Does this mean MSH is special?
Seriously, he is tenacious as a bulldog! And yes, I am looking forward to his submittal.

On another note... Mary Rose, now that a good portion of the nocturnes, preludes, etudes have been performed, how do you see these recitals moving forward? Or will they?
As someone, with a fairly newfound respect/admiration/love for Chopin's gift to humanity, I look forward to building on my one and only Chopin piece- Prelude in E minor.

Does this mean MSH is special?

YES!

In addition, I'd like to personally thank Liszaddict for pointing out this fact. I could only imagine that Chopin himself would welcome improvisations of his music and feel proud to have inspired so many other musicians to do the same. *Encouraging* others to participate and enjoy his music just seems to make all kinds of sense.

Now listen, I have no plans on turning this into a sideshow act. I DO respect Chopins work just as all of you do. He was a musical genious just not a deity.....although admitidly pretty close!

Normally I *don't* read the classically oriented threads, hunky, but I saw from the thread listing that you had posted on it, and that got me curious enough to check it out. (I'm sweet on you, you know. )

I don't know if the Chopin crowd is ready for Chopin-in-a-Speedo, though.

Ooooooh, SO busted!

Strings&Wood: I think we must all have a democratic discussion about the Chopin ecitals from 2011 onwards. So if you have any ideas, please share them after October 17.




In fact Chopin HATED people extemporising on his music, which is why I have been reticent about encouraging it in our ecitals. Liszt was prone to add his own variations to Chopn's works, which Chopin didn't like at all. But he won't be hearing our efforts, so won't be hurt by them!

Mary-Rose, are you sure about Chopin "hating" ("hate" is a VERY strong word) other musicians performing variations of his work?

I only ask this because SO many accomplished performers have done so. Were they all inspired by Chopins compositions and decided to play variations of his pieces in the face of his deep "hatred" for others doing this?

[Note]: I'm NOT trying to stir up the nest with this, I honestly don't know what the actual (factual) truth is. I need to be enlightend.

They didn't do it to his face. Only Liszt dared to do, once.

Whether Chopin liked or disliked people making variations out of his work, I think that's hard to prove.

But the fact is Chopin Opus 2 are variations of Mozart's La ci darem la mano.

Rachmaninoff wrote a theme and variations based on the same prelude No 20 that Mr. SH wants to play. Honestly, I don't like this particular work by Rachmaninoff. The theme is there, the variations go completely off the theme, and they just go on and on and on for almost 30 minutes.

We weren't talking about someone writing his own variations on a theme by Chopin. We were talking about someone going off on his own tangent during the performance of one of Chopin's actual compositions. In the one recorded instance he bit Liszt's head off. (Actually, he wasn't all that happy about anyone anyone even handling the fair copies either. He was a bit of a mother hen in that respect. Once he got upset when he smelled cigar smoke on one of them.)

I'm still confused. Apparantly, Mary-Rose is correct in that Chopin very much disliked anyone altering his music. If that is the case, then I could possibly see that performing a variation of his work may be disrespectful; especially in a recital in his honor. If this is the case then I will happily withdraw my "variation" and simply perform the original score as written and that's it.

What does confuse me however is how many modern musicians who have performed various "inspired" renditions of his work. Because this is true, would that not be considered disrespectful as well since Chopin clearly did not approve of this?

Guess he woulda hated Godowsky's guts, then.

As I said before, Mr Hunky, Chopin's not around to listen and I am sure we'll all enjoy your improvisation. Please don't just stick with the original as that has already had a place in the current set of ecitals.

Looking forward to hearing you play in October!

Pretty much.

Mr. SH - I'm waiting with bated breath. Please play.

*Bump*

Anyone else interested in participating? And to those who have already booked their spot, how's it going?

64/3 - is that taken yet?

No gerg - is that your choice? Lovely!

