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Share your view Ragnhild.

A belated congratualtions on the 55.1 Nocturne ...
your flow was exemplary and your handling of the
"lacy extravagances" quite delightful ... for a moment I thought I was misjudging the author of the recording as happened in commenting favourably on Kathleen's playing when it was really Askenazy ...
it was only at the end of your recording where you
came slightly unstuck on the 2nd mountain (near the end) and then raced the the final climb with the repeated top Fs that I realized that it was really you ... and that you were fallable after all ... not that I'm being critical in the slightest ... on the contrary ... I'm totally blown away by the remarkable continuity and general mastery of fingering which you exhibited.

You're an example to us all ... we salute you.

try again

In my book "The Master Musicians" by Cuthbert Hadden published was back in 1909 I discovered this picture of Chopin ... from the Hanfstaengl Collection.
[img] www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Chopin7.jpg [/img]

Not pressing the right buttons!!

Hi All:

I've been busy cleaning my house since I have neglected it somewhat over the past few weeks. When I can write my name on the dust on my piano, I know it's time for the mop and bucket brigade.

As much as I would like to dislike George Sand, she did take very good care of our dear soul for many, many years. He was very happy with her and her children (much of the time) for quite a while. She saw to his every need. In fact, she spoiled him. And he loved her for it.

Whether she loved him, is a different story. I've read some interesting theories on how the roles were reversed in their case. She was the more masculine. She set out to catch him (as most males would court the woman they loved), and he let himself be caught. He was the more feminine. He loved to be cared for and looked after...as a lot of women do.

She considered herself a "mother-earth" type of person, and she wasn't above writing about herself as kind, caring and good-hearted, always putting other people's needs above her own.
She could find justification in everything she did, even when it was evident that she was the one at fault. She wasn't an angel, but she wasn't the devil either.

I am grateful to her for taking such good care of Chopin all those years, but I can't quite forgive her for breaking his heart. It seemed that after they parted, his health deterioriated very quickly. I think he just gave up. He just didn't seem to care about much after that.

They were both quite unusual people, to say the least.

btb: I do so enjoy your analyses of Chopin' works. Just today, my friend said to me that most of the compositions Chopin wrote were very sad. And I had to answer her that it was all in the way you listen to his music.

Although most would say it is highly emotional. I don't listen with my emotions, I listen with my ears. I can't quite analyze his music, but I hear the intricate workings of his genius in the harmonies, chord progressions, single note voicing, etc. After listening, I will admit that that's when it hits me. And, that's when I am moved by it all.

I don't believe that most of Chopin music is sad. Much of it is. Much of it is filled with anger, despair and rage. But there is so much that is pleasant, charming, hopeful and happy.

Do you agree?

Kathleen

Actually Frycek doesn't want to stick to the date 1837 - I want to stick to the date 1827 when Chopin was 17. See how easy it is to confuse things? The fact that it was published in 1937 confuses things even further. (All those 7's)

Well, I, for one, think because of its haunting simplicity is one of the best nocturnes he wrote.

At least, I can play it after only two weeks practice.

Can't say the same for the 55.1. But I love it anyhow although it has given me about 20 more gray hairs over the past weeks.

Kathleen

Kathleen,
Sadness and happiness are on the same roller-coaster track ... merely at opposite polar ends.

Anyone who "so knowingly" presumes to write off Chopin's music as just so much highfaluting gloom and doom, and therefore lacking in joie de vivre, will be discovered to be young and fashionably immature.

Chopin commands the sharp poetic economy of the Classical Greek dramatists.

Sorry, can't get this to work either. btb, PM me this image and I'll try to get it up.

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Chopin7.jpg

Hi Frycek,
Thank you for interest in trying raise the Chopin picture.

I thought I was home and dry having received the
following e-mail from webmaster@pianoworld.com

The file Chopin7.JPG has been uploaded, it is 11.6 Kb in size.

The location of the file is
http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Chopin7.JPG

Upon reflection, it might well be that I wrote up the JPG in lower case lettering ... would this
change have incapacitated the process?

By the way ... what does PM mean? My guess is post me ... to your e-mail address via the webmaster?

Hi btb:

Wow...I love that likeness of Chopin. It seems quite accurate according to all descriptions. Thanks for posting it.

PM means "private message" or as you put it, post me at my e-mail address.

Yes, I do agree that those who think Chopin's music is wimpy and weepy certainly don't have the musical maturity it takes to recognize his genius. And yes, he was a poet of the highest order because music is the hightest form of art.

