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

Don Juan  and  Zerlina   (British Library) NIFCCD 141-142 A scene from Bizet's opera  Carmen A degree of vertigo overwhelms me when I begin to consider the kaleidoscopic life of  Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838). He was  the speedy Mozart librettist of  Le nozze di Figaro (1786); Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1789). Constant   unexpected reversals of fortune in his life led to massive changes of plan that plagued this intense  improviser on life's stage. The insanely disconnected and illogical events of his long-lived destiny  are introduced piecemeal into the opera plot.  Da Ponte became immensely successful as a result of the libretto for the opera A Rare Thing (1786)   by  Vicente Martín y Soler (1754-1806) , one of the great musical successes of the time,  comfortably outdoing Mozart in Vienna despite the success of Figaro. He wrote in his Memoires: 'We might have had more amorous a...

The Eliot Quartet Maryana Osipova, Violin Alexander Sachs, Violin Dimitry Hahalin, Viola Michael Preuss, Cello Dimitry Ablogin, Piano CD:  GENUIN  GEN 22784 And yet another CD spins on my player, one of many that regularly come my way. The title of this disc  Le temps retrouvé   intrigued me as it irresistibly gave rise in my memory of reading long ago that great work  À la Recherche du Temps Perdu  by Marcel Proust. The title became a semantic analogy of a madeleine dipped in tea.  César Franck (1822-1890) The emotional impact of the music and performance on this disc by the Eliot Quartet (named after T. S. Eliot and his poem  Four Quartets,  itself inspired by the late Beethoven quartets) and the distinguished Russian pianist Dimitry Ablogin. His exceptional performances  have often been reviewed on this internet journal  and his numerous international awards, such as the 10th International German Pia...

Pope Benedict XVI has died at the age of 95  Funeral of Benedict XVI Pope Francis presided over the Requiem Mass of Benedict XVI on Thursday January 5  in St. Peter’s Square. This ancient rite a was on this occasion a moving ceremony of poised simplicity, as far as magnificent pomp and circumstance can be expressed by the Vatican. Pope Benedict had expressly requested this scaling down of the ceremony. This was the first time in some 600 years that a living Pope and contemporary occupant of the Holy See presided over the funeral of a previous Pope.  I found the homily given by Pope Francis to be a carefully considered strategic approach, given the present voracious and exaggerated appetite of the social and print media for the prurient and sensational in life. He concentrated on the nature of Christian faith and mentioned the 'wisdom, tenderness and devotion' imparted by Pope Benedict XVI only at the conclusion. The success of his ecumenism was clear from the many Christi...

From the Lt. Julian Chochran, Klara Gronet, Danae Eleni, Tobias Koch This musical performance and conversation with the composer Julian Cochran has stirred many memories in my recntly established world of  Nostalgiaville.  I moved into classical music in quite the reverse gear - from the jazz world of Oscar Peterson, to the contemporary classical music of say Olivier Messiaen, Stockhausen and Boulez back further in time through Chopin and Bach to the great operas of Monteverdi, finally to Josquin des Pres, Palestrina and Gregorian Chant.  The first image that springs into the viewfinder of my mind was my experiences during the  avant-garde  year of revolution 1968. During those years I was in Paris writing my own experimental 'indeterminate'  avant garde  texts influenced by the style of the  Nouveau Roman  literary movement (Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute, Alain Robbe-Grillet). I was deeply interested in the contemporary ...