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Category: Chopin

July 4, 2014

Ran Dank

Mount Everest

Mount Everest

_________

though I’d only just listened to a full
recital at the Rubinstein Piano
Competition, a peek at the next
performer’s program, left me unable
to not watch another, Ran Dank would
be playing, along with four pieces of
Chopin, three mazurkas and his A flat
major Polonaise, itself a towering
musical monument, Beethoven’s
“Hammerklavier”, the very pinnacle
of piano music, nothing surpasses in
majesty and stature the
“Hammerklavier”, the Mt. Everest of
music, a competent reading will
change your life, it is that good

Ran Dank doesn’t disappoint, I left
the planet

Richard

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July 2, 2014

Natalia Sokolovskaya


though there have been gems among
the performances presented during
Stage l of the 14th Arthur Rubinstein
International Piano Master Competition,
in Stage ll each contestant has been for
me outstanding, I’ve now seen six of
the 16 remaining contenders out of the
original 36, 20 are gone, cast away by
the 7 judges

Natalia Sokolovskaya had mightily
impressed me at Stage l with,
especially, her own “8 Variations
on a Theme of Paganini” (at 15:00
minutes on the tape), you’ll remember
Rachmaninov’s “Rhapsody“ on the
same theme, but for entire orchestra,
Sokolovskaya writes hers for piano
alone, the original theme, from
Paganini’s 24th Caprice, had been
of course for violin

at Stage ll her Rachmaninov First
Sonata (at 20:00 minutes) is
transcendent, surely definitive, this
is the one I’m going to remember

her Spanish pieces (at 10:00), a
couple of compositions by Albéniz,
are a wonderful break from the often
very abstract other works on offer,
with their immediately captivating,
beguiling, indeed seductive, rhythms

she even makes the very trite
“Reflections on Love” (at 00:00), a
condition of the competition, credible,
by spacing its interchangeable
movements, pausing between them,
letting them breathe, in order to
separate the varied “Reflections”,
instead of stringing them all together
as a continuous, rather than discrete
elements of a, considered whole, as
all the other performers have to date
reflexively done

no one has written anything pertinent
about love, musically, since Chopin,
with the exception of often enough
Rachmaninov, to presume to
significantly comment on love is, to
my mind, pretentious, calling for a
fall, this composer is no exception,
her thoughts are to be expected, love
is atonal, arhytmic, loud, soft, tender,
tempestuous, strident, placating

but everyone already knew that

Sokolovskaya gives the “Reflections”
dignity nevertheless despite their
overt pretensions

a recital to write home about

Richard

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April 14, 2014

a message, and an angel, of hope

there is so much more about music
than just music

thought I’d share

just click

Richard

psst: here’s some, equally inspirational,
background, just click

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May 17, 2013

XXXVlll. First time he kissed me, he but only kissed – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXVlll. First time he kissed me, he but only kissed

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And ever since, it grew more clean and white,
Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “Oh, list,”
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!
That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown,
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

________________________

had the sonnet allowed for more lines,
instead of its strict fourteen, this poem
could not ‘ve not become indecent,
“purple”, she says, indeed

nor, for that matter, more clear, Elizabeth
has succumbed to his one, two, three
kisses, enough to now call him “[m]y love,
my own”

meed is a reward, and archaic

chrism is holy anointing oil, nearly also
now, but sacramentally, lost

so intimate a declaration as this would’ve
been unprecedented in 1845-46, when
these poems were written, though we’re
used to much more flagrant stuff nowadays

that this had been written by a woman
must’ve been nearly scandalous, though
such was allowing the Romantic Age, and
this “most flagrant” expression would
become eventually its very symbol, the
exploration of the human heart, the highly
intimate revelations of an individual soul

Elizabeth Barrett Browning holds the top
spot here, nobody does it better

in intrinsically less overtly graphic music,
Chopin

Richard Strauss does a similar thing in his
opera “Salome” several years later, several,
indeed, decades later, 1905, but in reverse,
Salome wants to first of all touch John the
Baptist’s skin, he won’t allow it, undaunted
she asks to touch his black hair, nor will
he allow that, she insists further on a kiss,
which doesn’t either come, the scene is
lurid and shocking

“nothing in the world is as red as your
mouth”, she begs, “let me kiss it, your
mouth”

my dear, I cautioned

later she will dance the “Dance of the Seven
Veils“, lately performed even, after the veils
are, one by one, off, naked

for which she gets John the Baptist’s head,
and finally gets her kiss

honest

the version I saw was unforgettable,
though it had taken a free ticket to
get me there

Richard

psst: you’ll note, incidentally, that this poem
is not an avowal, but a confidence,
spoken to us, not to him, a not
insignificant factor

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May 7, 2013

miracles‏

when I started looking for miracles,
I found out that there indeed were
some, as a matter of fact, many

here’s another, in case you missed
the last one

Richard

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May 6, 2013

XXXVll. Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXVll. Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make

Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make,
Of all that strong divineness which I know
For thine and thee, an image only so
Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.
It is that distant years which did not take
Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,
Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
The purity of likeness and distort
Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit:
As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,
His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort
And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_________________________

though Elizabeth Barrett Browning is ever
abstruse, dare I say, even Baroque – the
epoch of distorted perspectives and
dimensions which preceded the Classical
Era – in her not only grammatical but also
metaphorical constructions, to the point of,
as in the last, her XXXVlth sonnet, being
incomprehensible, too athwart for my taste,
or even my tolerance, here she returns to
form to shine again in her own Romantic
Age, a more literate time, as opposed to
our more visual one, where straight talk
would not ‘ve passed muster as worthy
of any art, that would happen only later
as a reaction to too elaborate artifice,
which you might already even decry,
for instance, in these sonnets

but to make distinctive the form – the sonnet
goes back to at least Shakespeare, who is
even an obvious inspiration for Elizabeth –
she would’ve had to embroider her own
version of it, which she could only have
done with fresh artifice upon the ancient
structure, like decorative elaborations on
the traditional tablecloth

if they work it’s because the artifice meets
the substance equally, enough to give
meaning to the poem, verve to the
reinvigorated tabletop

but often, dear Elizabeth, for me, and I would
think for many others in our Twitter age, for
the most part your poems do only just, albeit
enough to make you nevertheless iconic

for Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Chopin
represent for us now more than any of the
other Romantics their distinctive Age, and
with great, let there be no doubt, and easily
demonstrated, authority

“Pardon, oh, pardon“ is not a breeze but it
expands admirably, and distinctively, on her
other masterpieces, or should I say here,
mistresspieces

forgive my soul, she asks, for mistaking your
“strong divineness” for something as fleeting
as “sand”, something “fit to shift and break”

his “sovranty” – sovereignty, which finds its
etymological roots in the French word
“souveraineté”, should you be wondering –
had not been a part of her past, her “distant
years” and therefore led to her confusion,
her “swimming brain”, imagining he might
be “a worthless counterfeit” – haven’t we all
been there – instead of the “worthiest love”

she compares herself to a “shipwrecked
Pagan”, who, saved, “safe in port”, gives
thanks, pays homage, to “a sea-god”, “a
sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort”, rather
than, of course, her One and True
Christian God, an interesting instance
of religious iconographical inflexibility,
as though her Christian God had more
authenticity than the sea deity

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, it should be
noted, remained ever to her Divinity devout
despite the intermittent fluctuations of her
less religiously committed husband

who nevertheless remained ever to her
true, and ever, both romantically and
Romantically, by her, stalwart

Richard

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April 20, 2013

Schubert – Piano Sonata D959‏

to my utter surprise when I checked I’d never
but only once in the many months I haven’t
been able to shut up since I started spouting
my bristling endorsements, like a very rushing
river gushing with the overflowing bounty of
an inveterate spring, mentioned Schubert, an
incandescent voice from surely heaven

it was about his String Quartet in C major, the
D956, not surprisingly, it is utterly enchanting,
D for Otto Erich Deutsch still, incidentally

here’s an alternate version of it, an utterly
inspired one

but if I’ve reintroduced Schubert it’s specifically
this time to compare him with Beethoven, they’re
easily confounded, I even did it once myself, to
my crushing embarrassment, in erudite and
unflinching company, oof, I cringe to even
remember it

the D959, moments only after the 956 of course,
has all the idioms of a Beethoven, and exercises
them as expertly, the beat, however, is always
on, unlike Beethoven, whose beat is always off,
contrary, rebellious, against the prevailing
order

though this variance might seem slight, one
senses already in the younger and later
Schubert a return to form, elegance, and civility,
the First Empire had indeed taken hold during
the transformation of Napoleon from hero of
the Revolution to a different incarnation of
Emperor, Chopin as well would be beholden
to later similarly reinstated French courts

so seemingly trivial an alteration speaks
volumes when one attentively listens, one
must do this with one’s heart

such a return to aristocratic principles is not
uncommon, incidentally, we seem, indeed, to
thirst for dynasties, if you’ll note the return of
late, of the Bushes, the Clintons, and most
recently the Canadian Trudeaux

Putin is another, though arguably somewhat
less democratic, version of that principle

Beethoven is off the beat then, Schubert on, you
won’t find much else that’s different upon first
listening, you’ll note only that their music is very
much the same, rigorous beat, tonal, essentially,
harmonics, and the return eventually of the
melodies, Classical imperatives, but with the
distinction of the new Romantic,
transformational however, sensibilities

Schubert might’ve even outpaced Beethoven
had he survived, I think, but he didn’t, he died
much too young, at the most tender age of
only 31, younger even than the more
celebrated Mozart, famous for succumbing
prematurely at the still early age of 36

may they rest, may they all rest, Schubert,
Mozart, and the somewhat longer-lived
Beethoven, still early deceased at 56, in
eternal peace, for they have brought us
but wonders

