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Hi Chardonnay:

If you go to the thread: "Your favorite You-tube sites," here on the ABF...I just posted Rubinstein playing the 3rd movement from Chopin's Piano Concerto #2. It's heartbreakingly beautiful.

Kathleen

Couldn't agree more. I am sad too that people who can't even sing a clean A440 are earning millions because someone wrote a text for them, and they were edited using Antares AudioTune and other sound plugins for modern computer software.

I mostly listen (apart from classical) to music by bands who are true musicians, and can perform as well in concert on stage as on their studio CDs, or even better. That's what I admire, the true musicianship.

We're having a yearly music festival here in Poland, and one year a singer won the whole competition and was asked to sing for the crowd. She was shocked and replied "I can't really sing, it's just the CD"


p.s. The DVD isn't there yet - but it's not yet over Kathleen


Regards!
M.

Kathleen, fellow Chopin devotees, have you seen this thread?

I think you'll agree, this is something really special!

The link doesn't seem to work anymore A certain video of Chopin's Pleyel played was however posted here one day, and yes, this is something really special! Thanks for posting the link to this thread!

Mateusz

Hi Mati

I've just tried it again and it opens for me directly in Windows media Player, no problem.

So what are Mac people supposed to do??

Hi Mike: As always, good to hear from you.

I had no trouble opening the link. What a wonder it was. I can't even imagine what it must be like to lay one's hands on the very same keyboard that Chopin once played. The piano looks to be in beautiful condition. They keys are still very white and not chipped and, of course, the sound is quite lovely.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

Fondly,
Kathleen

This is the Pleyel I bonded with at Hatchlands.

Welcome Home, Frycek:

This the the piano you "touched" while in England? Wow!! I thought my playing on Paderewski's was something, but it pales in comparison.

Please tell us how it went in Summerkeys.

Kathleen

Was this one that figured into the discussion of the number of millimeters encompassed by an octave (i.e., then vs. now)?

Steven

Yes

Dang, I couldn’t get that link to the video with the Pleyel to work either. I’ll search further. In the meantime, today I was given this link:

http://pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=125

which has all the études played on an 1851 Erard. No, not the same one that Emmanuel Ax has recorded:

"The instrument used in this recording, Serial no. 22,657, was built in 1851 in Paris, 2 years after Chopin's death. It is approximately the size of a Steinway model B, but weighs only 450 lbs. about half the weight of the Steinway. The pitch stability of the instrument is poor - changing with the weather or vigorous playing. The fast decay, however, makes small tuning errors tolerable. The dynamical scale of the instrument is smaller than the modern grand. The greatest volume is less than half that of the model B. while the model B can be played considerably softer with reliability. For delicacy and clarity the Erard has the upper hand. The comparison is like that of a sports car to the touring sedan.

The piano was owned by Glenn D. White of Seattle. It was restored to playing condition by him with the assistance of Allen Goldstein. Minimal changes were made in the restoration so that the piano is in no sense modernized. The hammers and action are the original ones."

Elene

Hi Elene:

It would appear that Steven is having an effect on you, i.e. the use of the word "dang." It certainly is kinder than a few other expletives I can think of.

The site you posted is wonderful. So much information and "free stuff!" It doesn't get any better than that.
Thank you.

I have often wondered (perhaps daydreamed would be more accurate) what it would be like to be one of the people in Chopin's "inner circle." To be present at his private performances in all those yummy salons and/or to be invited to his home for an evening of conversation and maybe listening to him at the keyboard, improvising. To be a good friend of his, one whom he highly regarded and loved. Ah, one can only dream.

On a more personal note (and forgive me for my tendenacy to use this thread in such a way), I have not been able to play the piano for more than a few minutes in the past weeks. My sciatic nerve is giving me so much trouble that it is pure agony to sit on that hard bench and use the pedal. So yesterday, I made an appointment with a doctor who specializes in disorders of the spine, especially the sciatic nerve. I do so hope to get some relief soon because I fear all that I have learned or accomplished will soon disappear.

Kathleen

Oh Kathleen, I am so sorry to hear about your sciatic nerve. How frustrating, as well as unpleasant. I do hope the specialist is able to help

Thinking about soirees with Chopin - don't forget the delicious ice-cream he served

Elene - thanks for reminding us about those interesting Erard performances. How remarkable that the original hammers and action survive.

Kathleen,

I always said "dang"! But I'm happy to share it with Steven, who has such excellent language skills.

