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f&t: I cant help you with your other question: editions with fingerings for smaller hands - but what a great question - why dont you start another topic on this - I have never thought about it because it is not a problem for me but I wonder if there are such things

Thanks for the prompt, Schubertian!. You're right - it needs a new thread so I've just started one.

Andromaque is obviously not of proud Polish birth ... Frycek is ... and an authority on the life of Chopin and his music.

In 1830, at 20 years of age, and brimming with patriotic resentment "against the rule of the Russian Empire in Poland", and wanted to join the Warsaw insurrection ... but was persuaded by a close friend T. Woyciechowski (glad I don't have to pronounce it) from becoming a combatant ... and escape rather (in this case to Paris, his father being French) and use his patriotic music to fire condemnation of the Russian Bear.

Chopin might have been frail and sickly, and contaminated by cigar-smoking writer Georges Sand, but his close friend and portrait painter Delacroix saw him like this ... handsome, elegant, cultured ... a perfect gentleman.

chopin by delacroix

What was it Schumann said?: "cannons hidden behind wild flowers" or something like that

I'm working on a couple of the Chopin Preludes at the moment, among them number 17. Voicing is indeed critical in playing this Prelude well. In measures 43 and 47 where the grace notes would normally be played with 4/5, my teacher has me redistribute the notes, taking the lower notes of the right hand with the left, thus freeing the right hand to tackle the grace notes with "easier" fingering. It works well for me.

Regards,

.. that you are very literal!

My extolling Chopin's feminine side added to bdb's zealous virile patriotism brings us right down to your "human' qualification of this music..
P.S. I did use a gremlin in my answer too!
I am off to Carnegie hall.. Pollini playing Chopin's Scherzo No.2 and four mazurkas (Op.33) (in addition to LvB's Tempest and Appassionata.. I shall report on zal, feminism and Poland later.

Do you know that this portrait by Delacroix, undoubtedly one of the most famous of Chopin - perhaps somewhat Rolmanticized - was part of a larger portrait showing George Sand sewing while Chopin sat at the piano.

I have seen the Chopin portion of the portrait in the Louvre; I'm sure research will show where the other half of the portrait is, unless it was destroyed.

Regards,

btb
Thank you for the link to Chopin's portrait.

BruceD
Sand's portrait is in Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen. I actually did not know they were part of the same painting. Hers is fuzzy and not nearly as interesting as Chopin's. I remember that she had what I thought was a white handkerchief in her hand but you are probably right about sewing.. It is also in the same brown palette.

Actually she is smoking a cigarette and not sewing- kind of a shock

Schubertian, are you sure about that?

IIRC the Delacroix joint portrait was discussed in the "Devoted to Chopin" thread recently—and, of course, I can't recall the details!

But I just noticed that Wikipedia and other sources do describe Sand as sewing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sand

FWIW, if you magnify the original image (as to the "stylized rendition"), it does look more like she's holding a needle than a cigarette.

Steven

Whatever George is doing she's doing it left handed. I've never heard it mentioned that she was left handed - and that's the sort of personal detail that gets mentioned. It's odd. The cloth is crumpled, actually clutched. I'd always assumed it was a hankerchief. It's certainly not spread out in a way that a woman would to stitch a piece of mending. It's definitely not being treated like a piece of embroidery either which must be smooth and tense with or without a frame. And whatever it is she's holding it's too thick for a needle and too thin for a cigarette. Maybe we should hold a seance and ask Delacroix.

In a big fancy coffee table art book with lots of pictures Mr Barthelemy Jobert writes (page 26) "By the light of a lamp on a chimney, George Sane, cigarette in hand, listens to CHopin on the piano." If you look carefully at the color plate sure enough there's a big ol' butt in her hand. It looks like she is sewing because she is also holding a napkin, or maybe it's a Kleenex, (doubtless to daub her cheeks wet with tears of emotion), and her left hand is indeed drawn in just exactly the gesture of pulling needle and thread.

I prefer to think it is a joint and the white linen is her stash. Frederic is rolling his eyes because he has just about had enough of her bohemian ways. Why cant she just be content with THe Green Fairy like everybody else. Heedless heedless George Sand.

I dont know what make Barthelemy so sure. It does look pretty thin but it is also kind of hard to tell what is going on there - it is only a sketch after all.

But I'm going with the cigarette interpretation anyway - it sort of fits the Wild Woman persona that I like about G S.

I prefer her weeping and smoking to ineptly mending any day.

Yeah, darning Frederic's socks no doubt - that is just too banal

Got the link from the Copenhagen museum. I can't make out if she is sewing or holding a cigarette.

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/d/delacroi/index.html

Two things are clear. She is enraptured and the portrait is unfinished.
Speaking of enraptured, Pollini was brilliant tonight, too magnificent for any superlatives I know. He played the 4 mazurkas of op. 33 and the second Scherzo with so much feeling and virtuosity, he at times felt extraterrestrial.. and I felt very much like Sand in that portrait.

Just received a hyperspace e-mail from Delacroix,

mon ami,
Parlez-vous l’anglais ou le francais?

Just thought I’d send you a snap of Sand before the part I painted out.

Bon jour

PS The clutch of the handkerchief might indicate the need to dab the eyes.

cuban

The A flat major prelude of Chopin (op. 28 no. 17) is an awesome piece of music. Any pianist who likes melodic Chopin should explore this work. I also would not rank this as being a particularly easy piece to play. It is challenging to bring out the melody so that it sings while properly maintaining the right dynamics. The chords are distributed among the hands in a rather unusual fashion in which the two hands often cross each other.

btb - ha ha - great - thanks!

That should settle this once and for all