© AI Training forbidden - Selected Classical Music in the Poland of Chopin - Reviewer's Notebook

My 1949 MG TC - one of very first cars to cross the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Bridge (Most Marii Skłodowskiej-Curie, formerly North Bridge) on March 25th 2012  Just to say I was one of the very first cars to cross the new Maria Skłodowska-Curie Bridge ( Most Marii Skłodowskiej-Curie , formerly North Bridge) on Sunday March 25th 2012 when it first opened to motor vehicles. This engineering project was incredibly complex (one of the largest in the EU and the most complex intersection design in Warsaw). Despite all the dramas of naming (in true Polish style!) everyone involved is to be congratulated. Full detailed information and technical links at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sk%C5%82odowska-Curie_Bridge,_Warsaw The car is my concours 1949 MG TC which I have affectionately tended at ruinous expense, intense frustration but much joy for many years now. Properly registered as a classic car in Poland but still on 'proper' English ...

The Napoleonic Fortress of Modlin at the confluence of the Vistula and Narew rivers close to Warsaw Officers exchanging vital tactical intelligence at a re-enactment of the Napoleonic Battle of Raszyn 1809 At the re-enactment of the Napoleonic Battle of Pultusk 1806 Officers at leisure before the Napoleonic Battle of Pultusk 1806 Some of my other photographs of the country, unfortunately not included in my book on Poland  A Country in the Moon are available on my website at: http://www.michael-moran.net/pages/poland/photos.htm [For those of you who are interested in such matters, they are mostly non-digital photographs I shot with my non-electronic Nikon F2 with the old Nikon lenses. These days I use a digital Leica more often than the F2. However I feel the 'painterly' quality of landscape and subject cannot be convincingly or adequately created through the Adobe or Capture One processing of digital images....

Unfortunately I have little time to attend all the concerts of this festival (my own writing and research takes up so much time) but at least two of the pianists interested me greatly. 25 March The splendid miltitaristic and certainly festive performance of   Wellington’s Victory, Op. 91 appropriately opened the Festival followed by what must be considered a unique assemblage of talent. The Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56 was performed with three winners of the recent Tchaikovsky Competion in Moscow on their various instruments. Daniil Trifonov – piano Sergey Dogadin – violin Narek Hakhnazaryan – cello The chamber music section of the competition meant these three must have already had a n immense command of ensemble playing and for me it was remarkable performance of this admittedly light, charming work. Daniil Trifonov listened carefully to the other solists and played in his usual intensely sensitive and musical manner. O...

Pretentious moi ? Probably but it's fun in its own way. One only lives once and the standards one was brought up with should be maintained as one ages. I cling desperately to the coat-tails of the 'inequality onslaught' as my once comfortable income is unpleasantly reduced by the recession and the financial chaos in Europe. The oligarchs rise inexorably in a triumph of mediocrity. I also fight a thankless task against the frightful leveling of 'political correctness'. This club and the art of individualist and fearless conversation it maintains helps somewhat to foster a normal sense of human proportion, humour and morality.  Club motto:      Nil Nisi Bonum - Nothing But Good Click on pictures to enlarge I made a special trip to London from Warsaw for this entertaining event and was so pleased I did so. The venue was the Savile Club at 69 Brook Street London W.1 once owned by Viscountess Harcourt. The club occupies one of the greatest original...

          Today t here are a few truly great pianists - then there is Sokolov I returned to Warsaw from London and my researches early on Friday especially to experience a musical soul whom I consider to be the greatest living pianist . Each recital promises to be a profound musical experience and a new adventure into  interpretative recreation possible at the instrument. I first heard Sokolov in 1993 playing the Op. 25 Chopin Etudes in the small concert room in the atelier of the Chopin Museum in Warsaw, a room sadly no longer in use for this purpose. He was a legend in the Chopin Society even then, his very name breathed with reverence and awe. It was a shattering musical encounter I have never forgotten. I would cross great oceans in a twinkling to hear him perform. Sokolov is that rare species, a pianist at home with the entire Classical and Romantic repertoire but also...