One of my life ambitions is to play it all the way through. I've gotten relatively bad at the first 30 seconds. I'm too old to become a virtuoso pianist at this point, but it's still a beautiful...
One of my life ambitions is to play it all the way through. I've gotten relatively bad at the first 30 seconds. I'm too old to become a virtuoso pianist at this point, but it's still a beautiful piece.
If you're going to listen to one virtuoso piano composer, make it Franz Liszt, a strict upgrade from the much more boring Chopin.
There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by, and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the fiddle from the hands of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale warbles his love-laden song."
If you're going to listen to one virtuoso piano composer, make it Franz Liszt, a strict upgrade from the much more boring Chopin.
You better be joking, nephew. Listen to Krystian Zimmerman play any of his 4 Ballades. Chopin took the nocturne format from John Field and turned them into works that ooze emotion and romanticism....
a strict upgrade from the much more boring Chopin.
I'll listen to Liszt when I want some virtuoustic showmanship. When I want a piece with emotional weight and the melancholic beauty of a constantly near-death man, I'll turn to Chopin.
I love that Hark, a vagrant. (I also love Chopin, but my sister and I have a long rivalry about which is better, and I'm afraid my Liszticism is so deeply entrenched that I cannot even let it go...
I love that Hark, a vagrant.
(I also love Chopin, but my sister and I have a long rivalry about which is better, and I'm afraid my Liszticism is so deeply entrenched that I cannot even let it go when I'm writing about it in a place she would never read)
We heard Rachel Cheung play this at the Cliburn preliminaries in Dallas last spring. Much fun.
One of my life ambitions is to play it all the way through. I've gotten relatively bad at the first 30 seconds. I'm too old to become a virtuoso pianist at this point, but it's still a beautiful piece.
If you're going to listen to one virtuoso piano composer, make it Franz Liszt, a strict upgrade from the much more boring Chopin.
You better be joking, nephew.
Listen to Krystian Zimmerman play any of his 4 Ballades. Chopin took the nocturne format from John Field and turned them into works that ooze emotion and romanticism. Read about the history behind his Prelude compositions, specifically George Sand's account of no. 15, "Raindrops". Liszt was in love with Chopin's Etudes. And his Mazurkas? OH MY GOD, I need to change my pants.
I'll listen to Liszt when I want some virtuoustic showmanship. When I want a piece with emotional weight and the melancholic beauty of a constantly near-death man, I'll turn to Chopin.
Lastly, you might appreciate this fantastic comic strip from Hark, a vagrant on the relationship between Liszt and Chopin.
I love that Hark, a vagrant.
(I also love Chopin, but my sister and I have a long rivalry about which is better, and I'm afraid my Liszticism is so deeply entrenched that I cannot even let it go when I'm writing about it in a place she would never read)