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Lovely!

Thanks for posting the video, Mark. That E minor waltz isn't heard often enough, and I had never heard the Horowitz piece before at all-- what a pleasant surprise.

There was an email announcing the winner of the Cliburn amateur contest today, but other than the name of the first-prize winner, there was no information about how the contest turned out.

I don't think I thanked Frycek for the article on hammer felts. Very interesting. I had no idea that anything other than wool was ever used on hammers, and it had never occurred to me to wonder about it. So many substances are used in pianos, animal, vegetable, and mineral!

A couple of weeks ago my teacher attended the yearly seminar given by his own teacher, Sheila Paige, at I'm not sure which university, and he had the opportunity to play two fortepianos. One was a modern copy of a late 18th century instrument, but the other was actually built in the 1820s. I think he said that even that one still had a knee pedal. We were speculating on what Chopin's experience of such instruments might have been, and just what sort of pianos he was playing as a youngster.

I've just posted a review of the first Polish opera I'd ever heard, Karol Szymanowski's King Roger, which was performed at the Santa Fe Opera this summer.
King Roger Rules, Ambiguously

Szymanowski is practically the only Polish composer one hears much about besides you-know-who, and even so his work is not much known here. While writing the review, I read about him and also about Henryk Górecki, who became a cult favorite with his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Both of these men had devastating accidents in their childhoods, with lifelong consequences, and both were affected by tuberculosis, which killed Szymanowski. Almost as if there were some sort of tradition of composers having to endure great physical suffering.

Elene

Elene: Thanks for the comments on the video. Regarding the lack of more info, the only info that is ever given is the winner.

I'm surprised the Cliburn people don't list the second-place winner, etc., since they do talk about such persons from previous years.

Yesterday I had the good fortune to borrow an unusual Chopin album from, would you believe, my harpsichord teacher. It’s Janusz Olejniczak playing an 1831 Pleyel that belonged to Chopin. Unfortunately, nothing is said about the piano except that it was in a private collection.

Since the album appears to be unavailable, I’ve put one track where you can listen to it. I chose the “Revolutionary” Etude because it shows the characteristics of the instrument especially clearly:

10/12 on the 1831 Pleyel

While searching for that album, I found that NIFC has put out one with Olejniczak playing 1848 and 1849 instruments:

Polonezy, Mazurki, Nokturny

You can listen to tracks on their site. However, the album can be purchased for less through Amazon, and perhaps other places as well.

Elene

Elene,
I think you're probably remembering how it is for the in-person competitions. No results except the winner have ever been given for these video things.

Oh, now I see that they have a separate amateur contest in addition to the video contest. There is a lot more information about how that has come out over the years.

In case it's inspiring:

http://www.cliburn.org/amateur-competition/past-amateur-competitions/winners-bios/

Elene

So at the risk of sounding silly...

I've gotten back into the swing of piano and have decided to pick up the Prelude No. 4 in E minor as a 'surprise' for my teacher who has been a longtime scholar of Chopin. I've not played any of his works before. I'm using a transcribed version available on IMSLP. Some questions:

-The music indicates pedal usage in only a couple of places (forgive me, I don't have the piece in front of me). In listening to performances on (gulp) YouTube, it seems like it's used throughout the piece and, thus far, this is how I'm playing it. Is this accepted practice?

-I feel like I play the piece with some degree of expression with respect to tempo, but not nearly as dramatic as some performances I've listened to (see above). Is there a typical pattern that's seen as 'correct' or is this totally within the performer's desired realm?

Best,
Andy

Andy,

Chopin often indicates pedal only in places where he doesn't think what he wants is obvious to the player for one reason or another. Yes, you need to pedal throughout this piece with all its repeated chords.

The tempo can be somewhat elastic and of course you should play it as you feel it, but in general going to extremes is not the best idea with Chopin, who to the best of our knowledge played in a restrained manner.

Your teacher will no doubt have opinions about these matters!

This is a good pick for a first try at Chopin, perhaps the best and easiest choice.

