Posted on 04/28/2009 4:23:52 AM PDT by Schnucki
Krystian Zimerman, the great Polish concert pianist, is usually a man of few words. He doesn't, as a rule, talk to the audience during performances. He says little or nothing in the press between his all-too-rare concert tours - not even about his habit of travelling everywhere with his own Steinway grand piano. He rarely grants them the pleasure of an encore.
So he triggered more than the usual rumble of discomfort when he raised his voice in the closing stages of a recital at Los Angeles' Disney Hall on Sunday night and announced he would no longer perform in the United States in protest against Washington's military policies.
"Get your hands off my country," Zimerman told the stunned crowd in a denunciation of US plans to install a missile defence shield on Polish soil. Some people cheered, others yelled at him to shut up and keep playing. A few dozen walked out, some of them shouting obscenities.
"Yes," Zimerman responded with derision, "some people when they hear the word military start marching."
According to Mark Swed, the Los Angeles Times's veteran classical music critic who witnessed the incident, Zimerman hesitated before deciding to speak up. He was about to strike up the first notes of the final piece on his programme, Karol Szymanowski's Variations on a Polish Folk Theme, when he "sat silently at the piano for a moment, almost began to play, but then turned to the audience".
Swed said he delivered his tirade "in a quiet but angry voice that did not project well".
Zimerman appears to have been upset by Barack Obama's decision, announced this month, to maintain the Bush-era policy of installing a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Hotspots of Obama voters for HopenChangeTM.
Cheers!
Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya...
Krystian Zimerman is a foolish man.
No loss, we already have an ample supply of native idiot performers.
I guess he might be happier if Russia got it’s hands back on his country? Poland doesn’t have choices when it comes to international alignments. It has been a pass through country since before Napolean and has to have allies on one side or the other. I think siding with the West is better but I might be biased.
This guy is just one in a long line of talented, but thankless nitwits of all nationalities and shouldn't be mistaken for the vast majority of Poles.
Nie, nie jestem.
Yes, very foolish.
Interesting to watch people continue to sound off when the great uniter/apologizer/appeaser is at the helm. Did he not get the email....all is well now.
You are so right.
Poland is a great country....populated by good people.
This moron is a fluke and does not represent the vast majority of Poles.
He sounds like a temperamental a-hole. Still, he should have kept to his policy and kept a cork in it. I guess he thinks he is really showing us. I don't care how well you play the piano, the world doesn't revolve around you!
I would say the chances are pretty good that the pianist will get what he wants. Since Obama has tipped his hand pretty well that he doesn’t want to deploy these weapons it shouldn’t be that hard for the Russki’s to talk him out of them. Reagan he ain’t.
Zimerman plays Chopin Ballade No. 4 - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_PBTGfhWD8
I dont guess he objected to taking American dollars for his performance?
Presumably Zimerman has heard of Warsaw and therefore the phrase Warsaw Pact should also be familiar to him.
A very small pianist.
He sounds like a washed-up Commie tool. I’ll bet that for each one of him, there are hundreds of musicians just as good who have no problems bidding the ‘good old days’ goodbye!
Better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
“So he triggered more than the usual rumble of discomfort when he raised his voice in the closing stages of a recital at Los Angeles’ Disney Hall on Sunday night and announced he would no longer perform in the United States in protest against Washington’s military policies. “
OMG how can we go on without his music?? Oh, thats right, we have CDs, DVDs, video, tape, records, radio....
Eurocommies will never change.
EVER.
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