© AI free - Training forbidden - Reviews of Selected Classical Music in the Poland of Chopin

NIFCCD 146 - Lessel, Haydn,  Voříšek , Beethoven, Chopin (2023) I feel I have nothing left to say about this magnificent, electrifying recording apart from the fact it is without doubt the finest period piano recording I have ever heard.  In my adopted role as music critic I have experienced many!  First of all, here is an extract of my criticism of the Ritter performance in Stage II of the competition when he won the 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments in September 2018 : Tomasz Ritter has had a distinguished career associated with both the harpsichord and the historical piano with his outstanding teachers. He has won prestigious prizes and performed with fine orchestras under well-known conductors. I expected his recital to be remarkable and so it was. He began unexpectedly with a stylish rendition of the Kurpiński polonaise on the  Buchholtz  with most attractive phrasing which added greatly to the period feel. The Chopin polo...

  Eric Guo Winner of the 2nd International Chopin Piano Competition on Period instruments Warsaw, 2023 Fryderyk Chopin 214th Birthday Concert,  Warsaw  1st March 2024 Photographs by  Wojciech  Grzędziński Eric Guo chose to play the infrequently performed Chopin  F minor concerto arranged for solo piano by Chopin .  Remember despite the opus number,  this was the first piano concerto Chopin wrote. It follows the Mozart model and was directly influenced by the  style brillant  of Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Moscheles and Ries.  Schumann wrote of it: 'of the second concerto, which we can all together barely reach, we can only kiss the edge of his royal garment.' This inspirational remark on its gestation is rightly famous: ‘As I already have, perhaps unfortunately, my ideal, whom I faithfully serve, without having spoken to her for half a year already, of whom I dream, in remembrance of whom was created the adagio of my concerto’  (...

Eric Guo Winner of the 2nd International Chopin Piano Competition on Period instruments Warsaw, 2023                  Fryderyk Chopin 214th Birthday Concert at Żelazowa Wola 1st March 2024 Performed on an 1838  Erard The  Dworek  at Żelazowa Wola, the birthplace of Fryderyk Chopin, 1st March 1810 Photographs by  Wojciech  Grzędziński The Eric Guo recital at the  Dworek  at Żelazowa Wola, the birthplace of Fryderyk Chopin on 1st March 1810, is on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPiGYtSvCkU My review Variations in B flat major on a theme from Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ (‘Là ci darem la mano’) Op. 2 ‘ Là ci darem la mano’  Walter Richard Sickert (1860–1942)  (National Trust, Fenton House, London) The youthful  Variations in B-flat major on ‘La ci darem la mano’ from Don Giovanni was composed when Chopin was seventeen. This was originally a brilliant and extremely demanding...