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

“I began to discover pianos from many different eras and regions, and the idea of making a recording which shows a glimpse to their diversity was just the ultimate decision”  Aurelia Visovan. Photo by Wojciech Grzedzinski I first heard this remarkably individual and deeply musical Romanian pianist at the  1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments in Warsaw 2–14 September 2018. Of her playing of Chopin on that occasion I wrote as notes: Her wide and extensive experience playing the harpsichord and fortepiano was clear from the outset. Visovan understands the sound and colour palette of the  Pleyel instrument intimately [...] The transparency and colour she extracted from this instrument put me in mind of gazing in wonder at the radiant stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral [...] The undamped overtones provided a magical sound landscape. Not for the first time I was reminded of Dinu Lipatti.  I suppose all Romanian pianists adore his Chopin...

The Death of Dido c.1775-81   SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723-92) Italian opera tended to dominate the English stage when Henry Purcell (1659-1695), wrote the opera Dido & Aeneas (1688)   with a libretto astonishingly  in English by the Irish poet Nahum Tate who had often written for Purcell. The score was collected in the famed  Orpheus Britannicus and is   arguably the first English opera.   The plot is certainly  tragic but this does not exclude the presence of  lighter elements, possibly with ironical meaning.  The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid . It tells, with various imaginative metaphysical interpolations, of the passionate  love of Dido, Queen of Carthage for the Trojan warrior and heroic figure Aeneas and depicts her formidable despair and death when he abandons her for a 'higher purpose' ordered by the Gods. When one is confronted in modern times with a great work of operatic art some 350 years old, it is irresist...

  XII DARMSTADT INTERNATIONAL CHOPIN PIANO COMPETITION 21.10.2022 – 31.10.2022 I  drove to Darmstadt from Warsaw via beautiful  Potsdam to cover this important competition in detail as the official reviewer in the English language Please use this link to 'The Reviewer's Notepad'  (my daily evaluation of the competition and candidates)  https://michael-moran.org/2022/10/12/xii-darmstadt-international-chopin-piano-competition/ Reviews of the previous competition in October 2015 https://michael-moran.org/2017/09/24/xi-darmstadt-international-chopin-piano-competition-2017-6-16-october-2017/ Official link to the competition  https://chopin-gesellschaft.de/2019-2/wettbewerbe/xii-darmstadt-international-chopin-piano-competition-2022-english / The Competition was in 3 rounds.  Works exclusively by Fryderyk Chopin: Works for piano solo Works for piano and orchestra (Concertos in E minor op. 11 and F minor op. 21, Krakowiak in F major op. 14, Fantasy o...

Hôtel Lambert, Paris This is the famous picture  Chopin's Polonaise - a Ball at the H ôtel  Lambert in Paris  by Teofil Kwiatkowski (1809-1891) now in the National Museum Poznań. This palace was the Parisian home of the Polish magnate Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski and a centre for the volatile discussions of the political  'Polish question' in the mid nineteenth century.  'There have been many chapters in the almost four-hundred-year history of the Hôtel Lambert. Each one has been splendid and fascinating.' JAMES REGINATO The Hôtel Lambert, built in the early 1640s and located on the secluded Île Saint-Louis in the heart of Paris, is the most staggeringly beautiful private residence in the city. This palatial private house was decorated by the artistic visionaries behind the Palace of Versailles, architect Louis Le Vau, and painters Charles Le Brun and Eustache Le Sueur. Since then, it has been home to various illustrious families from Polish Prince Ada...

©  Bridgeman Images The significance and magnitude of t he death of Queen Elizabeth II is beyond language and mere words to sufficiently engage and reward mind and heart. She had always seemed an immortal figure for me, indestructible. As time passes and we approach this planetary funeral, it seems in death she has become the subconscious acknowledged moral and spiritual leader of the world She reigned but she did not rule There is something of an inexplicable metaphysical power that hovers about the nature of royalty. Echoes seem still to resound over centuries of the Divine Right of Kings,  a Royal destiny  determined by God. Surely only this can explain such profound mass emotional devotion, 'paying respect' and sense of loss. A phenomenon almost beyond rationality. Finally as an author, I can now write a little, even at such a deeply melancholic moment. A moral beacon of great constancy and continuity  has been extinguished at a ti...