Though a successful pianist, conductor, and composer in his lifetime, the late Nicholas Economou (1953-93) is probably best remembered for the empathic collaboration he provided Martha Argerich on numerous pieces for piano duet. But Argerich is certainly not one to choose her partners lightly, and this early ’80s solo concert shows that Economou deserves greater remembrance. Floridly expressive when it comes to dynamics–gossamer whispers will roar into muscular fortissimos, then recede once again to near inaudibility – the pianist displays intelligence without ever losing his sense of passion. This video is considered an important performance of Economou playing Schumann’s Kreisleriana opus 16.
“Piano Masterclass” sketch from “Hysteria! Hysteria! Hysteria!” AIDS benefit, featuring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in 1988.
Fry and Laurie are Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, a successful English comedy double act mostly active in the 1980s and 1990s. Having met in 1980 through mutual friend Emma Thompson (whilst all attended the University of Cambridge), Fry and Laurie have since collaborated on numerous projects together, including Jeeves and Wooster in which Laurie portrayed Bertie Wooster and Fry portrayed Wooster’s valet Jeeves. They have also gained prominence through their performances in Blackadder, as well as their own sketch show A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Although they have accomplished numerous successful solo projects (in the fields of acting and writing, among others), and it has been a while since they have actively collaborated, both have expressed interest in a continued partnership.
Chopin composed about 200 works. 110 were dances such as mazurkas, waltzes and polonaises.
At the age of seven, he composed his first polonaise in B-flat major, and throughout his career he made the form exclusively his own, overshadowing the early examples by Oginski and Kurpinski. Chopin’s mature polonaises form a heroic national epic. In these works, Chopin’s patriotism envisions Poland’s former greatness and chivalric deeds. The form also became a means of expressing his most violent and angry emotions concerning his nation’s struggle. Chopin got it from his father, the dance, in its modern manifestation, from its godmothers; three French princesses of the 17th century who married successive Polish kings. The Polonaises, with their “cannon buried in flowers,” in Schumann’s words, have become symbolic and poignant evocations of an oppressed people. There are sixteen polonaises, of which nine were composed before Chopin left Poland at twenty-one. But only in Paris, idealizing his country from afar, could Chopin’s genius for the polonaise ripen.
Here we hear Rafal Blechacz playing the Polonaise in A-flat major Op. 53 “Heroique” in a live broadcast from the Polish Television. On October 21, 2005, he became the sole recipient of all five first prizes at the 15th International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, taking First Prize and the polonaise, mazurka, sonata, and concerto first prizes. According to ABC News, one of the judges, Professor Piotr Paleczny, said that Blechacz “so outclassed the remaining finalists that no second prize could actually be awarded.”
“And now, in honour of the 150th anniversary of Beethoven’s death, I would like to play “Clear the Saloon”, er, “Clair de Lune”, by Debussy. I don’t play Beethoven so well, but I play Debussy very badly, and Beethoven would have liked that.”
“I’m going to play it with both hands so that way I will get through with it a little faster.”
“I only know two pieces, one is ‘Clair de Lune’, the other one isn’t.”
“It’s Fliszt, not F. Liszt. You don’t say M. Ozart?”
Danish humourist and musician Victor Borge gave his first piano recital when he was 8 years old and in 1918 was awarded a full scholarship at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, studying under Olivo Krause. Later on, he was taught by Victor Schiøler, Liszt’s student Frederic Lamond and Busoni’s pupil Egon Petri.
When the Nazis occupied Denmark during World War II, Borge was playing a concert in Sweden and managed to escape to Finland. He traveled to America on the USS American Legion, the last passenger ship that made it out of Europe prior to the war, and arrived August 28, 1940 with only 20 dollars, three of which went to the customs fee. Disguised as a sailor, Borge returned to Denmark once during the occupation to visit his dying mother.
Even though Borge didn’t speak a word of English upon arrival, he quickly managed to adapt his jokes to the American audience, learning English by watching movies. He took the name of Victor Borge, and, in 1941, he started on Rudy Vallee’s radio show, but was hired soon after by Bing Crosby for his Kraft Music Hall.
From then on, it went quickly for Borge, who won Best New Radio Performer of the Year in 1942. Soon after the award, he was offered film roles with stars such as Frank Sinatra (in Higher and Higher). While hosting The Victor Borge Show on NBC from 1946, he “developed many of his trademarks, including repeatedly announcing his intent to play a piece but getting “distracted” by something or other, making comments about the audience, or discussing the usefulness of Chopin’s Minute Waltz as an eggtimer. Or he would start out with some well-known classical piece like Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” Op. 27 and suddenly drift into a harmonically suitable pop or jazz tune like “Night and Day” (Cole Porter).”
Borge helped start several trust funds, including the Thanks to Scandinavia Fund, which was started in dedication to those who helped the Jews escape the German persecution during the war. Borge received Kennedy Center Honors in 1999.
Aside from his musical work, Borge wrote two books, My Favorite Intermissions and My Favorite Comedies in Music (with Robert Sherman), and the autobiography Smilet er den korteste afstand (”The Smile is the Shortest Distance”) with Niels-Jørgen Kaiser. Victor Borge continued to tour until his last days, performing up to 60 times per year when he was 90 years old.
