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I was so excited when this happened, but I wasn't on LiveJournal at the time. Mrs. Borgstrom gave me (for my birthday) a hardcover book containing all of Chopin's waltzes. It's green and old, copyrighted in the early 40's, and there are some papers stapled in the front with contain some things written about each waltz (some facts, and quotes of other people's opinions, and some lyrical descriptions of the pieces). I assumed Mrs. Borgstrom's teacher had written them, until she told me she didn't even know who'd done that. So I didn't get to ask if the peson had copied those paragraphs out, or if they were the person's own thoughts. The papers are brown with age, and smoother than the paper I normally use. They're also smaller than regular 8.5" x 11" sheets. I didn't take the exact measurements. She also found some books from the Scribner Radio Music Library's nine-volume set for voice and piano. 1-6 are for piano only, and 7-8 for voice and piano, with 9 being for "supplementary pieces." She brought Volume 1, "Classic and Romantic Compositions," and 6, "Standard and Modern Dance Music." linke with a picture: http://www.amazon.com/Scribner-Radio-Music-Library-Volumes/dp/B000FCH2IQShe has a lot of music, and sometimes brings some of hers for me to learn, or as gifts, except when she gives me new ones. Tags: sheet music
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Chopin was an incomparable teacher. The twenty francs paid by those who could afford his fee was not based on the cachet of his celebrity. He had the gift of imparting what he knew to his pupils in a way that both freed and inspired them. He taught by example: During lessons, the large Pleyel[1] was ceded to pupils while Chopin, seated beside them, played on a small upright "pianino." At the same time, he devoted rigorous and minute attention to each student's progress, particularly the proper position of the hands, on which he was implacable, helping students to master his own innovations in fingering and pedaling. On the subject of practice, he was still more radical. Taking a firm stand against the view that more was better, he warned that exhaustion was counterproductive; he advised a student who boasted of practicing for six hours to cut this time in half, and even then he urged that sessions at the piano alternate with intervals spent reading a book, looking at great paintings, or just taking a walk. The only point of technique was freedom, the liberation of interpretive faculties, not keyboard acrobatics for their own sake - the stock in trade of a Kalkbrenner or Liszt. Touch was the secret, he insisted, to "creating the most beautiful quality of sound"; Chopin's famous touch was described as a "stroking" movement which coaxed from certain final notes a magical afterlife, their tones lingering in the air.
Above the monotony of scales, or submission to the famous Czerny exercises, Chopin placed "an intense listening concentration" on the student's own playing to cultvate "refinement of the ear."[2]
He could be ill tempered, scourging pupils with icy contempt or explosive rage (the latter when he was feeling ill or confronted by lazy or careless work from students preparing for musical careers). He possessed, though, an intuitive understanding of what to give those young pianists who, once they had reached a certain level of virtuosity, were "stuck," unable tomove ahead with confidence in their own sense of the music: He urged them, "Be bolder, let yourself go more" - a reminder that along with Chopin's classical rigor, he was a romantic artist after all. from Chopin's Funeral by Benita Eisler 1. Camille Pleyel was the maker of the pianos Chopin preferred. 2. I wish people payed more fucking attention to this. Tags: new discoveries
Mood:  learning stuff
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