Kathleen

Seem to have got the JPG right because the Chopin picture emerges. Hurray ... thanks Frycek.

Kathleen might just get a bit of opposition to her parting words "music is the highest form of art" ... what about architecture, literature, poetry, fine art, sculpture ... with names like Michaelangelo, Shakespeare, John Keats, Rembrandt and Donatello to mention a few? Chopin might battle to win the day against the likes of such mighty warriors. I prefer to compare apples ...

btb:

Knowing you are a retired architect, I know I am asking for "trouble" with my statement; however, I will stand by my opinion and give reasons why...right after I practice.


Kathleen

Yes, html directions are case sensitive

Thanks for the clarification... and there was I thinking that CAPITAL letters were "LOUD".

I have to bump us up to the first page again.

No way am I going to let Chopin lovers have to hunt for him.

After practicing, I'm going to write something about what an "expert" said about Chopin's handwriting...quite interesting and spooky.

Kathleen

Now I really am looking forward to that. I've had a few thoughts myself.

I promise first thing tomorrow. :rolleyes:

I am going to scan (I hope) the page from the book. Too tired today, fooling around with all this stuff.

Kathleen

Here is the statement about Chopin's handwriting. I tried to scan from the book, but I have lost my patience with these new all-in-ones.

_____________
Chopin had his first portrait done about the the first etudes were written. The artist Miroszewski painted portraits of the five members of the Chopin family.

On the basis of this painting and several graphological documents, psychologist Andre Rabs drew the "silhouette of Chopin's character.

"Deductive rather than intuitive despite appearances. Very strong connection with the past. Elective sociability. Very strong will, to the point of depotism. Highly developed instincitve plane, but only going as far as the affective plane. Spirituality appeared only at the end of his life. Imagination precise and concise. Paradoxically, the artistic sense did not appear at all in the penmanship. In Chopin there is an overloading of this sense, like a splitting of his personality. This handwriting is astonishingly similar to Pascal's. Like his, the handwriting denotes--particularly, by the letter "f", which is no more than a bar---a kind of sterility, the interior burn that marks the neuropath. Toward to end of his life, a need for frankness, exteriorization is revealed; whereas, in the first part, there is reserve, excessive restraint.

If he had not died so early, the writer would have achieved something very strange in metaphysical terms. He tried to catch hold of it, but was unable to do so. Toward his death, terrible aggressiveness manifests itself, and becomes extremely hard. The graphology also implies that he must have had an eye disorder and that he was like a ball of fire, transfiguring the interior, but devestating everything it its way."

This is not by opinion.

To be honest, I had to look up a few word to be certain I understood the analyses.

deductive..to infer from a general principle
intutive...to know or sense by insight

instinctive...behavior that is mediated by reactions below the conscious level

metaphysical...of or relating to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses...supernatural

Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote powerfully in defense of the scientific method.

He was a mathematician of the first order. Pascal helped create two major new areas of research. He wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen and corresponded with Pierre de Fermat from 1654 on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science.

Following a mystical experience in late 1654, he abandoned his scientific work and devoted himself to philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres provinciales and the Pensées. However, he had suffered from ill-health throughout his life and his new interests were ended by his early death two months after his 39th birthday.


Well...all I can say is Wow and

Thought it was interesting though.

Kathleen

This is the portrait in question. Chopin thought it a good likeness. He was nineteen.


The two are not mutually exclusive. Chopin was also highly intuitive based on anecdotal evidence. Today he'd be one of those people who usually knows who's on the phone before he picks up the receiver. Both very true Very stong will yes, the "despotism," probably too strong a word, was subconscious, manifested in charm. As a child, particularly, he probably could've "gotten away with murder." People wanted to do things for him. I have no idea what he means by this. Chopin's spiritual beliefs were the most private beliefs of a most private man. Also very stong and probably graphic I doubt that. Whatever - - With maturity, he did seem to loosen up just a bit. That often happens as shy people gain a bit of confidence. Reserve also tends to suffer when one is in extremis.

Chopin was a rock hard realist. He hadn't the patience, time or intellecutal self indulgence for metaphysics.
Say what?? If anything Chopin seemed resigned to his death. He lost the will to fight when he lost George Sand. Possibly he had transient vision problems. He suffered from migraines and complained of facial neuralgia from time to time both of which can affect the vision. The makers of Chopin, Desire for Love certainly wished to imply that.