Hello all.

A little over a month ago I attended a thought-provoking recital at Curtis celebrating the 100th birthday of Barber and the 200th birthday of Chopin. There was a selection of pieces written by both composers played side-by-side. The idea was to showcase Chopin's influence in Barber's music.

I admit that I do not know Barber very well, having only just discovered his music at this recital. I also admit that I do not really see the influences or similarities at all between the music of both composers.

I was hoping someone on here who is more initiated than I am in Barber's music could perhaps explain the thinking behind this? I'm not very good with modern piano music, but am interested in learning. Any other comments are also welcome.

You might have better luck posting this in Pianist Corner. For myself I don't hear much Chopin in Barber.

Why not tell us more about the recital. What pieces were played? What similarities did they try to illustrate?

Ah, I thought this would be the place to ask about composers and their music. In future I'll post something like this in Piano Corner. Thank you for the suggestion.

There were quite a few different pieces played. I kind of remember the playlist being a Barber Nocturne, some Excursions, and the Piano Sonata. Chopin pieces were varied and I can't remember all of the ones that were played, but included the second sonata.

That's the thing I find perplexing: I'm not sure what was trying to be achieved because I didn't really hear any similarities between the two composer's music. I thought I had completely missed it since I'm not used to hearing modern classical music. The only Barber piece played I thought had any Chopin influences at all was the Nocturne.

I thought "Excursions" was likely to be among the Barber pieces, because in those, it's not hard to imagine an influence from Chopin.

But otherwise......

I agree with you that in general it's hard to imagine much kinship between the composers. But I'm also gathering that some people feel (or know) that there was -- and then it's interesting to see how it can be shown, and why something like this can be interesting and striking.

How can it be shown?
I don't know.
Somebody would have to show me.

BTW.....it is hard to know exactly where to post certain things when you are new here. I had trouble with it too.

I can imagine that "Composer's Lounge" might look like it's for posts about composers, rather than being for people who are composers. It's confusing.

And, now that I look a little further on the contents page of this section.....it looks like even the site itself is confused.
Look at the top of the contents page -- where they have that stuff on Chopin. Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like that reflects the same misunderstanding that you had. It seems out of keeping with the usual content of this section. It seems to belong on Pianist Corner.

The most confusing thing for new people seems to be "Piano Forum," whose title makes it seem more general than it is. I won't even try to define what it actually is, because whatever I say will be just as ambiguous as the title.

What title would I give it?
"PIANOS"

Thank you for your replies Mark C.

Why do you think the Excursions would show Chopinesque (does this word exist?) influences more so than his other pieces? Out of all that was played at that recital, I thought the Barber Nocturne showed the most. I wasn't sure if that was because it was the piece that adhered to the most rules (in keeping in with the musical style of nocturnes), or if Barber was truly influenced by Chopin for that piece.

I didn't notice any Chopinesque influence in the Excursions or in the Piano Sonata. I heard some of the boogy, blues, whatever in the Excursions. When I heard the Excursions, they invoked Gerswhin more for me than Chopin, but I suppose that's a bit more 'natural'.

I know very little about Barber admittedly, so I can't say if those who are more 'in-the-know' knew about an influence of one composer over the other. I guess there must have been something of this nature, since to me I would have never in a million years seen any similarities between the two.