Fryck:

Thank you so much for reminding me. I had completely forgotten about the practice log. NOW, I can't find my password, and the site won't let me in.

Let's see if I can get some help on how I can re-enter with a new password.

Kathleen

P.S. The Butterfly Etude is the exact opposite in all respects from the Revolutionary. If you, with all the practice you do, found the Butterfly too difficult to bother with (I know you have to love it to keep going), what chance do I have? It's my favorite. Perhaps because the other is played so often. However, I get a large sense of pride while listening to it.

The Butterfly is tricky. Maybe your being Polish would help. I learned the first half of it and I swear I was playing it as written at a pretty good speed and it still didn't have that little kick, syncopation, what have you. William (my husband) says it's the closest thing to ragtime Chopin ever wrote. Maybe so. 10/12 is really more my kind of a piece anyway.

I goofed! It's the 25/1 that I love...the Aurolian Harps(Sp?).

I have trouble connecting specific pieces with their opus and number.

Chopin didn't think much of his Black Keys Edude (in Op10), at least he wished Clara Schumann would find something better of his to play. The Butterfly in Op 25 is very similar (it does have a few whites). He may not have thought much of it either. It's awfully "perky."

I think to get the Butterfly to really
"swing" you'll need to actually hold all
the 8th notes that are in those 4-16th
note groups in the r.h. Most of them
are with the thumb, but also those with
the initial 3rd and then you hold the top
note with the 5th finger. I've heard commercial
recordings where the player is apparently
not holding all the 8ths, and they don't seem to
"swing" as much as those where the player
apparently is.

Which ever etude is being discussed, it doesn't matter.

They ALL are magnificent. In technique, power, beauty, lonliness, charm, anguish, happiness, fear...you name it. They're all there...in one form or another. You can find every human emotion and some you didn't even know existed.

I know I'm a tad ga ga about Chopin. But can you blame me?

Kathleen

Oh, Frycek. I don't think being part Polish would or could help me play his music better. But helping me appreciate/love it...that might be the answer.

Kathleen

I was joking about that bit, me just being and "ugly but good natured Scot" as the maestro put it.

Frycek:

Please tell me you are referring to Jane and not yourself!! I'll go along with the good-natured, but drop that ugly!

Kathleen

"The population here is ugly, but apparently good-natured. On the other hand the cows are magnificent, but apparently inclined to gore people. " from one of his letters from Scotland. I imagine any highlanders of the time he might've encountered were a pretty rough lot. And if you remember what he actually did say about poor Jane - - something along the lines of "She looks too much like me to kiss" I presume he meant sharp nosed and thin - it's plain she never stood a chance with him.

You know if Chopin weren't such a genius at the piano, he could have appeared at a Comic's Cottage or, at least, written for a TV sit-com.

Some of things he wrote were so utterly cynical and wicked, they were hilarious. Almost like a precusor of Don Rickles! I imagine the two of them would have really gotten along. Trading one insult against another.

Have a good Sunday. Kathleen