Elene

I just found something astonishing. My teacher and I were looking for some duets to try, and I made the comment that unfortunately, Chopin never wrote any. Except it seems that he did. Jan Ekier edited this set of variations on an Irish folk song, which was listed in my teacher's reference book on piano repertoire, and which I then found at IMSLP:

Variations sur un air national de Moore

What the????

While searching for something else, I also noticed that the NIFC is working on a facsimile edition of all the available Chopin manuscripts:

Chopin facsimile edition

But my teacher was thinking that there is an online source for Chopin autographs, as well. I can't find one. Anybody?

Elene

Elene,

For duets, there's also the 4-hand version of Opus 1 (released with the famous Vigneron engraving of Chopin) - opinions are divided whether Chopin himself was responsible for the arrangement (I tend to think he was). And the Rondo for 2 pianos, op. 73.

NIFC's printed facsimile series is quite useful (I've done the intros for some of the mss in U.S. collections). For an online source, stay tuned - there may be some plans afoot in this area. If and when they become public, I'll post the news (unless one of the indefatigable denizens of this thread beats me to it).

Jeff Kallberg

Thank you, Elene and Dr. Kallberg!
Great information!

And let me take the opportunity to mention....Mr. Ekier, besides being the editor of the Polish National Edition, was involved with the Chopin Competition organization over a very long period, including as chairman of the jury. He is still with us -- next week will be his 99th birthday. Among his various Chopin arrangements is his reconstruction/completion of the posthumous F minor Mazurka (Op. 68 #4). I have it on my program for next month's amateur Chopin competition and of course I hope very much to reach the round where the piece would be. I hope also that he may be doing well enough that I might be able to speak with him about the piece and about other things.

In the UK, the Online Chopin Variorum Edition contains some digitized manuscripts as well as impressions from the first editions. The project only includes a limited number of works so far, and I can't figure out if there has been any further activity since the conclusion of the 2009 phase of the research (as described in the About section). But it's an interesting vision for using online tools to compile and present musical sources.

Thanks, Jeff and all! I'm a little embarrassed not to have known of any of these Chopin duets. Good to know there is another source for manuscripts too.

It looks like the secondo part of the Moore variations is mostly the work of Ekier rather than Chopin, but it's unclear from this scanned copy where the piece came from or how much of it was found originally. I'll see if the NIFC says anything about it. Jeff, do you have any more details about it, by any chance?

Mark, I remember you posting information about that mazurka in the past. Sincere best wishes for your upcoming competition performances.

Elene

What Irish air is it a variation of?

It doesn't say.

Elene

I found a used copy on Bookfinder (Amazon UK) but I'm not willing to pay $23 to satisfy my curiosity (as it's four handed and I have only two). But Moore wrote some very pretty stuff that I can imagine appealing to Chopin. It's intriguing to think what he might've done with it.

It's not an Irish air, but rather the "Carnival of Venice" theme that Moore apparently published in a collection of national tunes. This is the same tune Chopin varied in his "Souvenir de Paganini."

Jeff Kallberg

Thanks, Jeff.

Hi again oh great Chopin ones! I got Hinson's FI (Mme d'Este's manuscript) as recommended by Elene (I think). Has anybody access to either Fontana's or d'Este's? In bar 5 Hinton's crescendo takes the whole bar whilst Fontana's only the first half (then followed by a decrescendo). My guess is Fontana made his up - Hinton seems urtext. Any help here?

edit: since found this at youtube - so Hinson is certainly right:


Anybody got access to Fontana's?

For whoever might be interested in following the amateur Chopin competition: It starts next Tuesday, Sept. 11 and runs through Sept. 15.

Preliminary round: Sept. 11-12
Semi-finals: Sept. 13
Finals: Sept. 14
"Winners concert": Sept. 15

We have (at least) 5 members participating: Hakki Bayka, Gorden Cheng, me, and a couple of people who haven't been very active here and might not want to be mentioned but I'd be thrilled if they come on and say 'hi' or tell me it's OK to mention them.

It's possible the performances may be live-streamed since this was done for the professional Chopin competition in 2010.