I sure hope the spine doc can help. But in the meantime, why sit on a hard bench to play?
I use an office chair with a waterfall seat, which I have set with a slight forward tilt (not all chairs do that) so that my lumbar spine has the proper, comfortable curve. Of course it doesn't stop me from slumping my upper back, but it does make it much easier not to.

Elene

Never could find a way into that link for the recording of Chopin's Pleyel, but I did find this article about it:

http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6180.html

One of Chopin's Own Pleyel Pianos Discovered in England
By Vivien Schweitzer
19 Mar 2007


A Pleyel grand piano owned by Frederic Chopin has been discovered in a country house museum in the south of England, reports The Times of London.

The piano, which Chopin used in his final concert tour, was located in the collection of Alec Cobbe, a collector of antique keyboard instruments who purchased the French-made piano for just £2,000, unaware of its storied history. Chopin scholar Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger tracked the instrument down; it is now on display at a National Trust house in Surrey with the rest of Cobbe's collection.

Camille Pleyel and Chopin were close friends; The Times reports that there appears to have been a verbal contract between the two similar to a modern sponsorship deal: Pleyel agreed to supply Chopin with free pianos, and in return, Chopin promoted the Pleyel instruments to his pupils and admirers (and received a 10 per cent commission from any sales).

Chopin left Paris for London in 1848, bringing with him a Pleyel piano made two years earlier. When he left London (a town he hated for both its fog and its culture) he sold the instrument to a Lady Trotter, whose daughter, Margaret, was his friend and probable pupil, according to The Times.

For almost 160 years, the whereabouts of the instrument were unknown, until Dr. Eigeldinger, emeritus professor of musicology at the University of Geneva, decided to try and correlate the scattered Pleyel instruments with the firm's archives. By matching serial numbers in Pleyel’s ledger, Eigeldinger was able to identify the piano owned by Cobbe as the one Chopin had brought to England in 1848.

In 1988 Cobbe bought the instrument from a dealer in antique pianos, who had purchased it at an auction in the late 1970s. The Cobbe Collection Trust, which aims to offer musicians and audiences the chance to hear music played as the composers would have heard it, includes instruments owned or played by Purcell, Bach, Mozart, Mahler and Elgar.

Chopin reportedly said that the firm's instruments were the only ones ideally suited to his music.

"The pianos of today produce lone [sic], sustaining, liquid notes," Cobbe told The Times," whereas with the Pleyel the notes die away much more quickly and this gives a completely different texture to the music." Liszt wrote that Chopin "particularly cherished" Pleyel pianos "for their silvery and slightly veiled sonority and their lightness of touch."

Thank you both, MaryRose and Elene, for your concern. I often think of my dear mother, who died in 1984, whenever I have some aches or pains. She would always admonish me about going to a doctor, saying: "Don't go looking for trouble." What is so curious about this is that I often wait out much of them, and more times than not, they go away by themselves. Mothers always know best. However, there does comes a time when playing the waiting game doesn't work.

Elene: I did had one of those chairs that you mentioned and found it very helpful. But, I didn't like the way it looked in my living room, next to my grand (I'm afraid I have a strong aesthic bent), so I took it back to the store. I just might have to buy another one and perhaps find a screen to hit it from view.

I enjoyed reading the article you posted. That Chopin sold the piano that Pleyel lent him seems a bit dishonest, but perhaps Pleyel gave him permission to do so. I hope he split the $$ with Pleyel. Also that Chopin received 10% of all sales was news to me, for I've never read that before. They certainly had a good arrangement going. So Chopin was not only a musician, teacher, composer and pianist but also a used-piano salesman. Funny!

I'm going to look up the "dang," just for the fun of it to see if it has a interesting history.

My best to all,
Kathleen

Chopin paid Pleyel for that particular piano immediately before he took it out of France (the bill of sale with the serial number on it still exists) so it was his to sell.

I investigated the etymology of my favorite gentle euphemism just last night; though my personal usage only goes back to junior high school, sources date its origin to the late 1700s while also citing a much earlier use by Christopher Marlowe (in Hero and Leander):
Dang.

Hey, about Pleyel ... it seems our Chopin was a "Pleyel Artist" long before there was a roster of "Steinway Artists."

Were any other great composers (besides Clementi) so strongly associated with particular piano makers?

Steven

Liszt was pretty strongly associated with Erard (though of course he'd play anything that had keys.)