Download Booklet

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Load more

musicians including the author Balzac, the was initially shocked by Sand’s values, the compose. His sister came from Warsaw to nurse Nocturne The Story painter Delacroix and the composers Berlioz unlikely pair eventually began a romance and by him alongside his treasured stepdaughter, Sand’s and Liszt. “Chopin is all sadness,” wrote Liszt 1837 they were living together. Chopin became child Solange. During his final days, Chopin Scripted by Lucy Parham in a letter of 1834, “Furniture is a little more inspired by his new partner and she sacrificed a ignored George Sand’s requests to see him. He expensive than he had thought, so now we’re in great deal to be with him. Six years older than died on October 17th, 1849, aged just 39. for a whole month of worry and nerves.” Chopin, Sand remained a mother figure during Although Chopin’s piano works are among the their relationship and often used to refer to him Chopin lived in constant fear of being buried most distinctive and instantly recognisable music Those nerves, coupled with a dislike of showman- as “my child” or “my chip chip”. alive and so, at his request, his heart was removed ever composed, Chopin the man remains some- ship, caused Chopin’s record of performances to before the burial. Once again at his request, thing of an enigma. Many of his letters have been be very meagre – just thirty concerts in thirty In 1838 Sand persuaded Chopin to travel with Mozart’s Requiem was played at his funeral. destroyed and very few of those that remain give years. However, through his aristocratic Polish her and her two children to Majorca, in search any real insight into his character and beliefs. It friends, Chopin befriended the influential of a warmer climate. In spite of an unwelcoming I have compiled Nocturne with the help of letters, is maybe through the music, with its melodic Rothschilds who enabled him to set up the lucra- reception from the islanders and the composer’s diaries and correspondence written by Chopin, genius and inimitable lyricism, that we can best tive teaching practice which became his main continued ill health, it was here that he wrote George Sand and their contemporaries. The come to know the man. source of financial support and his entrée with some of his finest works, including the 24 featured music is not in chronological order. It the Parisian elite. Preludes. But it was also here that his consump- was chosen more to reflect the mood of the story Fryderyk Chopin was born in Poland in 1810 to tion worsened, his weak lungs responding badly and to enhance the words. a middle-class intellectual family; his father was Until the age of 26, Chopin enjoyed a discreet to the constant rain. The stay in Majorca remains © 2013 Lucy Parham French and his mother Polish. His birth date is and quiet social life. He had been engaged to a the most documented period of his relationship controversial: the town registration of his birth childhood friend, Maria Wodzińzka, but her with Sand. When they returned to Paris they specifies February 22nd, but Chopin always father had broken off their union, citing Chopin’s lived in adjoining houses and spent their sum- gave the date as March 1st. A child prodigy, he ill-health as the reason. Despite his somewhat mers at Sand’s country home in Nohant, where studied at the Warsaw Conservatory and by the effete and fastidious demeanour, with his perfect she continued to nurse the increasingly frail age of 19 had written his F minor piano concerto dress sense and long white gloves, Chopin had composer. Chopin was particularly happy at and many other works. As a pianist, Chopin was a healthy interest in the opposite sex. His life Nohant, and some of his greatest works, such as largely left to develop on his own, as Warsaw had was turned upside down when Liszt’s mistress, the Polonaise Fantasy, 3rd and 4th Ballades and few piano teachers of importance. Marie d’ Agoult introduced him to the renowned cello sonata were all composed there. But the hap- female writer and feminist George Sand. Sand piness was not to last. Complex misunderstand- In 1831 Chopin travelled via Vienna to Paris, was famous not only for her writing, but also for ings connected to Sand’s children precipitated where he was to remain until his death in 1849. wearing men’s clothes, for smoking, and for her their eventual break-up in 1847 and there were At that time, the French capital was the centre numerous affairs and generally unconventional constant recriminations from both sides. After of European culture and Chopin found himself behaviour. In fact, she