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I know . That's why I provided an explanation in parentheses. The word portki in Polish is also archaic and used only humorously both nowadays and in Chopin's time. It was my feeble attempt to translate with preserving his humorous, mocking language. (The word admirować is also archaic.)

I am a bit confused; I must have missed something (which is entirely possible): who is 'the last Aurore'?

Sorry, how rude of us. The "last Aurore" was George Sand's granddaughter. You can read all about it below.
Byron Janis and Chopin's Alleged Dinner Coat

J.A.S., I thought your attempt at getting the flavor of archaic language worked. I was just meaning to clarify.

And apologies, I was writing about "the last Aurore" as if everyone had read the Janis article. Aurore Lauth-Sand lived well into the 20th century. Funny how the invented name "Sand" stuck so well.

I was thinking, too, that the green coat might have belonged to Maurice or some other skinny youngster. That actually seems more likely. His daughter might also simply have been mistaken about whose coat it had been.

I'm going to wear my 1840 shirt today, having been reminded of it, despite the fact that the collar pulls a little.

Elene

"Breeches" would've been another good choice.

LisztAddict, thank you so much for giving us this link. The video is beautifully done. The 'Revolutionary' bit made me cringe just a little, but the blend of old and new worked wonderfullly and the little boy actor was well chosen. He even seemd to have a budding Chopinesque nose!

I think the producer intentionally not putting very high quality performances in the video except for E-minor waltz and concerto #1 at the very end.

I mentioned for Chopin's Birth Celebration that Eric Himy was performing in MN as well as being on Public Radio interviewed and playing.

Here is an excerpt from the interview. Speaking about Chopin's Mazurka's and playing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trH-VBEg6pU

Closeups of his playing.

What did you come up with, CebuKid?

I'd second the Arrau vote. I'm currently having a love affair with his Nocturne No. 20 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. posth.

Edited to add that I only dream that I could one day play it.
Jim

Maybe this has already been mentioned, and I apologize if it has...
But I just got the book by E. Bailie and I love it. Then in the Introduction I read she says Chopin was a complex, contradictory personality. That is fine. Then she also calls him "crudely anti-Semitic", and this really put me off...

I agree with you, ChopinAddict. That book is very good regarding the music but IMO grossly unfair in some of the biographical comments. No-one would quarrel with 'complex personality' but if Chopin was so anti semitic how come he was very friendly with Alkan, for example?

Eleanor Baillie isn't much of a biographer. She probably got the crudely anti=Semitic business from biographies referencing the forged Potocka letters. They found their way into a lot of otherwise respectable mid century biogrphies. Chopin was culturally anti-Semitic, but certainly no more so than the average 19th century Catholic. He referred to sharp businessmen as "Jews" - in the case of his publishers which is where he is most known for making the reference - this was literally true. As MaryRose says, he was very good friends with Alkan and friends with Mendelshonn as well. He also admired Jewish music.

I've dredged up this quote from Jeff Kallberg from 10/21/09, regarding a connection between Chopin and traditional Jewish music:

"On the home front, I recently did a public lecture at the University of Chicago about this: Memory of Poland. My talk concerned the picture on the bottom (though it mentioned the picture on top too.) Eventually there will be a webcast available; I'll let folks know when this transpires.

Of possible interest is what I think might be the first hearing (played by yours truly) of a sketch Chopin entitled "Doÿna Vallacha", which is to say a doina from the Wallachia region of Romania. (It is a sketch entirely in pencil, a rare thing for Chopin, who almost always sketched in ink.) The doina genre was adopted by klezmer musicians in the early 20th century, and you can hear a definite familial connection between what Chopin wrote and what the early klezmer musicians played. (Here's an example of one of those early klezmer pieces: Joseph Moskowitz )" [Go back to p. 173 for the link]

The average 19th-century Slav seems to have been pretty anti-Semitic (to say nothing of those in the 20th century); I don't know how Catholics were in other places at that time. Perhaps a subject for someone's paper, article, or lecture.