Victor Borge Hall, located in Scandinavia House in New York City, was named in Borge’s honor in 2000, as was Victor Borges Plads (”Victor Borge Square”) in Copenhagen in 2002.
Victor Borge and Anton Kontra – Monti: CzardasVictor Borge and Leonid Hambro – Chopin: “Minute Waltz”
Second Life (SL) is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab launched on June 23, 2003, and is accessible on the Internet. A free client program called the Viewer enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another, or travel throughout the world (which residents refer to as “the grid”). Second Life is for people aged 18 and over, while Teen Second Life is for people aged 13 to 17.
In 2007 Lang Lang played the first piano recital ever to take place on SL. Also pianist Jeremy Denk appeared in 2009 via WGBH simulcast on Second Life. The way these events work is that the music is streamed onto Second Life and a separate “performer” operates their avatar to mime playing the instrument.
From the International Musicians’ Seminar, Prussia Cove, we here present a clip from a Masterclass on targeting characters between movements.
Schiff also works on the disposition of form in order to rightfully serve the rhetoric qualities in Bach playing. In this particular Masterclass, András Schiff works with a student on Bach’s Second Partita for Keyboard, one of a set of six and the last group of keyboard suites Bach composed. As with the earlier French Suites and the English Suites, the Partitas consist of a series of dance movements but Bach’s skill and originality have now elaborated the hitherto straightforward dance forms and given thema richly polyphonic, almost orchestral texture. In 1731 these Partitas were collectively published as Clavier-Ăśbung (”Keyboard Exercise”).
András Schiff is one of the great interpreters of Bach and a firm advocate of playing Bach’s keyboard works on the piano. As soloist he has performed and recorded many of Bach’s major keyboard works, and his recitals fill concert halls throughout the world.
Hans Liberg has received many international awards, the highest being an Emmy Award in New York in 1997 for “Liberg zaps himself”, produced by Ivo Niehe for Tros Television. In the same year he was also nominated for the Banff Television Festival in Canada and he received an honourable mention at the Golden Rose Festival in Montreux. In 1998 he hosted the Emmy Award Gala in New York, instead of Sir Peter Ustinov! Today his fame reaches far beyond the Dutch borders, attracting full houses all over Europe. Being the only comedian in their classical music programme, he even performed in the big hall of The Musikverrein in Vienna. The international character of his shows, his musical virtuosity, and his subtle humour make him a highly sought-after artist at large international galas.
The name Ivan Moravec (b.1930) is held in high respect by executants and connoisseurs.
The Czech pianist’s recordings for Connoisseur Society were notable for their audiophile quality and nearly all of them remain available, long after the LP era, on CD reissues. Moravec has also recorded for several other labels including Vox, Dorian, Hänssler, and Supraphon. In 1998 a 2-CD compilation of Ivan Moravec recordings was published as part of the landmark Philips series, Great Pianists of the 20th Century. He is described by New Grove as one of the finest Chopin interpreters of that century. In 2000 Moravec was awarded the Charles IV Prize, the Czech Republic’s most prestigious acknowledgement of service to humanity. That same year President Václav Havel presented Moravec with the Medal of Merit for outstanding artistic achievements. In 2002 Moravec was awarded the Cannes Classical Award for lifetime achievement.
Here we can listen to Moravec recording and discussing Chopin:
“Towards the Light”
– Director Oliver Becker’s Alexander Scriabin Documentary from 1996
This documentary on the unconventional life and ground-breaking music of Russian pianist and composer Alexander Scriabin sheds light on the mystical ideas which inspired him. He became consumed by a vision of a union of the arts, a coalescence of music, words, movement, light, colour and ideas , to create transcendent experiences. Contributors to his fascinating exploration of the composer’s life and work are musicians Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Horowitz, Mikhail Pletnev and Scriabin’s daughter Marina.
In a live recording from the Amerikahaus, Munich, Friedrich Gulda reveals the versatility of his keyboard playing. On the clavichord he plays three preludes and fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (in A minor BWV 889, in C major BWV 846, in A flat major BWV 886) on the piano; his own re-working of Schubert’s song Der Wanderer, ending with Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau and a selection of his own compositions.
Watch the recital here: http://www.classicaltv.com/v530/friedrich-gulda-solo-flight
*** MUSICAL HOLIDAY GIFTS FROM PIANO STREET *** Free sheet music for the pieces in the above video
(click images to open in new window):
Bach: Prelude & Fugue WTC II no 20
Bach: Prelude & Fugue WTC I no 1
Bach: Prelude & Fugue WTC II no 17
Schubert: Der Wanderer
Debussy: Reflets dans l’eau
Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000) won first prize at the International Competition in Geneva in 1946. He began going on concert tours throughout the world.
Together with Jörg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda, Gulda formed what became known as the “Viennese troika”.
Gulda had a strong dislike of authorities like the Vienna Academy, the Beethoven Ring of which he was offered in recognition of his performances but which he refused, and even faked his own death in 1999, cementing his status as the enfant terrible among pianists. Nevertheless, Gulda is widely
regarded as one of the most outstanding piano players of the 20th century.
His piano students included Martha Argerich and the conductor Claudio Abbado. He is also remembered as an accomplished jazz-pianist, musical thinker and avant-garde artist. Although most famous for his Beethoven
interpretations, Gulda also performed the music of J.S.Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Debussy and Ravel.