was probably the most returning from a tour to England and Scotland, surrounded by a group of writers, artists and famous woman in France. Although Chopin Chopin was so weak he could neither teach nor Page 1 Page 2 Inspired by the Irish composer, John Field, Chopin’s with a spirit of dance and contrasts vividly with the Dame Harriet Walter is an award-winning theatre As a reciter, Samuel West has appeared with all 21 Nocturnes have a unique and significant place much more haunting and poignant A minor, Op actress, and an associate artist with the RSC. She the major British orchestras, with the Hong Kong in the history of solo piano music. Influenced by 67 No.4. In total, Chopin wrote 57 mazurkas and has played most of Shakespeare’s leading ladies and Philharmonic, Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Bellini’s bel canto operas, the Nocturne evokes the they remain some of most elusive and musically lately turned her hand to a male role, playing Brutus Dallas Symphony Orchestras and the National mood of a dreamy and sometimes starless night challenging works for the pianist. in the Donmar Theatre’s all-female Julius Caesar. Symphony Orchestra of Washington DC. Last by spinning a long melodic line over a flowing Chopin was said to have been captivated by In a varied career she has happily moved between year he performed Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, bass line. Op.27 No.2 in D flat is one of the most a dog chasing its tail when he wrote the Waltz in Radio, Television (Lord Peter Wimsey, Law and Strauss’s Enoch Arden, Walton’s Façade and Henry popular and its dreamy mood depicts the summer D flat Op.67 No.1. Known in France as the “Petit Order:UK, Downton Abbey and Midsomer Murders) V, the Britten and Auden film scores Night Mail, evenings at Nohant that Chopin so loved. The Chien”, its whirling and dexterous right-hand and Film (Sense and Sensibility, Atonement, the The Way to the Sea, Coal Face, The King’s Stamp and Nocturne in C minor Op.48 No.1 is possibly his figuration have made it a popular encore piece and, Young Victoria, The Wedding Video). God’s Chillun, Graham Fitkin’s Track to Track, finest work in this genre. Dark and foreboding, its despite its other nickname, it was never intended to She is also the author of three books; Other the UK premiere of Jonathan Harvey’s Weltethos opening bars predict a gloom and desperation from be played in one minute! The second waltz of the People’s Shoes, Macbeth (for Faber’s Actors on and the world premiere of The Garden of Earthly which this haunting work never escapes more than pair, the Waltz in C sharp minor, is a far more re- Shakespeare) and a photographic book Facing It. Delights by Simon Bainbridge. He has performed momentarily. flective and wistful piece. Although the Waltz was a As a great music lover, Dame Harriet Walter at the Proms five times and was soloist in Henry V Composed between 1832 and 1836, the popular dance in the nineteenth century, Chopin’s feels privileged to have collaborated with pianist at the 2002 Last Night. He also makes regular Op.25 Études remain some of the most technically Waltzes were never written to be danced to. Lucy Parham on several concert programmes appearances at Wigmore Hall. demanding works in the repertoire. Chopin dedi- Chopin completed his set of 24 Préludes including Nocturne, Odyssey of Love and Beloved Work as an actor includes the title roles in cated this set to Liszt’s mistress, Marie d’Agoult, Op.28 during his time with George Sand in Clara. Hamlet and Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare through whom he met George Sand. No.1 in A Majorca in 1838. Whilst on the island Sand Company, Enron in the West End, the television flat is often known as “Aeolian Harp” because of wrote of them, “many of them are melancholy series Eternal Law its long melodic line surrounded by an arpeggiated and suave and others are of gentle sadness which, and the films accompaniment. while charming your ear, break your heart.” The Howards End, Van Whilst Chopin spent the majority of his adult “Raindrop” is said to depict the raindrops beating Helsing and three life in Paris, his musical soul always remained in on the rooftiles of the monastery that they were for director Roger Poland. And it is in Poland that the two dance living in and Sand says “in his mind and in his Michell: Notting forms of Mazurka and Polonaise originated. The music they had become tears from heaven beating Hill, Persuasion Mazurka is a country dance and it was Chopin on his heart”. and Hyde Park on that introduced it into concert music.
Recommended publications
  • Print 110774Bk Levitzki

