According to the Cambridge Companion to Chopin, the composer hated the association:

“Chopin enjoyed elegant feminine company, but he had harsh views of the fawning of his ‘adoring women.’ He himself used the phrase ‘music for the ladies’, but unhappily he meant it disparagingly. Another association with the salon was the ’sentimental drawing room composer” - the ’superficial genius’ - and the appellation was encouraged by a self-imposed limitation of meidum, but the connotations of small forms, and by the description titles assigned to his music by publishers…”

One publisher in particular who drew Chopin’s ire was a London-based German entrepreneur named Christian Rudolph Wessel. As you can see by the cover page, above, (courtesy of the fantastic Chopin Early Editions site at the University of Chicago) the publisher issued Chopin’s marvelous Impromptu No. 2 in a series he called “Les Agrémans au Salon” — loosely translated as “Drawing-Room Trifles.” With “friends” like that….

Nowadays, Chopin’s Impromptus are a robust staple of the concert hall. Hear pianist Noel McRobbie perform Chopin’s Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, Op. 36, in a concert performance at the University of Michigan’s Britton Recital Hall.

Download the sheet music from the Piano Society web site.

Recent scholarship by some musicologists hear the song of a sorrowful Venetian gondolier (borrowed from Italian opera composer Giaocchino Rossini, whom Chopin greatly admired) in the undulating Nocturne in C minor, the 21st and final essay in the genre that Chopin perfected. It dates from 1847, just two years before Chopin’s death, but was not published until decades later.

Hear Chopin Project Artistic Director Arthur Greene perform Chopin’s haunting Mazurka No. 56 in C major in concert at the University of Michigan’s Britton Recital Hall.

Get the music at here at the pianosociety website.

Waltz in A-flat, Op. 69, no. 1 “L’Adieu”
Performance Today - American Public Media

Today’s edition of Performance Today - the most popular classical-music show in the USA - will feature a performance from The Chopin Project: Chih-Long Hu’s live interpretation of Chopin’s Waltz in A-flat, Op. 69, no. 1 “L’Adieu”

Produced and distributed by American Public Media, Performance Today is broadcast on 245 public radio stations across the country and is heard by about 1.1 million people each week. Each station individually decides what time to air the program. To find out where and when to hear Performance Today, check out publicradiofan, an independent website that is an excellent guide to online streaming of US public radio stations. You’ll also be able to hear the show on the Performance Today website for up to seven days after the broadcast.

Chopin News, Views, and Reviews:

Rudolf Firkusny, piano = SCHUBERT: Three Pieces, D. 946; MARTINU …
Audiophile Audition - USA

Review of a BBC Legends CD featuring the renowned Czech pianist in a 1980 London recital at Queen Elizabeth Hall: “If Firkusny wanted to be Vladimir Horowitz, he could be.”

The Chopin and Smetana offerings play as encores. The Op. 63 Mazurka is the pearl of the set of three–what Cortot called an exquisite, aristocratic dream–Firkusny’s touch is a mite pesant, but the natural lilt and grace of the shifting accents retain their innate, mesmeric charm.

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Produced and distributed by American Public Media, Performance Today is broadcast on 245 public radio stations across the country and is heard by about 1.1 million people each week. Each station individually decides what time to air the program. You’ll also be able to hear the show on the Performance Today website (Program Archive July 9, 2008) until Tuesday, July 15th.

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

A Souvenir From Vladimir Horowitz
New York Sun - United States

A just-released “souvenir” CD from “one of the great uneven performers in all history” Vladimir Horowitz’s very last recital (from June of 1987) hits its highest points with Chopin: “The event took place in Hamburg, allowing the record label, Deutsche Grammophon, to call the album “Horowitz in Hamburg.” A little alliteration is always appreciated.”

We then have a Chopin mazurka, the one in B minor, Op. 33, No. 4 — and Horowitz plays it with perfect rhythmic sense. The bend and snap of that thing are amazing. He plays it very purely, too, with complete refinement.

In this piece — on this track — Horowitz is in total control of his fingers. There is no old-man faltering.

He ends the printed program with Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise — so often associated with Rubinstein, but played for decades by Horowitz, too.

Does Horowitz have enough technique — in 1987 — to get through it? Yes. And he summons up plenty of charisma. Or rather, he doesn’t summon it up: It simply flows from him, naturally.

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Discovering Poland’s heritage at St James Cavalier
Malta Independent Online - Malta

If there’s Polish culture on display in Malta, Chopin cannot be far from the picture….

A piano recital by the pianist Pawel Mazurkiewicz from Poland preceded the opening of the exhibition. He performed works by Bach, Chopin, Scriabin, Grieg, Gershwin and Debussy.

