★ 06/11/2018
A humble piano that birthed some of composer Frédèric Chopin’s greatest pieces is the peg for a meditation on romanticism in this beguiling study. Composer and pianist Kildea (Benjamin Britten) recounts Chopin’s 1838–1839 sojourn on the Spanish island of Majorca where, confined in a gloomy monastery with his mistress, the novelist George Sand, and her children, he composed several of his most well-known preludes on a mediocre piano made by a local artisan, Juan Bauza. After that atmospheric introduction, the Bauza instrument recedes as Kildea’s biographical sketch of Chopin visits other pianos, including his beloved Pleyels and the innovative Steinways that now define his sound. The book’s second half centers on harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, who bought Bauza’s piano for her collection and lost it when Nazis pillaged her Paris home; Kildea’s account of her championship of historically accurate instruments and performance alongside late-romantic melodramatics anchors his insightful exploration of shifting styles of piano-playing and interpretations of Chopin. Kildea’s loose-limbed narrative includes wonderful evocations of the music (Prelude 18 “is like someone arguing with himself—interrupting, stuttering, slowly gaining in confidence and fluency, prone to wild coloratura declamations”) and luxuriant digressions on everything from piano-tuning tastes to the 19th-century rebuilding of Paris. This is a wonderful, melodic take on Chopin’s genius. (Aug.)
In November 1838, Frédéric Chopin, George Sand, and her two children sailed to Majorca to escape the Parisian winter. They settled in an abandoned monastery at Valldemossa in the mountains above Palma, where Chopin finished what would eventually be recognized as one of the great and revolutionary works of musical Romanticism: his twenty-four Preludes. There was scarcely a decent piano on the island, so Chopin worked on a small pianino made by a local craftsman, Juan Bauza.
Chopin's Piano traces the history of Chopin's twenty-four Preludes through the instruments on which they were played, the pianists who interpreted them, and the traditions they came to represent. Yet it begins and ends with the Majorcan pianino, which assumed an astonishing cultural potency during the Second World War as it became, for the Nazis, a symbol of the man and music they were determined to appropriate as their own.
After Chopin, the unexpected hero of Chopin's Piano is the great keyboard player Wanda Landowska, who rescued the pianino from Valldemossa in 1913, and who would later become one of the most influential artistic figures of the twentieth century. Paul Kildea shows how her story resonates with Chopin's, simultaneously distilling part of the cultural and political history of mid-twentieth-century Europe and the United States.
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Chopin's Piano traces the history of Chopin's twenty-four Preludes through the instruments on which they were played, the pianists who interpreted them, and the traditions they came to represent. Yet it begins and ends with the Majorcan pianino, which assumed an astonishing cultural potency during the Second World War as it became, for the Nazis, a symbol of the man and music they were determined to appropriate as their own.
After Chopin, the unexpected hero of Chopin's Piano is the great keyboard player Wanda Landowska, who rescued the pianino from Valldemossa in 1913, and who would later become one of the most influential artistic figures of the twentieth century. Paul Kildea shows how her story resonates with Chopin's, simultaneously distilling part of the cultural and political history of mid-twentieth-century Europe and the United States.
Chopin's Piano: In Search of the Instrument that Transformed Music
In November 1838, Frédéric Chopin, George Sand, and her two children sailed to Majorca to escape the Parisian winter. They settled in an abandoned monastery at Valldemossa in the mountains above Palma, where Chopin finished what would eventually be recognized as one of the great and revolutionary works of musical Romanticism: his twenty-four Preludes. There was scarcely a decent piano on the island, so Chopin worked on a small pianino made by a local craftsman, Juan Bauza.
Chopin's Piano traces the history of Chopin's twenty-four Preludes through the instruments on which they were played, the pianists who interpreted them, and the traditions they came to represent. Yet it begins and ends with the Majorcan pianino, which assumed an astonishing cultural potency during the Second World War as it became, for the Nazis, a symbol of the man and music they were determined to appropriate as their own.
After Chopin, the unexpected hero of Chopin's Piano is the great keyboard player Wanda Landowska, who rescued the pianino from Valldemossa in 1913, and who would later become one of the most influential artistic figures of the twentieth century. Paul Kildea shows how her story resonates with Chopin's, simultaneously distilling part of the cultural and political history of mid-twentieth-century Europe and the United States.
Chopin's Piano traces the history of Chopin's twenty-four Preludes through the instruments on which they were played, the pianists who interpreted them, and the traditions they came to represent. Yet it begins and ends with the Majorcan pianino, which assumed an astonishing cultural potency during the Second World War as it became, for the Nazis, a symbol of the man and music they were determined to appropriate as their own.
After Chopin, the unexpected hero of Chopin's Piano is the great keyboard player Wanda Landowska, who rescued the pianino from Valldemossa in 1913, and who would later become one of the most influential artistic figures of the twentieth century. Paul Kildea shows how her story resonates with Chopin's, simultaneously distilling part of the cultural and political history of mid-twentieth-century Europe and the United States.
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940170214761 |
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Publisher: | HighBridge Company |
Publication date: | 10/16/2018 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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