    Print 110774Bk Levitzki

    110774bk Levitzki 8/7/04 8:02 pm Page 5 Mischa Levitzki: Piano Recordings Vol. 3 Also available on Naxos ADD Gramophone Company Ltd., 1927-1933 RACHMANINOV: CHOPIN: @ Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5 3:22 Great Pianists • Levitzki • 3 8.110774 1 Prelude in C major, Op. 28 0:55 Recorded 21st November 1929 2 Prelude in A major, Op. 28, No. 7 0:55 Matrix Cc 18200-1a; Cat. D 1809 3 Prelude in F major, Op. 28, No. 23 1:24 Recorded 21st November 1929 RCA Victor, 1938 Matrix Bb 18113-3a; Cat.DA1223 LEVITZKI: 4 Waltz No. 8 in A flat major, Op. 64, No. 3 3:00 # Waltz in A major, Op. 2 1:46 CHOPIN Recorded 19th November 1928 Recorded 5th May 1938; Matrix Cc 14770-1; Cat.ED18 Matrices BS 023101-1, BS 023101-1A (NP), Ballades, Preludes BS 023101-2, BS 023101-2A (NP); Cat. 2008-A 5 Waltz No. 11 in G flat major, $ Arabesque valsante, Op. 6 3:23 and Waltzes Op. 70, No. 1 2:26 Recorded 5th May 1938; Recorded 19th November 1928 Matrices BS 023100-1, BS 023100-1A (NP), Matrix Cc 14769-3; Cat.ED18 BS 023100-2, BS 023100-2A (NP), BS 023100-3, 6 Ballade No. 3 in A flat major, Op. 47 6:26 BS023100-3A (NP); Cat. 2008-B Recorded 22nd November 1928 Broadcasts LEVITZKI Matrices Bb 11786-5 and 11787-5; Cat.EW64 26th January, 1935: 7 Nocturne No. 5 in F sharp major, CHOPIN: Arabesque valsante Op. 15, No.
  • Chopin: Visual Contexts

    Chopin: Visual Contexts

    Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology g, 2011 © Department of Musicology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland JACEK SZERSZENOWICZ (Łódź) Chopin: Visual Contexts ABSTRACT: The drawings, portraits and effigies of Chopin that were produced during his lifetime later became the basis for artists’ fantasies on the subject of his work. Just after the composer’s death, Teofil Kwiatkowski began to paint Bal w Hotel Lambert w Paryżu [Ball at the Hotel Lambert in Paris], symbolising the unfulfilled hopes of the Polish Great Emi­ gration that Chopin would join the mission to raise the spirit of the nation. Henryk Siemiradzki recalled the young musician’s visit to the Radziwiłł Palace in Poznań. The composer’s likeness appeared in symbolic representations of a psychological, ethnological and historical character. Traditional roots are referred to in the paintings of Feliks Wygrzywalski, Mazurek - grający Chopin [Mazurka - Chopin at the piano], with a couple of dancers in folk costume, and Stanisław Zawadzki, depicting the com­ poser with a roll of paper in his hand against the background of a forest, into the wall of which silhouettes of country children are merged, personifying folk music. Pictorial tales about music were also popularised by postcards. On one anonymous postcard, a ghost hovers over the playing musician, and the title Marsz żałobny Szopena [Chopin’s funeral march] suggests the connection with real apparitions that the composer occasional had when performing that work. In the visualisation of music, artists were often assisted by poets, who suggested associations and symbols. Correlations of content and style can be discerned, for ex­ ample, between Władysław Podkowinski’s painting Marsz żałobny Szopena and Kor­ nel Ujejski’s earlier poem Marsz pogrzebowy [Funeral march].
  • Chopin's Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 As a Contribution to the Violist's

    Chopin's Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 As a Contribution to the Violist's

