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

Review of the recording by Eric Guo, winner of the 2nd. International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments. Warsaw 2023 NIFCCD 660    https://sklep.nifc.pl/en/produkt/77458-eric-guo                                                                                                           (photo  Wojciech   Grzędziński) Fryderyk Chopin   Piano Concerto in E minor, Op. 11   Eric Guo   Pleyel  1842 (soloist) Václav Luks conducts the [oh!] Orchestra Allegro maestoso I attended this concerto during the competition. The fact this pianist is a great communicator (vital in a concert artist) was obvious from the first embracing smile towards the audience. His playing is a marvellous exampl...

Eugen Indjic (1947-2024) I was deeply shocked to hear of his death shortly after waking this morning. A gentle and civilized cosmopolitan man, warm, humorous, engaging, generous, a refined musical artist and magnificent pianist who had a profound understanding of Chopin. I was fortunate to have heard him in moving recitals and as a teacher in empathetic Masterclasses in Poland at Duszniki  Zdrój  and Warsaw. And he was only 76 ….. During his career he was successful in three piano competitions:  8th International Piano Competition Fryderyk Chopin (1970) - IV Prize   Leeds International Piano Competition (1972) - 3rd prize  International Master Piano Competition Arthur Rubinstein (1974) - Second   Prize He came from a different world of musical sensibility to this one and we shall not see his like again. A rare spirit, musical voice and a cultivated character of man. As a small tribute, all I can offer is a review I wrote years ago of a recital ...

Today is the second anniversary of the eruption of yet another inhuman conflagration in Ukraine at the heart of Europe. A reminder, as if we needed it after World War II, of how little does humanity learn from history apart from the fact it repeats itself and that humanity does not learn from the past. I have been watching on the BBC the deeply moving funeral of Alexei Navalny and the courage of those who decided to join the endless queue and attend his burial. The cycles of historical inhumanity endlessly repeat themselves. The music of Chopin and the historical context in which it was composed is hauntingly topical today, on his birthday, the composer of the profound melancholy of lost freedom. The situation is worse now with another mindless conflagration in the Middle East. Our leaders in every country have lost moral direction and sense of truth. How I yearn for a man of Paderewski's charisma and his projection of the image of a moral beacon in the world. Rather than add to th...