I listened to bits of this all-Chopin weekend on Radio 3. (I used to listen to and indeed play Chopin’s music a lot, and though it has retreated a bit in my musical consciousness he is still a favourite of mine). It wasn’t quite as samey as I thought it would be, though this was achieved by interspersing the solo piano music with songs and works with orchestra, which weren’t on the whole as interesting. To make the music last a whole weekend there was rather more discussion in between the pieces than in previous similar events, and some pieces got repeated (in particular the postumous nocturne in C sharp minor, which I heard twice within an hour and at least once at another time). There wasn’t too much ‘rearranged’ Chopin, though I winced at part of a prelude played on the organ. (Mistake. Even Liszt couldn’t get away with doing that!)<\/p>\n
The best aspect was hearing recordings from different eras and with different interpretations, rather than just good recent performances.<\/p>\n
I recommend trying the Chopin Audio Quiz<\/a>, which is not trivial, mainly because the extracts are from the middle of pieces.<\/p>\n Previous entries here have discussed the BBC broadcasts of Beethoven<\/a>, J S Bach<\/a> and Tchaikovsky\/Stravinsky<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I listened to bits of this all-Chopin weekend on Radio 3. (I used to listen to and indeed play Chopin’s music a lot, and though it has retreated a bit in my musical consciousness he is still a favourite of … Continue reading