    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2014 A tale of lovers : Chopin's Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 as a contribution to the violist's repertory Rafal Zyskowski Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Music Commons Recommended Citation Zyskowski, Rafal, "A tale of lovers : Chopin's Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 as a contribution to the violist's repertory" (2014). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3366. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3366 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. A TALE OF LOVERS: CHOPIN’S NOCTURNE OP. 27, NO. 2 AS A CONTRIBUTION TO THE VIOLIST’S REPERTORY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in The School of Music by Rafal Zyskowski B.M., Louisiana State University, 2008 M.M., Indiana University, 2010 May 2014 ©2014 Rafal Zyskowski All rights reserved ii Dedicated to Ms. Dorothy Harman, my best friend ever iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As always in life, the final outcome of our work results from a contribution that was made in one way or another by a great number of people. Thus, I want to express my gratitude to at least some of them.
  • Chopin and Poland Cory Mckay Departments of Music and Computer Science University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada, N1G 2W 1

    Chopin and Poland Cory Mckay Departments of Music and Computer Science University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada, N1G 2W 1

    Chopin and Poland Cory McKay Departments of Music and Computer Science University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada, N1G 2W 1 The nineteenth century was a time when he had a Polish mother and was raised in people were looking for something new and Poland, his father was French. Finally, there exciting in the arts. The Romantics valued is no doubt that Chopin was trained exten- the exotic and many artists, writers and sively in the conventional musical styles of composers created works that conjured im- western Europe while growing up in Poland. ages of distant places, in terms of both time It is thus understandable that at first glance and location. Nationalist movements were some would see the Polish influence on rising up all over Europe, leading to an em- Chopin's music as trivial. Indeed, there cer- phasis on distinctive cultural styles in music tainly are compositions of his which show rather than an international homogeneity. very little Polish influence. However, upon Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin used this op- further investigation, it becomes clear that portunity to go beyond the conventions of the music that he heard in Poland while his time and introduce music that had the growing up did indeed have a persistent and unique character of his native Poland to the pervasive influence on a large proportion of ears of western Europe. Chopin wrote music his music. with a distinctly Polish flare that was influ- The Polish influence is most obviously ential in the Polish nationalist movement. seen in Chopin's polonaises and mazurkas, Before proceeding to discuss the politi- both of which are traditional Polish dance cal aspect of Chopin's work, it is first neces- forms.
  • BBC Four Programme Information

    BBC Four Programme Information

    SOUND OF CINEMA: THE MUSIC THAT MADE THE MOVIES BBC Four Programme Information Neil Brand presenter and composer said, “It's so fantastic that the BBC, the biggest producer of music content, is showing how music works for films this autumn with Sound of Cinema. Film scores demand an extraordinary degree of both musicianship and dramatic understanding on the part of their composers. Whilst creating potent, original music to synchronise exactly with the images, composers are also making that music as discreet, accessible and communicative as possible, so that it can speak to each and every one of us. Film music demands the highest standards of its composers, the insight to 'see' what is needed and come up with something new and original. With my series and the other content across the BBC’s Sound of Cinema season I hope that people will hear more in their movies than they ever thought possible.” Part 1: The Big Score In the first episode of a new series celebrating film music for BBC Four as part of a wider Sound of Cinema Season on the BBC, Neil Brand explores how the classic orchestral film score emerged and why it’s still going strong today. Neil begins by analysing John Barry's title music for the 1965 thriller The Ipcress File. Demonstrating how Barry incorporated the sounds of east European instruments and even a coffee grinder to capture a down at heel Cold War feel, Neil highlights how a great composer can add a whole new dimension to film. Music has been inextricably linked with cinema even since the days of the "silent era", when movie houses employed accompanists ranging from pianists to small orchestras.
  • Whose Chopin? Politics and Patriotism in a Song to Remember (1945)

    Whose Chopin? Politics and Patriotism in a Song to Remember (1945)