So our programme now looks like this:

Horowitzian: Nocturne Op 15 no 1in F major
AlisonWhittle: Berceuse, Op 57
Jazzyprof: Posthumous Impromptu in C sharp minor, Op 66
Frycek: Op 11 Larghetto
Rustyfingers: Mazurka Op 17 No 1 in B flat
LisztAddict: Polonaise in G sharp minor, Op Post

Al-mahed: Valse Op 34 no 2 in A minor
Maestro_007: Valse Op 64 no 2 in C sharp minor
Gerg: Valse Op 64 no 3 in A flat major
Timmyab: Valse Op 69 no 1 in A flat major
Mati: Valse Op 69 no 2 in B minor
Mistaya: Valse Op 70 no 2 in F minor
Manndrew: Vals Op 70 no 3 in D flat
Ab-ster: Posth. Valse in E minor
Anotherschmoe: Valse in A minor, Op Post

Whoops - an important correction:

Horowitzian: Nocturne Op 15 no 1in F major
AlisonWhittle: Berceuse, Op 57
Jazzyprof: Posthumous Impromptu in C sharp minor, Op 66
Frycek: Op 11 Larghetto
Rustyfingers: Mazurka Op 17 No 1 in B flat
LisztAddict: Polonaise in G sharp minor, Op Post
Mr Super-Hunky: Prelude Op 28 No 20

Al-mahed: Valse Op 34 no 2 in A minor
Maestro_007: Valse Op 64 no 2 in C sharp minor
Gerg: Valse Op 64 no 3 in A flat major
Timmyab: Valse Op 69 no 1 in A flat major
Mati: Valse Op 69 no 2 in B minor
Mistaya: Valse Op 70 no 2 in F minor
Manndrew: Vals Op 70 no 3 in D flat
Ab-ster: Posth. Valse in E minor
Anotherschmoe: Valse in A minor, Op Post

If timmyab would give it up I'd like to do 69/1. I leave it up to him.

Mary-Rose,

On the recital website, I noticed that Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2 is listed as "unavailable."

Does that mean I can submit a recording of that piece? If so, I can do that one. I might do something else too, but let me look through my "stuff" and see what I can tackle at this point.

EDIT - I see it was done on March 1, 2010. Never mind! Back to the drawing board for me.

All,

I want to formally acknowledge and welcome HeidiV as an e-cital organizer!

(Heidi will be playing Op. 18... right Heidi? )

She will be maintaining the list privately, and Mary-Rose will continue as our beloved Chopin ambassador to keep us all updated publicly.

I also want to encourage backup sign-ups, as we've had a high attrition rate these last couple of events (1 March, 22 February). We're honoring the man who inspired many of us to take up piano in the first place, and naturally the closer we can get to 100% participation of the pieces signed up, the better it is.

One of the special aspects of these e-citals is that, once we put your performance up on the website, it remains there permanently long after the e-cital date as your own public testament to this great composer, something to which you can point your friends and associates and say, "I played that!"

My respect and affection to all. For Fryderyk...

Yeah, with my toes!

I'm glad to help in any way that I can. These e-citals are such a wonderful tribute. I like the idea of having backups too, so if anyone would like to be listed as a backup for a particular piece, please post here and I'll maintain the list.

Many thanks to Greg and Mary-Rose for their outstanding work in making these e-citals possible.

Yes, OK I'll do Op Post in E major instead.

Many thanks! I hope I can do it justice!

BTW Mr. S-H, great to have you listed on here!

It took me a while to choose a piece, but please sign me up for the Polonaise Op. 26 No. 1.

And just to clarify... playing in a Speedo is optional, not mandatory, right?

I'm really looking forward to that, Heidiv!

I've done approximately 82,000 recordings of "Melodia" in the past week and think I can finally do it at a level that is non-obnoxious enough to submit. So please count me in, officially, for that.

As usual, I've sure learned a lot from this project-- and this "simple" song. So simple I found it nearly impossible. And I mean that literally.

I will be extremely interested to hear Mr. S-H's variation, improvisation, or whatever it should be called. The discussion you all had about whether Chopin would approve is a fascinating one; I don't know what the final answer would be, but I would guess that his reaction might depend on the player's intentions as well as skillfulness. In Liszt's case, he might have felt like Liszt was trying to "go him one better," prove his superiority or show off.

Elene

Interesting ... that may have indeed, ruffled a few feathers.

Chopin in a Speedo is a scary thought. Us playing Chopin in Speedos (with some exceptions) is also a scary thought.

Isn't it a good thing that piano competitions don't have swimsuit sections?

Elene