Fredrick+Chopin

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Frederic Chopin, an ardent and brilliant composer, was highly recognized not merely for his unparalleled, musical achievements, but for the complexity and subjectivity of them. Chopin composed some of the most challenging and sentimental music in the whole piano repertoire. Just at his very first performance, "Chopin's chromaticism," wrote Gerald Abraham, "marks a stage of the greatest importance in the evolution of the harmonic language...he was the first composer seriously to undermine the solid system of diatonic tonalism created by the Viennese classical masters and the contemporaries in other countries."

(http://www.ourchopin.com)

Chopin was masterly in his use of the pedal to obtain ranges of liveliness and sonority and composed pieces of such pure and exquisite originality.  The musical aptitude of Chopin became evident at an extremely young age, and was compared with the juvenescent genius of Mozart. Just at the age of 7, Frederic Chopin wrote two extraordinary polonaises (In G minor and in B flat major). The first was published in the engraving workshop of Father Cybulski, where Chopin became rapidly acknowledged as a virtuoso, especially in the Warsaw newspapers. Chopin, according to Arthur Hedley, "had the rare gift of a very personal melody, expressive of heart-felt emotion, and his music is penetrated by a poetic feeling that has an almost universal appeal.... Present-day evaluation places him among the immortals of music by reason of his insight into the secret places of the heart and because of his awareness of the magical new sonorities to be drawn from the piano.” And continuing on at age 7, he became the principal attraction at receptions performed in the aristocratic establishments of the capital.

(http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/chopin.php)

The legacy of Frederic Chopin consists almost completely of piano works. He qas capable of telling a story that contained such profundity and elegance in chromatic expression. Not merely acknowledged as a piano virtuoso, he was one who had a very distinguishing and recognizable style, focusing on a multitude of variations of dynamics and subtleness. Chopin was particularly apt in expressing personal heritage through his music, and achieved the reputation of a key figure in the popularizing of the polonaise, mazurka and other dance rhythms, which lead many later composers to closely study the music of their own countries. His mazurkas and polonaises let loose the surge of ethnic music, which has an impact even today, especially in Poland and France. This brilliant ethereality created, in the words of George Sand, "a revolution in the language of music and with only one instrument." Chopin's music is often volatile, and can move from the soothing melodies of the nocturnes to the dynamism of the ballades and polonaises, the elegance and ingenuity of his waltzes to the piercing and moving authenticity of his sonatas. Chopin lacked prolificacy, and of his orchestral compositions, only two piano concertos have held their place in the popular repertoire, but the consummate mélange of his keyboard successes and the exceptionally challenging technicalities that were set by his solo pieces, have given him a momentous place in the evolution of music.

(http://www.pianoparadise.com/chopin.html)





(http://www.pianoparadise.com/chopin.html) (http://www.ourchopin.com/biography.html) **Embedded technology includes a cover of one of Chopin's Nocturnes, played by myself. (Retrieved via Youtube):﻿ **

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