    Whose Chopin? Politics and Patriotism in A Song to Remember (1945) John C. Tibbetts Columbia Pictures launched with characteristic puffery its early 1945 release, A Song to Remember, a dramatized biography of nineteenth-century composer Frederic Chopin. "A Song to Remember is destined to rank with the greatest attractions since motion pictures began," boasted a publicity statement, "—seven years of never-ending effort to bring you a glorious new landmark in motion picture achievement."1 Variety subsequently enthused, "This dramatization of the life and times of Frederic Chopin, the Polish musician-patriot, is the most exciting presentation of an artist yet achieved on the screen."2 These accolades proved to be misleading, however. Viewers expecting a "life" of Chopin encountered a very different kind of film. Instead of an historical chronicle of Chopin's life, times, and music, A Song to Remember, to the dismay of several critics, reconstituted the story as a wartime resistance drama targeted more to World War II popular audiences at home and abroad than to enthusiasts of nineteenth-century music history.3 As such, the film belongs to a group of Hollywood wartime propaganda pictures mandated in 1942-1945 by the Office of War Information (OWI) and its Bureau of Motion Pictures (BMP)—and subject, like all films of the time, to the censorial constraints of the Production Code Administration (PCA)—to stress ideology and affirmation in the cause of democracy and to depict the global conflict as a "people's war." No longer was it satisfactory for Hollywood to interpret the war on the rudimentary level of a 0026-3079/2005/4601-115$2.50/0 American Studies, 46:1 (Spring 2005): 115-142 115 116 JohnC.Tibbetts Figure 1: Merle Oberon's "George Sand" made love to Cornel Wilde's "Frederic Chopin" in the 1945 Columbia release, A Song to Remember(couvtQsy Photofest).
  • Bbc Radio 3 - Sounds of Shakespeare April – May 2016

    Bbc Radio 3 - Sounds of Shakespeare April – May 2016

    BBC RADIO 3 - SOUNDS OF SHAKESPEARE APRIL – MAY 2016 MONDAY 18TH – FRIDAY 22ND APRIL Essential Classics Monday 18th - Friday 22nd April 0900 - 1200 In the week leading up to the Shakespeare 400 anniversary, the guest on Radio 3’s morning programme is Adrian Lester OBE, acclaimed for his performances as Henry V and Othello at the National Theatre – winning the Evening Standard Best Actor award. He’ll talk about Shakespeare, his life as an actor and choose some fascinating music. Producer: Sarah Devonald, Somethin’Else Composer of the Week Monday 18th - Friday 22nd April 1200 – 1300 William Byrd There is frustratingly little evidence that William Byrd was personally acquainted with his fellow Elizabethan, William Shakespeare. Although, a tantalising reference to “the bird of loudest lay” in Shakespeare’s sonnet, The Phoenix and the Turtle hints that they may have been more than mere contemporaries. As a Roman Catholic in Elizabethan England, William Byrd was persecuted by the state and often forced to tread a dangerous path between his personal convictions and his duty to the Queen. His musical talent and his strength of character enabled him not just to survive, but thrive. Despite his trials, he was, and continues to be, celebrated as the greatest British musician of his age. SOUNDS OF SHAKESPEARE LIVE 22nd – 24th April, Stratford-upon-Avon Radio 3 broadcasts live all weekend from its pop-up studio at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Other Place theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and at venues across the town. Actors, musicians, poets, singers and orchestras perform a huge range of songs, film scores, jazz, chamber music, choral works and world music - all inspired by Shakespeare's works.
  • The Use of the Polish Folk Music Elements and the Fantasy Elements in the Polish Fantasy on Original Themes In

    The Use of the Polish Folk Music Elements and the Fantasy Elements in the Polish Fantasy on Original Themes In

    THE USE OF THE POLISH FOLK MUSIC ELEMENTS AND THE FANTASY ELEMENTS IN THE POLISH FANTASY ON ORIGINAL THEMES IN G-SHARP MINOR FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA OPUS 19 BY IGNACY JAN PADEREWSKI Yun Jung Choi, B.A., M.M. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2007 APPROVED: Adam Wodnicki, Major Professor Jeffrey Snider, Minor Professor Joseph Banowetz, Committee Member Graham Phipps, Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Music James C. Scott, Dean of the College of Music Sandra L. Terrell, Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Choi, Yun Jung, The Use of the Polish Folk Music Elements and the Fantasy Elements in the Polish Fantasy on Original Themes in G-sharp Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 19 by Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), May 2007, 105 pp., 5 tables, 65 examples, references, 97 titles. The primary purpose of this study is to address performance issues in the Polish Fantasy, Op. 19, by examining characteristics of Polish folk dances and how they are incorporated in this unique work by Paderewski. The study includes a comprehensive history of the fantasy in order to understand how Paderewski used various codified generic aspects of the solo piano fantasy, as well as those of the one-movement concerto introduced by nineteenth-century composers such as Weber and Liszt. Given that the Polish Fantasy, Op. 19, as well as most of Paderewski’s compositions, have been performed more frequently in the last twenty years, an analysis of the combination of the three characteristic aspects of the Polish Fantasy, Op.19 - Polish folk music, the generic rhetoric of a fantasy and the one- movement concerto - would aid scholars and performers alike in better understanding the composition’s engagement with various traditions and how best to make decisions about those traditions when approaching the work in a concert setting.
  • London's Symphony Orchestra

