While traveling last weekend, I heard a part of a perfomance on public radio of a "Completed" Chopin Piano Concerto (#3 I think.) The commentary was something about this current composer/performer used the first movement of the incomplete concerto, then completed it by rewriting/expanding 2 other smaller Chopin pieces. The 2nd movement was based on Nocturne C# minor,(posthumous) which I am currently working on (as my "challenge" piece). I can't get it out of my mind.

BUT, I don't know where the performance was, by who, etc. I just can't remember names anyway, and I was exhausted with baby care and jet lag. Has anyone else ever heard this? Heard of it? Could it have been a recorded concert with a CD available?

BTW: I also need the birth/death for Albert Ellmenreich -- Spinning Song. My daughter wants to play it at festival.

Beth

Hello Beth,

Quickie internet search shows Ellmenreich's birth/death years to be 1816-1905.

The Spinning Song is indeed a catchy tune. I remember way back when, it was one of the pieces I enjoyed learning when I was a student.

Alan Kogosowski has put together, in the true sense of the phrase, a concerto from various bits of Chopin. (I think Chopin's Allegro op.46 was once intended to serve as the basis for a possible Third Piano concerto). I think Kogosowki's product is probably what the NPR broadcast was talking about. I know Kogosowski has also fashioned a concerto of sorts from Rachmaninoff's piano trios (why I've no idea).

Here's a link to a review of the "Concerto". What you might have heard is a "premiere" recording with Jarvi/Kogosowki and the Detroit Symphony. Apparently, it's a a hodge-podge of good intentions that should never have the seen the light of the day.
http://www.canoe.ca/JamConcertsE2K/eso_01072000.html

[ September 05, 2001: Message edited by: netizen ]

now there's an etude i don't know about...=]

CG- thanks. My daughter is enjoying it. Though like most students, she has a tendancy to want to rush it some. :rolleyes: I hope she will really work on some delicate phrasing so that it comes off as something other than another student racing through as fast as possible.

Netizen: Thanks so much. I'm sure that's what I heard. I'm not sure what I think about toying with the master's works, but from a student's perspective living with the Nocturne daily, it was fascinating to hear what someone else had done with (to?)it. I hope that no matter how horrible the general critic population finds it to be, that I can find a recording of it or hear it again... just to think about the ways it was (perhaps too simply) orchestrated and add some of that to my own interpretation of the piano only original version.

From that reviewer's point of reference, Chopin might have left off on the 3rd Concerto because he didn't like it. But he never published the C# Nocturne either, mayber for the same reason. But I'm glad it's around. (I won't be in a few months as I try to speed up those scale runs!)

Thanks to you both.

Beth,

I think that Nocturne actually shares material with the slow movement of Chopin's F minor (ie "No.2") concerto, a completed and genuine early work. I think the story is that the nocturne was written at a similar time as the concerto, though it was never published. I even seem to remember that Chopin intended the nocturne for his sister to study, since she was about to learn the F minor concerto. Someone more knowledgeable about Chopin may be able to clarify this. Anyway, have a listen to the slow movement of the F minor concerto, I'm sure you'll hear some of that nocturne in it.

on the first edition it was written:
"For my sister Louise to play, before she practices my second Concerto".

When Chopin's sister wanted to play the F Minor Concerto, Chopin knew it was too difficult for her. Instead, he composed this more accessible and considerably shorter nocturne, which features 5 or 6 thematic fragments from all movements of the concerto.

[from ]www.musicedmarket.com/messages/137.html]

[ September 06, 2001: Message edited by: magnezium ]