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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
I returned to the UK last year after living in Germany for eight years. Unfortunately I had to leave my beloved Yamaha C2M behind (sold) due to not having enough space in the new place
Horrors! What are you going to do??? Keyboard?? You can't go pianoless.
I've still got my old Yamaha P120 digital piano, Frycek. It will do until I get myself another acoustic which, of necessity, will be an upright of some description.
Thank you all. I will stick around, but I fear I have little to post that is worthy of the highly intelligent and insightful comments that this thread has seen.
And a special thank you to Cruiser. After reading your e-mail yesterday, I practiced a nocturne that I started way back in 2008. It has been an on-again, off-again affair of the heart, but you made me determined to finally give it my all. I've only one page to learn and promised myself I would finally complete it by the end of the year. So...my gratitude to you.
And Frycek: I so often think of our time in D.C. What fun we had. Do you remember that wild commentary that MaryRose posted on this thread about me and "you know who?" How I rushed downstairs at the hotel to try to undo any damage to my reputation. Now I think about it and have a good laugh. MaryRose, for all her super qualities, can be a little devil when she wants do. But I love her dearly as I do you.
You might think of me as the "heart and soul" of this thread but it is because of all of you that I have learned so much about our hero. AND because of all of you, I went back to the piano after a few decades and was able to conquer my mental laziness. As I mentioned to Cruiser, I was able to play so much music (with hours of practice, naturally) that I astounded myself. You all inspired me and not the other way around!
So thank-you's hardly expresses how much I owe you all.
As always, Kathleen
Chopin’s music is all I need to look into my soul.
(And to think that once upon a time I wasted 20 bucks or whatever buying the video cassette....)
LOL videos they seem so clunky and old now- my local charity shop is full of them, I know a bloke who still has a video player though so he goes and buys them. I watched the film earlier but have a habit of falling asleep on the couch so missed some of it. Have you seen Immortal Beloved? ( Gary Oldman as Beethoven)?
As long as we're mentioning movies -- good, bad, and beloved -- I think we have to mention Song to Remember -- considered bad by many, beloved by me.
Better than the other two movies mentioned in this thread, but I didn't fall in love with it (although at least I watched it to the end). I would call it "mediocre". The other two were a real abomination.
I'll give Blue Note this much though. It was the only film so far that seems to be willing to depict the reality of Chopin's illness, even though it probably did so for the wrong reasons. (Grotesquerie rather than compassion.)
....Have you seen Immortal Beloved? ( Gary Oldman as Beethoven)?
It's been on my mental 'list' forever....gotta get to it some time. I've heard good things about it.
Originally Posted by -Frycek
I'll give Blue Note this much though. It was the only film so far that seems to be willing to depict the reality of Chopin's illness, even though it probably did so for the wrong reasons. (Grotesquerie rather than compassion.)
What reality of it did they give? (I'm sure you know there are differing views.)
I'll give Blue Note this much though. It was the only film so far that seems to be willing to depict the reality of Chopin's illness, even though it probably did so for the wrong reasons. (Grotesquerie rather than compassion.)
What reality of it did they give? (I'm sure you know there are differing views.)
The cough, extreme frailty, the fact he had to be carried upstairs, the lung hemorrhages. All documented facts, usually ignored.
The cough, extreme frailty, the fact he had to be carried upstairs, the lung hemorrhages. All documented facts, usually ignored.
Oh OK -- but not any specific diagnosis? And of course that's fine, because we don't know. The most recent theory, which I think is embraced more and more but not nearly as a consensus, is cystic fibrosis.
The cough, extreme frailty, the fact he had to be carried upstairs, the lung hemorrhages. All documented facts, usually ignored.
Oh OK -- but not any specific diagnosis? And of course that's fine, because we don't know. The most recent theory, which I think is embraced more and more but not nearly as a consensus, is cystic fibrosis.
No, no specific diagnosis. They just weren't so coy about it that at the end he appears to die of nothing more than a bad cold (Desire for Love) or a broken heart (A Song to Remember). They were graphic enough to let you knew he was seriously ill. (Though he's still alive and with George as Blue Note ends.)
[quote=EdwardianPiano]....Have you seen Immortal Beloved? ( Gary Oldman as Beethoven)?
It's been on my mental 'list' forever....gotta get to it some time. I've heard good things about it.
It is quite good- Gary Oldman looks quite like the Master and is believable. Not keen on the many flashbacks in it - got a bit confusing. Worth seeing though.
I do think you (all) should see Immortal Beloved if you haven't yet. Like Impromptu, it is short on factual reality, but has a kind of deep emotional truth. The theory it espouses about the identity of the "Immortal Beloved" is almost certainly wrong, but it's a great guess, and something one might wish had been true. And Gary Oldman did look scarily like the real thing. There's one portrait of a young Beethoven that looks like Oldman actually sat for it himself.
(I loved Impromptu despite its silliness. As I've probably mentioned before, it was what got me started on my still-active Chopin addiction in 1993. Whereas when I saw A Song to Rememberat the age of 14, it drove me nuts because somehow I knew most of it was horribly wrong. That was when I originally discovered that I had a connection with Our Friend, having been completely unaware of him before that.)
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