Decades before Maurice Ravel came along, Chopin also found inspiration in the old Spanish dance known as the Bolero, defined as “A Spanish dance and song, in moderate tempo and triple metre, popular at the end of the 18th century and throughout the 19th, often performed with guitar and castenets.” In fact, the Spanish Bolero was rythmically related to the polonaise of Chopin’s native country, and even Beethoven wrote a Bolero a solo … it’s one of his minor “without Opus” works, WoO 158. Xiaofeng Wu of the Chopin Project plays it live…
Read Full Post »
Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:
A Chopin extravaganza
Times Online - UK
Nice Times of London summation of the BBC Radio 3 Chopin Experience:
After the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky Experiences and the Bach Christmas it’s time for Frédéric Chopin to sit in a deckchair in…
Read Full Post »
Smack-dab in the middle of Chopin’s Op. 25 Etudes lies this unique and memorable piece that is unlike any other Chopin creation. And one that has generated a considerable amount of ink over the decades.
Sometimes it’s called the “‘cello Etude,” due…
Read Full Post »
“Magnificent in its breadth, it profound expression, and its tremendous sonority.” Dr. Frank Cooper’s summation of this Chopin Nocturne, composed in 1841, just about says it all. But if you want to know more, click here. Or else check out…
Read Full Post »
Hear pianist Dmitri Vorobiev play this poignant Nocturne in B major, Op. 62, No. 1 in a Chopin Project concert performance.
Here’s how it’s described in the 1905 book A Handbook to Chopin’s Works, by George C. Ashton Johnson:
You can read the entire…
Read Full Post »
Chopin News, Previews, Rants, and Reviews:
New award recognizes contribution to the arts
Mississauga News - Ontario, Canada
Some true Chopin 2010 Information…
“Hollywood has its Oscars and Mississauga has its Freddys.
Mayor Hazel McCallion accepted the first Freddy in honour of the contribution she…
Read Full Post »
Posted in Arthur Greene, Mazurkas, Recordings on Mar 4th, 2008
Chopin’s third waltz has been called a “piece full of melancholy, gloom and grief, expressed in mournful simplicity.”
Though, according to the Vancouver Chopin Society,
The composer Stephen Heller related that Chopin called this slow (Lento) waltz his favorite. When Heller…
Read Full Post »
Today the Chopin Project spotlight falls on Russian-born Michigan pianist
Olga Kleiankina, performing the First Impromptu (in A-flat, Op. 29, No. 1) by Chopin. By its very title “Impromptu” is
supposed to mean just that — just a perky, playful little…
Read Full Post »
This rare bit of Chopiniana was supposedly written after violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini came through Warsaw in the summer of 1829, a concert we know that Chopin attended. A month later he graduated from the Higher School of Music in…
Read Full Post »