    London's Symphony Orchestra

    London Symphony Orchestra Living Music London’s Symphony Orchestra Celebrating LSO Members with 20+ years’ service. Visit lso.co.uk/1617photos for a full list. LSO Season 2016/17 Free concert programme London Symphony Orchestra LSO ST LUKE’S BBC RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERTS – AUTUMN 2016 MOZART & TCHAIKOVSKY LAWRENCE POWER & FRIENDS Ten musicians explore Tchaikovsky and his The violist is joined by some of his closest musical love of Mozart, through songs, piano trios, collaborators for a series that celebrates the string quartets and solo piano music. instrument as chamber music star, with works by with Pavel Kolesnikov, Sitkovetsky Piano Trio, Brahms, Schubert, Bach, Beethoven and others. Robin Tritschler, Iain Burnside & with Simon Crawford-Phillips, Paul Watkins, Ehnes String Quartet Vilde Frang, Nicolas Altstaedt & Vertavo Quartet For full listings visit lso.co.uk/lunchtimeconcerts London Symphony Orchestra Living Music Monday 19 September 2016 7.30pm Barbican Hall LSO ARTIST PORTRAIT Leif Ove Andsnes Beethoven Piano Sonata No 18 (‘The Hunt’) Sibelius Impromptus Op 5 Nos 5 and 6; Rondino Op 68 No 2; Elegiaco Op 76 No 10; Commodo from ‘Kyllikki‘ Op 41; Romance Op 24 No 9 INTERVAL Debussy Estampes Chopin Ballade No 2 in F major; Nocturne in F major; Ballade No 4 in F minor Leif Ove Andsnes piano Concert finishes at approximately 9.25pm 4 Welcome 19 September 2016 Welcome Kathryn McDowell Welcome to this evening’s concert at the Barbican Centre, where the LSO is delighted to welcome back Leif Ove Andsnes to perform a solo recital, and conclude the critically acclaimed LSO Artist Portrait series that he began with us last season.
  • Ambiguity in the Themes of Chopin's First, Second, and Fourth Ballades

    Ambiguity in the Themes of Chopin's First, Second, and Fourth Ballades

    Ambiguity in the Themes of Chopin's First, Second, and Fourth Ballades William Rothstein There is a style of music which may be called natural, because it is not the offspring of science or reflection, but of an inspiration which sets at defiance all the strictness of rules and convention. I mean popular music, and especially that of the peasantry. How many exquisite compositions are born, live and die, among the peasantry, without ever having been dignified by a correct notation, without ever having deigned to be confined within the absolute limits of a distinct and definite theme. The unknown artist who improvises his rustic ballad while watching his flocks, or guiding his ploughshare, and there are such even in countries which would seem the least poetical, will experience great difficulty in retaining and fixing his fugitive fancies. He communicates his ballad to other musicians, children like himself of nature, and these circulate it from hamlet to hamlet, from cot to cot, each modifying it according to the bent of his own individual genius. It is hence that these pastoral songs and romances, so artlessly striking or so deeply touching, are for the most part lost, and rarely exist above a single century in the memory of their rustic composers. Musicians completely formed under the rules of art rarely trouble themselves to collect them. Many even disdain them from very lack of an intelligence sufficiently pure, and a taste sufficiently elevated to admit of their appreciating them. Others are dismayed by the difficulties which they encounter the moment they endeavor to discover that true and original version, which, perhaps, no longer retains its existence even in the mind of its author, and which certainly was never at any time recognised as a definite and invariable type by any one of his numerous interpreters...
  • DUX 1270-1 / 2016 FRYDERYK CHOPIN Piano Concertos Works

