sana in copore sano is so time consuming but vital. I came across this clipping from a London newspaper published sometime in 1925 (precise date missing). The Chappell concert grand piano was a highly respected English instrument of the period and the company arranged a series of concerts with famous pianists in popular venues using their instruments. Edward Cahill was one of the chosen pianists. Certainly he kept company with some of the finest pianists of the period and it says a great deal about his remarkable playing. For me it confirms once more the importance of this lost and forgotten talent and his remarkable life history....

  Click on to enlarge  Christopher Balfour's Bristol 400 in Davos Switzerland in the 1960s 'BRISTOL BEACH' If any of my readers share my passion for classic cars (rare enough I think) and Bristols in particular do click on something I wrote about my brief one year experience of owning one of these great machines while at university in Sydney Australia in 1966. I came across this amusing and terribly nostalgic essay concerning my youth quite by chance.   Click on: https://app.box.com/s/p07vebizqwvs79etcqnyc1exhv086ydo This link is to the story now on a cloud, originally on a website set up by the peerless Ashley James in the UK who restored a Bristol 400 to perfection.  His brilliant technical and advice website concerning his long history and restoration of the magnificent Bentley Mk VI model, his restoration of  an Austin-Healey Mk III and many fascinating articles from fellow enthusiasts are also available...

I spent a particulary busy Christmas break researching the Indian and Far Eastern concert tour 1919-1921 of the pianist Edward Cahill accompanied by the tenor George Brooke and writing that chapter of his extraordinary life. The Queensland floods may necessarily postpone my trip to Australia for that section of the book until later in the year. The deadline I have been given may need to be extended as I rearrange matters. At all events here is an extract from the completed Chapter 3 of the new book. First a few initial reflections on Liszt. I hope to go to Weimar again this year to see the Liszt house (which will have been fully restored by now) and investigate more fully his years spent teaching in that extraordinary and beautiful small town. This remarkable place had an incalculable effect on the now cruelly and tragically abandoned ideals of eighteenth century Enlightenment thought in Europe. Both Goethe and Schiller lived and wrote...