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Subject:
From:
Walter Meyer <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 24 Mar 2000 00:15:08 -0500
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Danny Tan wrote:

>...  I have had serious arguments with my girlfriend about Chopin Piano
>Concerto No. 1.  She is completely obsessed with the second movement
>which she said is "so beautiful".  To me, it seems just a long string
>of beautiful notes but do not "connect" emotionally.  I played her the
>2nd movements of Rach Piano 2, Beethoven Piano 5, Grieg's Piano Concerto,
>and "challenged" her that these are more worth listening.  It resulted
>in a disastrous quarrel that I surrender (cos' she won't talk to me), by
>promising to listen to the Chopin 20 times again.  Perhaps some Chopin die
>hards in the List can enlighten me how to listen to this concerto and like
>it.

Oh for the ability to identify passages in a score!

When I first heard the slow movement Lipatti recording of this concerto,
I was transfixed by a transitional passage towards the middle of the
movement, repeated a little later, in which the notes, embedded in extended
rests, seem to fall like drops of dew from a leaf.  Other pianists have
approximated that effect; none, IMO, have duplicated it.  Those short
episodes, if nothing else, make the entire concerto worth repeated
listening for me.

Walter Meyer

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