Richard

psst: here’s a movie to go with the earlier
Schubert, “The Company of Strangers“,
the very best film Canada has ever had
to offer, bar none, a gaggle of old women
are stranded in the Laurentians after their
tour bus breaks down, Schubert would’ve
loved it

and been honoured

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December 3, 2012

Arthur Rubinstein – Chopin Piano Concerto no 2 in F minor, opus 21‏

I’ve wandered far from Mozart, Mussorgsky,
Saint-Saëns in my consideration of the evolution
of music in the West, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
would have her say, and so would the irrepressible,
the irresistible, Audrey Hepburn, I could not but
diligently for these incandescent luminaries abide

but here, to step back into the purview, the sway,
the particular empyrean of, more specifically, music,
is Arthur Rubinstein doing Chopin’s Piano Concerto
no 2 in F minor, opus 21, a piece that is for some
reason or other not as celebrated, nor familiar, as
the First, after listening you’ll also wonder why

Arthur Rubinstein is nothing short of bristling here,
Arthur Rubinstein is the august and inspired herald
who reintroduced Chopin essentially to the late
Twentieth Century, after listening, after only even
just superficially hearing, you won’t wonder either
at his well deserved position among the stars

enjoy

Richard

psst: incidentally, Evgeny Kissin doesn’t give an inch
in his own stellar rendition of the First, just click,
here or above

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August 10, 2012

Chopin “Études”, opus 25‏

if the Debussy, was a bit too fast a move from Chopin’s
Romanticism, his enchanting melodies wrought with
pressing and intent emotion to tug at your most
unresisting aural senses, into a 20th Century of
cynicism and machinery, speed, neurosis, world war,
it was probably too fast for those who actually lived
it as well, just as we think of our own world as out of
control, ultimately the swoons of Chopin would no
longer cut it alone as mileposts towards so unmoored
a future, a heretofore beyond mere private emotions,
other voices would come up responding to further
calamities, inconsistencies in the cultural argument,
where the poet no longer could stand prophetically
alone, there were others also to tend to, and nations
and even new ideologies burgeoning, social, sometimes
sinister even, experiments, Romanticism would have no
choice but to cede to the imperatives of a new, often
inclement, order

but that nevertheless choice still imprint is nowhere
near as definitive as Chopin before all that happened,
as people were still all celebrating and expressing
their newfound personal validity, freedom, worth,
fruit of the revolution not only of the political world
but of the cultural one as well

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is to my mind his only
literary equivalent, compare their equal ardour
and the likeness of their compelling muse

Daniil Trifonov, playing Chopin’s other set of
“Études”, opus 25, not only lives them, he’s
utterly possessed, he’s in Tel Aviv, it’s May, 2011

Richard

psst: the first Étude is called the “Aeolian Harp”,
the ninth the “Butterfly”, the second to last,
or eleventh, the “Winter Winds”, all of which
you might try to make out in passing, they are
not that difficult to identify, all the others are
named for their key

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September 4, 2011

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto no 3, in D minor, opus 30

fully 150 years after Mozart the concerto was still a thriving
musical form though it had undergone some modifications,
you’ll hear a more passionate account in Rachmaninoff than
the more lyrical, less emotionally overt compositions of
Mozart, the variations in volume, tempo, tonality, the play
of harmonization and discords, all incidentally within a single
movement, show the passage of time, of Beethoven, of Chopin,
of Debussy between Mozart and the more Romantic, Impressionistic
Rachmaninoff, note the sweeping ritardandos, where the beat is
drawn out, stretched for pathos, a Chopinesque insinuation into
music not found in earlier stuff, one imagines torrid expressions
of fervent sentiment, note the evanescent flurry of notes passing
by like the fleeting glitter of stars, the ephemerality of an
incorporeal idea that Debussy originated and brought to music,
and of course note the irrepressibility, the authority, the masculinity
of a volcanic Beethoven underpinning the lot, you can hear them all

the Vladimir Horowitz Piano Concerto no 3 of Rachmaninoff at
Carnegie Hall, January 8, 1978, with Eugene Ormandy leading the
New York Philharmonic Orchestra is, after Van Cliburn’s historic
1950s account, May 19, 1958, again at Carnegie Hall but under Kiril
Kondrashin this time, and the now defunct Symphony of the Air,
don’t ask, the one I then grew up with, it was riveting even without
the pictures

with pictures here he is again a few months later at Avery Fisher
Hall in New York, September 24, 1978, under Zubin Mehta with
again the New York Philharmonic, so good you’ll even forgive
Mehta his usual sentimental excesses

incidentally Horowitz was 74 at this concert, he is astounding

Vladimir Horowitz, colossus and legend, 1903 -1989

enjoy, be transported, be transfixed, you have been warned

Richard

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