Thanks so much for your interest, guys.

I do plan to bring my Zoom along to record the program. One of the reasons I'm volunteering to do programs like these is to overcome my jitters. With my monthly performance group that I do with friends, I've come a long way; however, it never sounds as good as when I'm alone in my own living room. Fortunately, the library audience will be a very friendly crowd. I think they would applaud "Chopsticks."

LA, I have to raise my glass to you and others who can perform for an audience. My goal, which might take a lifetime, is to play as well for others as when I'm alone with no "record" button illuminated.

If the library performance doesn't go as well as I hope, I'll rerecord all of the pieces just for my friends here and post in September/October. Sometimes just knowing that I can hit the "stop" and "delete" buttons at any time helps tremendously!

BTW, I'm also planning to continue the piano salon tradition by hosting a party in October featuring music from 1900-present (I'll be playing Medtner). I can't think of a nicer way to spend a Sunday afternoon with friends than enjoying some beautiful piano music.

Does anyone else have any musical plans for the coming months?

Yes, Heidi, I hope so too!

At long last I've finished and uploaded my lower-voice edition of Chopin's song "Melodia" (or "Z gor, gdzie dzwigali"), including a translation. If this song is of interest to you, please download a copy for yourself.

http://www.box.net/shared/239knd6q2v

I hope I've crossed my Ls and dotted my Zs! If anyone sees any errors, please let me know.

Elene

Elene - Chopin wrote the music and Krasinski wrote the lyrics for this song?

Something I just recorded:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7kK3p06Xg0

It's still in polishing stage, but I hope you like it.

LA, that prelude is already fairly shiny.

Yes, as I wrote on the sheet music, Krasinski wrote the lyrics to that song. Finale has a space for the lyricist's name, which is supposed to be at the upper left above the score, but for some reason it absolutely refused to put in the poet's name, and that's why it is in small type at the bottom of the page, looking like I am disrespecting the poor guy.

I don't suppose that when Krasinski wrote the poem he was expecting it to be set to music, though I can't say for sure.

Elene

Well done LA; that one is wicked fast.

Elene - instead of entering just the name Chopin, I think you could write out like "music by Chopin - lyrics by Krasinski", then you get both names in that upper right hand space.

S&W - thanks. It's about as fast as that 48-note run in the Nocturne 27/2, but this one is 4 pages long.

It sounds great!

In Finale, they don't give you much room to work with in the text box space. It doesn't have the flexibility of a word processor or a graphics program. What I really don't understand is why they don't let you use any kind of diacritical marks (as I've complained before), since after all English is hardly the only language used for lyrics, and even English requires a couple of markings.

I could also have physically pasted in text, but decided this would probably look better.

If any Finale users have advice, I'm all ears.

Elene

Elene - here is another idea. Can you output from Finale to a PDF? If you can, then you can use a PDF editor to change the text.

LA, have you recorded Nocturne 27/2? If so, may I have the link?

Thanks, LA!

This is for -Frycek, Mary-Rose, and Elene:

http://obchody.chopin2010.pl/en/competitions/competition-updates/entry/4441-all-about-chopin-1.html

A fine bit of music played by very relaxed, athletic hands - no rigor mortis there.

How many calories do you burn with that piece, and is it your warm-up for other pieces? WOW! Thanks for sharing that one - something else....

Glen

LisztAddict - your Prelude was stunning. Are you preparing it for anything in particular - eg a competition?

And talking of competitions, thanks for the heads-up about the Chopin quiz. I think Kathleen should be included in the list of potential entrants - we miss her! Where are you, Kathleen?

I'm sure we have some other Chopin 'experts' too - who's going to join in?

Mary-Rose - nothing in particular at the moment. It's just part of my practice routine. After the finger exercises, I do 28/3, 28/16, 10/12, 10/8, 25/4, 25/6 in that order. If I start with 28/16 first, then followed by 28/3, 10/8, 10/12, 25/6, 25/4.

I think there are a few Chopin experts here with a good shot at the Chopin quiz. 35,000zl for the first prize is extremely attractive!

I have been thinking a great deal about this contest thing. I find it really rather disturbing. I doubt that HE would approve, actually. I bet he'd say that instead of spending even more of our lives studying his, we ought to go practice, or better yet do some of our own creative work!

Of course, my house needs a new roof, and 35,000 PLN would just about pay for that, and I do intend to be in Europe October 16-17 (though in Paris at that time).

This contest sounds hard:

"Round 1 and 2 will take the form of a written test on Chopin's life and work. Ten contestants who score highest in the test will go on to compete in the final, where they will be answering questions orally. They will be shown video material (fragments of films about Chopin, newsreels, coverage from Chopin competitions, famous pianists' performances, iconography, etc.). The final will also feature live performences of Chopin's music and its different arrangements. The contest will conclude with a gala concert from the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Katowice)."

What could be asked about famous pianists' performances, I wonder, that would be anything other than opinion? "Different arrangements"? I've always wondered about the different versions of the concerto orchestrations, but have never been able to find a recording that said which one it was using, so I'd have no hope of being able to differentiate them on a test. "Fragments of films"? Hmm, there I might have a chance.... But at any rate, it seems like even someone with Jeff Kallberg's level of current knowledge would have to put a lot of time into studying, and for me it would be quite a bit of work, more than I could practically manage.

What perhaps disturbs me most is that there are probably scads of obsessed fans who could quite credibly enter this contest and most likely will. I'm not sure it's healthy.

