By Request

Jonathan Bellman

On this palindromic date we begin the news semester, which promises to be an eventful and pressure-filled one for me (trip to Poland, concerto, etc.).  Friend Lisa requests that I put the cover of my Chopin book up and announce its appearance.  So here it is:

 

 

And yes, the book has appeared (at the end of September, actually).  Seems like ancient history!  Friends tell me they like it; reviews will take much longer to appear (if they do), meanwhile I’m working on/getting worked on by other projects, needing to practice (as always), etc.  So this particular child is off in the world on its own, and I wish it great success, but no longer have any control over it have to psychologically let go, to a certain extent.  Now, my life will be about exoticism and Beethoven and Chopin’s relationship to programmatic piano fantasies by minor composers and my classes and…

Up and at ’em!

Comments

[Lisa Hirsch]

It's beautiful, and now I will go and order it!

[jonathan]

Make sure you know the piece--all six-plus minutes of it, and the First Ballade (less than nine) for good measure--really REALLY well before you start the book. It will make a lot more sense.

[Ralph Locke]

I'm reading it as time permits--really shouldn't be, at this point in the semester, but don't find I can set it aside for very long.

I'd like to add that part of what is wonderful about the book is the wonderful, thought-provoking discussions of major issues, such as:

--What did it mean in the early 19th c. for a piece to end in a different key than it began in? or

--What can we learn from the many now-forgotten programmatic pieces for piano? (For example, the wildly popular The Battle of Prague, which Arthur Loesser's book first informed the scholarly and pianistic world about, half a century ago, but JB explores more thoughtfully.)

I'm already recommending this book to students interested in other nineteenth-century composers and repertories.

[jonathan]

I'll be talking more about those programmatic pieces in Warsaw in a few weeks. May try to publish some. That is another *really* seriously underinvestigated genre. You know, a favorite article of mine urges that we familiarize ourselves with the amateur and consumer repertories contemporary with the historical artworks we study. It's called “Nineteenth-Century Music: Quantity, Quality, Qualities.” *Nineteenth-Century Music Review*, 2004 . . . now, who wrote it again? Ah, yes: one Ralph P. Locke!

[eba]

Dr Bellman, can you offer a recommendation on an artist (or artists) or version(s) of tihs piece that you particularly like for us non professionals to absorb before reading?

[jonathan]

I know of no interpretation that pleases me completely, but the older I get the less things sound the way I want them to sound in my head. Why not go with Ballade No. 2 Op. 38, played by Krystian Zimerman, available on iTunes? I don't like the way he treated the audience in LA, as I wrote in April 2009, but, I love his playing.

[eba]

Check. Order placed. Listening commencing.

[jonathan]

For the record: chapter three deals with the FIRST Ballade, and so it would help to know that one as well (sorry I forgot to say that). An unsolicited comment here: Chopin's four Ballades are as good as anything he ever wrote, which is saying a great deal--I put them at the very pinnacle of his art.

[Paul]

Not palindromic in Aust, where the date is given as 11/01/10.

I agree with your assessment of the ballades. I try not to listen to them too often in case I spoil them for myself.