Prizewinner of the prestigious Swiss music prize, Prix Credit Suisse – Jeunes Solistes 2003, Pawel Mazurkiewicz was born in Warsaw and graduated with distinction from the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw in 2000. In 2004 he graduated also with distinction and with Eduard Tschumi Music Prize from the University of Arts in Bern. He is currently assistant professor of the Piano class at the University of Arts in Bern, Switzerland. He has started composing, arranging and performing jazz music as an addition to his classical repertoire…
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

My favourite Chopin recordings
By Stephanie Delacey

A nice post that’s both entertaining, and well-researched, with audio to boot: “Here are my top ten Chopin recordings (all, interestingly enough, historical recordings made more than fifty years ago…):” In the Top 10: Dinu Lipatti, Solomon, Alfred Cortot, and even Percy Grainger…

…
Stephanie’s Pillowbook - http://pillowbook.co.uk

‘The Year of Sembrich’ features pianist Simon Mulligan as part of …
Schenectady Gazette - Schenectady,NY,USA

News of a series of events marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Polish-American soprano and vocal instructor Marcella Sembrich, (1858-1935) sponsored by the Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum on the shores of Lake George, NY. “Programs will include works by composers she either knew personally or whose arias she sang — she took walks with Brahms and discussed the fine points of vocal production with Puccini.”

A Frederic Chopin Festival will be held from July 23 to 27. “It’s an apt time,” said Richard Wargo, the museum’s artistic director and opera composer. “Sembrich was born 10 years after Chopin’s death. She was very particular to end her solo recitals with his ‘A Maiden’s Wish’, in which she sang and played piano. Because he was her compatriot, we thought him a likely composer to celebrate.” Both she and Chopin were Polish.

Pianist Simon Mulligan will set the tone of the season at his recital on Saturday, July 12, with a program that includes Liszt’s “Reminiscences of Lucia”, Chopin’s Ballade in G minor and his “Raindrop” Prelude and Mulligan’s own transcription of Offenbach’s Barcarolle from “The Tales of Hoffman.”

[...]

The Chopin Festival (July 23 to 27) begins at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday with Ruth Albert Spencer’s talk on the liaison between the writer George Sand and Chopin. Pianist Christopher Johnson will also play.

“It’s the scholarly approach as opposed to the Hollywood fanfare of the film ‘Impromptu,’ ” Wargo said.

The 1991 movie will be shown at no charge that night at 7:30 p.m. in the Bolton Town Hall.

On Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, pianist Diana Fanning will play several solo Chopin works and with cellist Dieuke Davydov will play Chopin’s Cello Sonata and his Polonaise Brilliante. Johnson returns at 7:30 p.m. Friday with narrator Lindsay Gates, who will give a dramatic reading about Chopin’s affair with the singer Jenny Lind, known as the Swedish Nightingale.

In 1848, Chopin was broken in health and spirit after his breakup with Sand and took a trip to England and Scotland, where he met Lind.

“She wanted to marry him, but Chopin felt it was too late,” Wargo said.

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Chopin Videos:

F.Chopin “Valse a moll” “Chopin-Pragnienie milosci”
By Daria(Daria)

From the Famous Polka Dancers and Musicians blogsite, Chopin on the Squeezebox…

Frederic Chopin`s “Waltz in a minor”, romantic music from the movie “Chopin: The need for love”. Solo accordion Miroslaw Marks.

Famous Polka Dancers and Musicians - http://famouspolkadancers.blogspot.com/

“In his Mazurkas, you get to know the very soul of Poland and Chopin never forgot his home land or the poor farmers singing the Mazurkas during the time of harvest.” All right, the Piano Society’s prose on Chopin’s 58 Mazurkas may be a bit purple, but it does appear that the Mazurkas are close to Chopin’s Polish soul. Esteemed pianist and scholar Charles Rosen has also declared the Mazurkas as Chopin’s “R & D Lab” - where some of the composer’s boldest harmonic experiments can be found.

Although this sprightly and march-like Mazurka in C major dates from Chopin’s younger years, (see this posting to discover what the “KK” designation means), it wasn’t published until 1870. The original published score (above) comes from the excellent Chopin Early Editions site maintained by the University of Chicago.

Hear pianist Noel McRobbie perform Chopin’s Mazurka No. 56 in C major in concert at the University of Michigan’s Britton Recital Hall.

Get the music at Sheet Music Plus.

Flying bison and half a cup of coffee

Three out of four stars in this review in the UK Spectator of Michael Moran’s much-discussed new book A Country in the Moon: Travels in the Heart of Poland.

The author’s uncle was a concert pianist who harboured a passion for Chopin. He extracted a deathbed promise from his nephew to ‘visit those places Chopin frequented as a young man . . . to better understand the patriotic roots of Chopin’s music’ and implored him ‘to scatter his ashes over the Mazovia plain near Chopin’s birthplace’. This was the genesis of the author’s engagement with Poland. [...]

There is so much to admire in this well-researched and hugely entertaining book, and so much to learn. Certainly, I did not know that Poles regard their country as ‘the reincarnation of the suffering Christ’. That Schumann described Chopin’s music as ‘cannons hidden among flowers’. That the national composer of Poland left Poland at the age of 20, never to return. That Polish aristocrats once claimed descent from nomadic archers of Iranian stock related to the Scythians. That under communism, Poles could buy half a cup of coffee if they were too poor to afford a full cup. That many Poles hold that entry into the European Union was ‘the onset of moral decay’.

