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Showing posts from October, 2021

dead composers

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Dear friends of piano music, only a dead composer is a good composer. In any case, you get the impression when you see the programs of the concerts and recordings. Of course, the music of Chopin, Mozart and Bach, Schubert and Schumann is of immortal and timeless beauty and has all right to be omnipresent. The music, which many of us still find difficult to access and "modern", is mostly that of the early 20th century, so it is already around 100 years old. But what about the living composers? I've spotted some lately whose music isn't bulky and atonal, whose music touches the heart instead of tickling the ear and challenging the intellect, and I'm incredibly excited. This is an exhilarating and new experience for me, because until recently I, too, had very, very difficult time with the music of living composers. Two examples: during my studies, a composer friend of mine who was a bit older gave me a piece of his own and asked if I wanted to play it. He gave me 3...

Frédéric Chopin: "Raindrop" prelude

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Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonatine G Dur, K. H. Anhang 5 (1. Moderato)

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Schumann Kinderszenen Opus 15 Nr. 16: First Loss

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Edvard Grieg: The Pearl #shorts

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Mouse

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Dear friends of piano music, my little daughter is currently doing a lot of work in kindergarten with the mouse Frederick, invented in 1967 by Leo Lionni - you must have met him already. The story is quickly told: it is autumn, all the mice are busy collecting supplies for the winter, they are storing nuts and seeds, Frederick, on the other hand, seems to be sitting idly on a stone - he collects colors, sunbeams and words. Nobody understands this, but when food starts to run out in the spring, Frederick shares his supplies with the others - he tells them stories and poems that warm their hearts, inspire their imaginations and give them courage. I was reminded of this story yesterday when a well-known singer told on the radio that when she said she was a singer, she was asked very often: Interesting - and what do you do full-time? Yes, we musicians are also required to be a "homo oeconomicus" and to collect nuts and seeds instead of colors, sunbeams and words. There are such f...

Cyril Plante: Valse pour piano (opus 121 andante)

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Georg Friedrich Händel: Impertinence HWV 494 #shorts

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Robert Schumann: Albumblätter, Nr. 1

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Cornelius Gurlitt: Song without Words #shorts

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Friends

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Dear friends of piano music, the other day my daughter fell off the slide in kindergarten. That can happen from time to time and is usually not that bad, but she was in pain and was unhappy when I picked her up. A friend accompanied her to the gate, she had a hand on her arm and her face was full of concern and compassion. The little one was probably only three years old, and I found the scene incredibly touching. I couldn't get it out of my mind and I began to think about the phenomenon of friendship. Of course, many others before me have already done this, for example Cicero, who believes that a life without friendship is like a world without sun. Or, to put it even more drastically: "sine amicitia vitam esse nullam" - life is nothing without friendship. Certainly friends can have different status in a person's life, friends can turn out to be "wrong" friends who are not there in an emergency. There are friends who are tied to certain situations, with wh...

Achykam Firstenberg: Suite 8 (Allemande)

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Reinhold Moritzewitsch Glière: Serenade

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Stephen Heller: 32 Präludien No 2 #shorts

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Siebzehn Ländler für das Pianoforte componiert von Franz Schubert Nr. 12

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Dortmund

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Dear friends of piano music, Dortmund is really not a beautiful city. I can say that because I grew up there. At least almost, in a smaller village on the outskirts. But I was in Dortmund in the sports club, I had cello lessons there, and I also studied piano there for a while. The city can't help the fact that after the Second World War there was really a lot of space for so-called "post-war architecture", there are only a few reminiscent of old times who seem strangely lost there. Dortmund is a city in the Ruhr area, characterized by open-cast mining, hard, dirty work deep underground, that used to earn one's daily bread here. It is my home, which I love of course, even if it is ugly. When Igor Levit came to Germany with his family at the age of eight, they first lived in Dortmund, where he also went to school. I only recently read this by chance, for me personally it adds an incredible value to my city, I imagine whether we might have run into each other by chanc...

Frédéric Chopin: Valse

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Frédéric Chopin: Valse / Brown-Index 44 (1829)

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Aleksandr Grechaninov: Child´s Dream

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Wolfgang A. Mozart: Menuett F Dur (KV 2) #shorts

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Frédéric Chopin: Mazurka Opus 24 No 3

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Household resolution

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  Dear friends of piano music, "Household resolution" is a very sober and technical term, but behind it there is something very sad. Someone does not move his belongings to another place in order to continue his life there, but everything that he needed to live, that has accumulated in the course of his life and was of importance to him, with personal memories, is destroyed. There is no one who would want it to be remembered, to perhaps use it further. Of course, it is also necessary to sort out and dispose of it from time to time, simply for lack of space - even if life goes on. I recently realized how difficult this can be when I had to look through books, clothes, diaries, letters and other things that were still in my parents' house and for which I actually no longer have room. It is the material witnesses of my past that evoke buried memories and feelings, even if it only concerned childhood and adolescence, not a whole life. I always have to imagine what it must b...

Cyril Plante: Elégie russe. Hommage à Tchaïkovsky

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Cyril Plante: Elégie russe. Hommage à Tchaïkovsky (live)

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