I loved the little guy in that film about "Chopin's Warsaw." A pleasant idea, to represent Chopin as a lively child rather than as the depressed and debilitated man that is often the prevailing image of him. Was that a palm tree I glimpsed in one scene, before the Mardi Gras dancers and the Chinese dragon?? (Surely it can't be!) No wonder young Frycek, wandering around with a map of the new city, looks so bemused.

I hadn't realized that such a huge amount of Warsaw had been leveled by the Nazis. It's horrifying to contemplate, and even more so when one thinks about the other cities that met fates as terrible or worse, including Dresden and Hiroshima, destroyed by the "good guys."

It's too bad the monument to Chopin was also destroyed, but if someone came along and blew up the new one, frankly, I don't think it would be much of an artistic loss.

Last night I was working on a blog entry that has to do with Leopold Godowsky, and I realized that I'd never actually heard any of his versions of the etudes. Here's one I found, 10/12 for left hand alone:
Godowsky's Revolutionary Etude

Elene

That's very interesting, with only one hand...

Here are some more of the op. 10 Godowsky Chopin Etudes. I don't particularly like them, but anyway...

Op. 10 no. 1
Op. 10 no. 2
Op. 10 no. 3
Op. 10 no. 4
Op. 10 no. 5
Op. 10 no. 6
Op. 10 no. 7
Op. 10 no. 8
Op. 10 no. 9
Op. 10 no. 10
Op. 10 no. 11

There seem to be various versions of each etude.

"It's too bad the monument to Chopin was also destroyed, but if someone came along and blew up the new one, frankly, I don't think it would be much of an artistic loss."

It's unfortunate. The "tree" suffers badly by comparison to the actual trees nearby. And to think, they were going to have Rodin do it, but dilly-dallied and argued until it was too late. The attempt to copy his style did not really work out, in my opinion. And the frog.

Worse could have happened, however:


Right downtown in San Jose. It's not even real bronze, either--- it's plastic. This objet d'art has been picketed by two different groups, one which felt it was heathen and sinful, and one which thought it looked like... well, they looked around to see if a giant dog was responsible.

Chopin lovers, count your lucky stars.

"Is it supposed to be kinda sorta Aztec?" she inquires timidly.

This is a photo taken surreptitiously by a Polish partisan of the fragments of the original monument on a flatcar about to be hauled off as scrap metal.

Since you ask, Frycek. It scarcely has anything to do with Chopin, as such, except for Quetzlcoatl's function as giver of civilization and arts, and the presenter of visions. But, boiled down (very greatly) from Wiki:

"Quetzalcoatl: ubiquitous Mesoamerican deity whose name... means "Feathered-Serpent...": Maya, Olmec, Aztec, Toltec; possibly Hopi; ... was related to gods of the wind, of Venus, of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge... patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge... the embodiment of the sky; presenting Maya kings with visions...the world's largest pyramid was dedicated to his worship. .. associated with the wind god ...a symbol of fertility and internal political structures contrasting with the War Serpent symbolizing the outwards military expansion...part of a triad of agricultural deities: the Goddess of the Cave symbolizing motherhood, reproduction and life, Tlaloc, god of rain, lightning and thunder and the feathered serpent, god of vegetational renewal. ... connected to the planet Venus... as a sign of the beginning of the rainy season. ...Venus was... also symbolically connected with warfare."

"The Vision Serpent has the human face of the young maize god... accompanied by the image of a seated, armed ruler and the hieroglyph for...Wind... patron deity of the Urban center, a god of culture and civilization. Quetzalcoatl was said to oppose human sacrifice."

"... twin gods Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl...together...created the world; he had...a title reserved for the gods directly involved in the creation, which means "by whom we live"... "lord of the star of the dawn." ...known as the inventor of books and the calendar, the giver of maize (corn) to mankind, and sometimes as a symbol of death and resurrection. ...patron of the priests. Quetzalcoatl...went to ...the underworld, and created fifth-world mankind from the bones of the previous races ...using his own blood, from a wound in his penis, to imbue the bones with new life."

"One Aztec story claims that Quetzalcoatl was seduced by Tezcatlipoca into becoming drunk and sleeping with a celibate priestess...and then burned himself to death out of remorse. His heart became the morning star."

"See also: Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur from the Late Cretaceous."

No wonder it upset the missionaries.