More Than Mere Exercises: In Chopin's 27 Études, technique and music become one

Wall Street Journal ^ | November 28, 2008 | Iron Janis

[libh8er]

I've played all the waltzes, most of the preludes, about half of the etudes, all the scherzi, all the impromptus, one of the ballades and all the polonaises. I've only played one mazurka and one nocturne.

Wow. I can only play a couple of waltzes including the Minute Waltz but not without screwing up a couple of times, the Nocturne in E Flat and the first half of the Berceuse Op 57. Oh, and the Prelude in A is a fairly easy piece too. My playing is rusty now unfortunately. Haven't touched the piano in months.. and besides it hasn't been tuned in three years ! Speaking of tuning, have you ever tried tuning a piano yourself ? It's not that hard anymore provided you don't want concert pitch. All you need is some free software that you can download off the internet, a laptop and a tuning wrench. It's going to be my project over Christmas holidays :)

[Borges]

Classical Music PING

[Emperor Palpatine]

Please....anyone can play the F minor Etude if you can handle the Preludes.

For my money the two greatest recordings out of the complete Chopin Etudes are the old one of Abbey Simon, (so clean its frightening.), and one from about 15 years ago by Andrei Gavrilov, (full of Russian fire and passion.)

Two completely different approaches to the music, yet both still valid.

Oh, and Phillipe Entremont’s recording of op. 10 #12 in C minor, (”Revolutionary”), is beautiful beyond words.

[Emperor Palpatine]

Brilliant enough for both Brahms and Rachmaninoff to base large-scale works of their own on it.

[Budge]

Thank you for that link!

[billorites]

"Oh, and Phillipe Entremont’s recording of op. 10 #12 in C minor, (”Revolutionary”), is beautiful beyond words."

I love Phillipe Entremont!

I've got a ton of his recordings on vinyl from when I was a disc jockey back in the early '80s.

I forget the name of that thing we played those old vinyl cd's on...

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Thank you!

I just reserved two Jascha Heifetz CDs and the ‘Paganini For Two’ CD from my library.

Freepers Rock! :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Also meant to add:

Have you discovered http://www.pandora.com ?

I LOVE it. (It’s free.) It’s part of the Music Genome Project and selects music for you based on what your ear likes in the first place.

I’ve not looked at the classical selections...I’ve been too busy building my “Cheap Trick” radio station and my “Steely Dan” radio station and my “Ted Nugent” radio station, LOL!

But I’ll bet you can find some treasures there, too. :)