
Chopin's Piano
In Search of the Instrument That Transformed Music
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Narrated by:
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Matthew Waterson
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By:
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Paul Kildea
In November 1838, Frederic Chopin, George Sand, and her two children sailed to Majorca to escape the Parisian winter. They settled in an abandoned monastery at Valldemossa in the mountains above Palma, where Chopin finished what would eventually be recognized as one of the great and revolutionary works of musical Romanticism: his 24 Preludes. There was scarcely a decent piano on the island, so Chopin worked on a small pianino made by a local craftsman, Juan Bauza.
Chopin's Piano traces the history of Chopin's 24 Preludes through the instruments on which they were played, the pianists who interpreted them, and the traditions they came to represent. Yet it begins and ends with the Majorcan pianino, which assumed an astonishing cultural potency during the Second World War as it became, for the Nazis, a symbol of the man and music they were determined to appropriate as their own.
After Chopin, the unexpected hero of Chopin's Piano is the great keyboard player Wanda Landowska, who rescued the pianino from Valldemossa in 1913 and who would later become one of the most influential artistic figures of the 20th century. Paul Kildea shows how her story resonates with Chopin's, simultaneously distilling part of the cultural and political history of mid-20th-century Europe and the US.
©2018 Paul Kildea (P)2018 HighBridge CompanyListeners also enjoyed...




















What is not realized by many is that Chopin’s work is written with early-stage pianos that made composition as much a work of mind as performance. Chopin is noted as a Romanticist composer considered among the most creative of all time. For that reason, the sound of Chopin’s work has changed with the times.
The thread of Kildea’s history is the Bauza piano’s location in the 21st century. It's whereabouts remains unknown. This piano was used by Chopin between 1838-39 when living with George Sand in Majorca. A striking point in Kildea’s story is that the Bauza piano is a crudely formed instrument carved from local softwood. Its innards are made of felt, pig iron, and copper but its cultural importance is extraordinary and its provenance unquestioned. It disappeared when confiscated by Nazi Germany when they ransacked Landowska’s home in Paris.
This flawed instrument is used to create compositions that are endlessly translated by pianoforte (soft and loud sound) from the use of harpsicords to modern Steinways. Landowska, and many pianists of the 19th through the 21st century are listed by Kildea, showing the brilliance and variety of Chopin’s compositions. Only a musical conductor turned author like Kildea could explain this to the public. “Chopin’s Piano” is a small opening to a big world.
MUSIC
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Overall the book is very much worth reading but sometimes Kildea seems to be unable to resist showing off his knowledge of insignificant details (the dozen of acronyms of Nazi bureaucracies involved in the looting in France for example).
A good editor could have made this a better book.
Zheed not Guide
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Great Book
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Mistitled
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Herky Jerky Narrator
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