Spectator - The Magazine - http://www.spectator.co.uk

Chopin Videos:
Alfred Cortot - Great Interpreter of Chopin
By Issykitty

(http://issykitty.videosift.com)

From a new video-sharing site called Videosift: “He looked for the opium in music”

http://vintage.videosift.com/unsifted

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Frédéric Chopin 1810-1849
By Administrator
Great Composers and their Lives… - http://ferrisguitar.com/blog

Blog entry from a guitarist-turned-webucator regarding our man Chopin…

The first concerts that he gave abroad were in Vienna, Austria. He was charmed by life outside his country and eventually ended up leaving Poland for good, settling in France in 1831. His father was originally a Frenchman, hence the name he was given Frédéric Chopin.
(*His name is pronounced by correctly reading the following in English accenting the bold print: fre der eek – shou pa)

In Poland, Chopin’s heart may hold secret of his death AFP -

“Leading Polish medical experts are betting that DNA tests on his heart — perfectly preserved in what appears to be cognac — could prove he suffered from cystic fibrosis.” But will they be successful in opening up to prove it?

Their request to Poland’s culture ministry for tissue samples to check for the CFTR gene marking cystic fibrosis sufferers has, however, sparked mixed feelings over the prospect of picking over a national icon.

There, inside a crystal urn filled with alcohol lies Chopin’s heart, brought home in 1849 — as he had wished — by his elder sister Ludwika from Paris, where the rest of his remains lie in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.

Leading Polish cystic fibrosis specialist Wojciech Cichy said the symptoms Chopin suffered throughout his life were typical of cystic fibrosis, a genetic illness which clogs the lungs with excess thick and sticky mucus.

“From early childhood he was weak, prone to chest infections, wheezing, coughing,” Cichy said.

Records show that as an adult weighing 40 kilograms (about 88 pounds) at a height of 1.70 metres (five foot seven inches), Chopin was chronically underweight — another telltale symptom of cystic fibrosis.

Cichy also pointed out that despite a passionate romance with flamboyant French writer George Sand, Chopin had no known children, suggesting infertility — another telling clue. And few cystic fibrosis sufferers live past 40.

“If we can prove Chopin suffered from cystic fibrosis, it would be a huge inspiration for our patients, especially children, to know they can accomplish a great deal like he did,” Cichy told AFP.

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Promising pianists
The Union of Grass Valley - Grass Valley,CA,USA

Panning for the next generation of gold-medal pianists in an old mining town. Is there any connection between Chopin’s death and the California Gold Rush happening the same year (1849?)

Komendera is a Polish student attending the annual piano workshop offered by the Gold Country Piano Institute, a Nevada City non-profit.

“It’s great,” Komendera said about the workshop. “It’s another culture, another climate, beautiful instruments and great teachers.”

She also likes the charm of historic Nevada City.

For the past nine years, the Piano Institute’s workshop at the Miners Foundry has attracted piano students and instructors from across the globe.

This is Komendera’s second visit to Nevada City. She’s a third-year student at The Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw.

A $1,600 full-scholarship from Susan Costello, a patron of the Piano Institute, helped Komendera attend the workshop this year. A music group from Warsaw paid her airplane fare.

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Gwilym Simcock: The prodigious pianist reveals the music that gets …
Independent - London,England,UK

27-year-old genre-busting pianist Simcock submits to a free-association session with UK paper: “The New Review has decided to challenge him to take us to the heart of That Simcock Thing: to name, and discuss while listening, six favourite pieces of piano music that have served to shape the multi-talented renaissance musician that he is today.” In the Pick Six Mix: Grieg, John Taylor, (English jazz pianist, not the former Duran Duran bassist) Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Take 6, and our man Chopin….

Chopin: “Fantasie Impromptu”

“A few months ago I got asked to do a concert entirely based on the music of Chopin, and for once I said no, because I didn’t know what to do with the music. It is so complete in itself as piano music. There’s nowhere you can take it. In the past, I’ve worked on Shostakovich and Ravel projects because the elements of the music can be separated – you can remove the harmony or the melody or the ostinato [repeated musical motif] from a piece and do something else with it.

Chopin and Rachmaninov are the guys who wrote completely idiomatically for the instrument. All of Chopin is fantastic. I listened to it in the car when I was little, on a cassette, and before I knew anything about music I loved it. A year or so ago I went somewhere with my parents and I found all these old cassettes of music I used to listen to when I was nine or 10, and we listened to them again. I hear them in a completely different way now… There is beauty in Chopin, but there is also something else. It is profoundly impressive.”

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Reilly, Chopin And Strayhorn
By Rifftides

From jazz journalist Doug Ramsey’s Rifftides blog on Artsjournal.com, a fascinating performance by jazz pianist Jack Reilly…

That led to a search that turned up video of Reilly in a performance that melds Chopin and Strayhorn. His subtle key changes are central to the fun and fascination. .

Rifftides - http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/

Horowitz - Chopin
By David Berner(David Berner)

Vancouver BC talk show host/nascent politician posts video of Vladimir Horowitz playing a movment from Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 at the White House in 1986. For No. Apparent. Reason….

David Talks/The Berner Monologues - http://thebernermonologues.blogspot.com/