The most interesting questions, I'd say, either have multiple answers, or no answers at all, or are simply nobody's business. What if they asked, for instance, "What caused the end of the friendship between Chopin and Liszt?" (Discussed at length on another thread recently.) There is no one definitive answer, and it might be difficult to score any answers contestants gave.

Elene

Mary-Rose -- I'm addressing this to you because I did a search about this piece and noticed that you mentioned it in a couple of your posts (and hardly anyone else ever has):

Galop Marquis

Do you (or anyone) know anything about it, including how much doubt there is about the authenticity?

I never heard of the piece until today when Pianoloverus mentioned it on another thread. I was astonished that such a piece exists, and exhilarated to find it, even though it's not the greatest piece ever written and even though I imagine there must be some degree of doubt on whether it's real Chopin. (It sounds plausibly to be his, but it's certainly not characteristic.)

I tried pretty hard to find out anything about the piece online, but turned up absolutely nothing -- nothing on the inevitable question about authenticity, no history, no nothing, except the date "1846" -- which seems pretty shocking too; I would have thought more like 1816.

P.S. Even though I'm dissing the piece, I like it. It's fun trying to "do stuff" with it.

Mark C-- I can't remember much about previous discussions of this piece, but as far as I know, weak as it is, it is authentic. Marquis was Chopin's fluffy white canine friend. (I picture him as looking a lot like Kathleen's pups.) He was definitely around in 1846. We read, somewhere, I don't remember where, that when Chopin left Nohant for the last time, Marquis sat outside his door and whined, not understanding why he had been abandoned.

Elene

Thanks Elene!
Yes indeed, as far as I can see, it seems to be regarded as authentic: I don't see anything doubting it, and there are recordings by at least a couple of "name" pianists.

But as you know, sometimes in such situations there's still doubt.

And this seems (in many ways) like a thing that cries out for doubt -- at least unless there's more to be seen about its story.

What you said seems like a good start, though.

Addendum: With the help of the info you gave, I was able to do a better "search," and found this (on this page:

Marquis and Dib were the names of George Sand's dogs. This musical joke was composed during Chopin's stay at Nohant.

"That little dog Marquis has stayed with me. It's lying on my sofa. An extraordinary creature: its wool's like marabou, white as white, Ms S tends to it herself every day; so it's as bright as it can be" - From a letter sent by Chopin to his family in Warsaw, Nohant 11 Oct 1846

"Marquis is acting too. The costumes get him tremendously excited. He take part in the action, jumps to the arms of people being murdered, weeps at the feet of those singing romances and at the end dances a "pas de deux" with Lambert. He takes the play seriously and feels all the emotions of the audience." - From a letter by George Sand to Emanuel Arago, Nohant 9 Dec 1846

"Did yesterday's pantomime induce Dib to dance?" - From a letter sent by Chopin to George Sand at Nohant, Paris 15 Dec 1846

"I can just imagine the emotions of Marquis and Dib. Happy viewers, naive and unrefined." - From a letter sent by Chopin to George Sand at Nohant, Paris 17 Jan 1847

With the aid of what you said, I found this in about 3 seconds.
Gonna look some more......

.....looks like that's about it.

Maybe I require more than the average bear but I'd need to see more before I assume that Chopin really did write this piece -- especially in 1846. It would seem to be particularly odd for such a late year. It would seem to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb among the works from that time. The closest would probably be the Minute Waltz, and even that is on a different level from this.

But don't get me wrong......I know it's possible he really took time out for a momentary jest, I sure hope it's real, and unless we start hearing that it's not, I'll be playing it.

Mark--

If you like the piece and want to play it, then its authorship is secondary!

Maybe Fryderyk wrote it for Solange or some other lesser player?

Imagining Marquis participating in theater reminds me of "Wishbone" (I think that was the name), the PBS kids' show about a Jack Russell terrier who imagined himself in the stories of all sorts of famous books. The dog would appear as the main character, in costume. It was great. The little guy was so expressive.

Elene

In a way, yes....but not really.

I don't think the piece would be of any interest at all except that it's (supposedly) Chopin.

Frankly, I didn't find it very interesting myself!

Elene

You see?

Dear Mark,

It's real. The manuscript, for a long time held in a private collection, recently (25 November 2008) came up for auction by Christie's Paris; there it was identified as formerly in the collection of Minka Strauss. The auction catalogue included a partial reproduction of the manuscript, and it is clearly in Chopin's hand (and he spells the title "Gallop Marquis"). You can see it yourself here:

Manuscript of Gallop Marquis

In the right hands, the piece can be a charming hoot.

Jeff Kallberg

Thank you, Dr. Jeff!!!

I was hoping you'd help us out on this, but didn't want to impose on you by addressing the post to you.

Can you tell us anything about the history or story of the piece? Like, why would the mature Chopin have written such a piece? Was it perhaps for some occasion?

By the way.....that blip of the manuscript enabled me to see whether the two slurs (present in the copy that I obtained online) are authentic.
They're not (or at least the first one isn't.....the second passage doesn't appear on there, but I assume it's like the first).

Maybe to cheer himself up? Maybe for a bit of fun? I think a lot of us are forgetting what a great sense of fun he had. This is the same man who gave Pauline Viardot's baby horsey rides on his hands and knees and once won a contest by fishing a wedding ring out of a pile of flour with his very talented nose.
(Seriously, maybe it was written for one of Maurice/George's puppet shows? It wouldn't surprize me if there were also a puppet Marquis.)