Chopin Fantasy in f minor Op.49

[marik1]

Found in my Dad's house my old CD from student years. Funnily enough, each piece was the first and the only performance--for some reason I never got back to them...
Chopin, Fantasy in f minor Op.49

[p2u_]

Found in my Dad's house my old CD from student years. Funnily enough, each piece was the first and the only performance--for some reason I never got back to them...
Chopin, Fantasy in f minor Op.49

Fantastic playing, marik1! I could swear I've heard this before. Could it be that this recording is still circulating in Moscow among your friends maybe?

Paul

[fnork]

It was a very fine performance indeed, and thanks for sharing your recordings of the past with us. I must admit I feel similarly to Horowitz about this piece, it doesn't entirely convince me, and like mr Horowitz pointed out - a piece like the Polonaise-Fantasy somehow offers so much more "fantasy" than this piece. Nevertheless - very convincing playing, thanks for sharing!

[marik1]

Fantastic playing, marik1! I could swear I've heard this before. Could it be that this recording is still circulating in Moscow among your friends maybe?

Paul

Hello Paul,

Thank you for your kind words. I don't remember the year, but I am sure this recording was made already after I left Moscow. Only my Dad had a copy (he lived in Siberia) and until now I completely forgot about this recording. I don't even think I myself have it... maybe somewhere...

Best, M

[marik1]

It was a very fine performance indeed, and thanks for sharing your recordings of the past with us. I must admit I feel similarly to Horowitz about this piece, it doesn't entirely convince me, and like mr Horowitz pointed out - a piece like the Polonaise-Fantasy somehow offers so much more "fantasy" than this piece. Nevertheless - very convincing playing, thanks for sharing!

Hello Fnork,

Thanks for your nice words. Personally speaking, I actually believe that this f minor Fantasy IS THE FANTASY, and is one of the most perfect pieces Chopin had  ever written in the context of self expression, perfection of form, and its musical and emotional content. In my opinion while the Polonaise Fantasy is a fine piece, it is too imperfect in terms of form and as such its musical meaning gets somewhat dissipated. Perhaps the Polonaise Fantasy is closer to a genre of romantic Fantasy later picked up by Schumann, but for me it just loses that laconic and well defined forms of the fantasy of Baroque period--the qualities the f minor Fantasy has. But of course, those are very personal things and opinions...

Best, M  

[fnork]

Yes, I do understand that viewpoint. The problem I had when playing the polonaise-fantasy was that it's really just a polonaise for a couple of pages...and the fantasy as such also includes elements of nocturne, perhaps even mazurka, many things. A convincing performance of op 61 gets me way more extatic than any performance of op 49, however. There is a way to project the inner drama of op 61 which is far from obvious in many performances, while op 49 is much more clear-cut in this sense. And again, these are just very personal feelings...

[birba]

Really beautiful playing and musicianship.  I, too, prefer the polonaise fantasy.  But lately, I've really been enjoying re-listening to this fantasy.  The middle part is especially lovely.  You make sense of every note.  Even the final two chords FF, which are so obscure to me.

[pianovirus]

This is indeed a really wonderful performance of the Fantasy! Thanks for sharing! I absolutely love this great dramatic piece, with its serious solemn opening and the wonderful B major middle section.

When I studied the piece (as an amateur) I struggled quite a bit to have this safely memorized because the different sections (e.g. the "march" in quarters) all come with small differences when they reappear, my mind is not made for that...

I also struggled with the outward moving octaves (including jump) just before the march theme (I don't have the edition with me so can't give bar numbers, but it's around 5:00 and around 11:00 in your recording). It sounds so amazingly straightforward in your playing..well, I shouldn't talk about the woes of an amateur when listening to a terrific recording like this I guess...

Btw, in that "outward moving octaves" section all editions I've seen have some interesting difference between the first and second occurrence: in the 1st occurrence (in the key of Eb), all jumps in the bass go to the tonic Eb, whereas in the 2nd occurrence (now in the key of Ab), the jumps in the bass go to tonic Ab and dominant Eb. I think the latter (alternating between tonic and dominant) sounds much more convincing and one can hear many recordings doing a similar thing in the 1st occurrence (i.e. instead of always landing on Eb on the bass, one does Eb, Bb, Eb, Bb, in analogy to the second occurrence). If my ears are not mistaken (listening on computer speaker) you are also playing in this modified way. It seems this has become a performance tradition, but is not authentic Chopin, isn't it? It's not meant as criticism of course, just a question (I have also chosen this adaptation when I played and home-recorded this piece).

Sorry to talk about such a minor detail in such a wonderfully great performance, it's just something that randomly came to my mind...

[emill]

After listening to the "Wanderer Fantasy" and this, without doubt you are one excellent piano player!!
You are a PRO!!!!   

[stevet]

Wow, Marik, this is really magnificent. How old were you when you recorded this? I really enjoyed it. I assume you are a professional pianist, where can we hear more of your playing? YouTube? Anything published?
Thanks Steve

[hakki]

marik,

This was wonderful!!
Bravo!!

I really enjoyed your performance, thanks for sharing.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Magnificent playing. Marik, I have a distant memory that you made a CD of Rachmaninov - was it ever released? I'd certainly be interested in buying it if I could find it anywhere.

[awesom_o]

Fantastic playing of one of Chopin's most challenging works! Some of the passages in this piece are very awkward to render. I got the wonderful sense that nothing was too difficult, without anything ever sounding too easy.

Bravo!

[rachfan]

Hi marik, 

Although this was a student recording, it's still a marvelous rendition--one of the best I've heard.  I've always considered it to be one of Chopin's foremost masterpieces.  I practiced this piece for awhile, long enough to know its difficulties. In your playing you made them all sound easy. Thanks for sharing this very fine recordings from an earlier time.

David