    DUX 1270-1 / 2016 FRYDERYK CHOPIN Piano Concertos Works

    DUX 1270-1 / 2016 ____________________________________________________________________ FRYDERYK CHOPIN Piano concertos Works for piano solo Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849) CD 1 *Piano Concerto in E minor Op.11 *Piano Concerto in F minor Op.21 CD 2 *Polonaise in A flat major Op.53 *Fantasy-Impromptu in C sharp minor Op.66 *Nocturne in F sharp major Op.15 No.2 *Scherzo in B flat minor Op.31 *Rondo à la Krakowiak in F major Op.14 *** Piotr PALECZNY - piano Kwartet Prima Vista : Krzysztof BZOWKA - 1st violin, Józef KOLINEK - 2nd violin Dariusz KISIELINSKI – viola, Jerzy MURANTY - cello Janusz MARYNOWSKI - double bass _______________________________________________________________________________________________ DUX Małgorzata Polańska & Lech Tołwiński ul. Morskie Oko 2, 02-511 Warszawa tel./fax (48 22) 849-11-31, (48 22) 849-18-59 e-mail: [email protected], www.dux.pl Aleksandra Kitka-Coutellier – International Relations kitka@dux “Hats off gentlemen - a genius” - wrote Robert Schumann in his famous review entitled Ein Opus 2 , published in the Leipzig periodical ‘Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung’ (No.49, 7 December 1831), having listened to Chopin’s Variations on a Theme from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The genius was born on 1 March in Żelazowa Wola, west of Warsaw. The local parish register contains the following entry: “In the year one thousand eight hundred ten, on the twenty third day of the month of April, at three o’clock in the afternoon. Before me, parish priest of Brochów in the district of Sochaczew in the Department of Warsaw, appeared Mikołaj Chopin, the father, aged forty, domiciled in Żelazowa Wola, and showed me a male child which was born in his house on the twenty second day of February of this year at six o’clock in the evening, declaring that it was the child of himself and of Justyna born Krzyżanowska, aged twenty eight, his spouse, and that it was his wish to give him two names, Fryderyk Franciszek.
  • New Sound 30 Jim Samson Exploring Chopin's Polish 'Ballade'

    New Sound 30 Jim Samson Exploring Chopin's Polish 'Ballade'

    New Sound 30 Jim Samson Exploring Chopin’s Polish ’Ballade’ Article received on February 27, 2007 UDC 78.071.1 Chopin F. Jim Samson EXPLORING CHOPIN’S ‘POLISH BALLADE’ Abstract: Each stage of the source chain of Chopin’s Op. 38 is described. Theories of genre are discussed. Late nineteenth-century descriptions are related to intertextual associations to produce a hermeneutical reading of the work. Key words: Source chain; genre; topos; narrative; intertext; extramusical Preamble It was in Majorca - on 14 December 1839 - that Chopin wrote to Julian Fontana, 'I expect to send you my Preludes and Ballade shortly', referring here to the Second Ballade.1 He had already composed the main outlines of the ballade prior to Majorca (Félicien Mallefille referred to it, interestingly enough, as the 'Polish ballade' in a letter that pre-dated the excursion), but he refined it and completed it during the Majorcan adventure. Indeed it is entirely possible that it was on Majorca that he wrote what Schumann called the 'impassioned episodes', referring of course to the figurations, since he had already performed the opening section by itself on several occasions. My intention here is to comment briefly on salient aspects of the text of the ballade with reference to its extant sources. Following that, I will say something of an interpretative nature about the work, focusing on questions of intertextuality. Texts Unusually for Chopin, virtually every stage of an archetypal source chain is represented for this work. The manuscript and early printed sources are as follows: A1 There is an autograph fragment (bars 11-12) in the Album of Ivar Hallstrom (currently held in the Music History Museum in Stockholm).