A rare collection of historic grand pianos emits the authentic but forgotten sounds that transport the audience at a celebrated new music competition in Poland back to the times of Frederic Chopin.
Unlike their modern, glossy black, lacquered heirs, the instruments dating from the 19th century also boast rich brown hues of varnished wood.
The makes and models include some of the favorites of the prolific 19th-century Polish-French pianist and romantic composer, who died in France aged 39 in 1849.
photo: AFP
Now 30 pianists from around the globe, taking part in Poland’s first International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments, can pick and choose from among the pianos.
“They all date back to the 19th century and Chopin played on each of these models,” Artur Szklener, director of the Warsaw-based Fryderyk Chopin Institute said, referring to five grand pianos gracing the stage of the Warsaw Philharmonic among the special collection.
“His favorite was the Pleyel, but we also have Erard, Buchholtz and other period pianos,” he added, saying that they were borrowed from various collections, including his institute.
Unlike today’s standardized grand pianos, models created during a period of technical innovation during the 19th century vary widely in their construction and quality of sound, giving each instrument its own individual personality.
Depending on the model, the brand and year of manufacture, “it feels like you’re listening to a lot of different sounds, lots of different pianos,” said Claire Chevallier, a specialist in antique pianos and a jury member at the competition in Warsaw.
EXTREMELY DEMANDING
Chevallier said she wanted competitors to “be at one with what each instrument can offer” so they can express “very personal things, very adapted to the instrument and its quality of sound.
“At the same time, there should be a little bit of novelty in the music of Chopin that is heard so often,” she said, as the competition got under way. The use of the historic pianos makes the event that runs until tomorrow with a first prize of 15,000 euros (US $17,400) unlike any other in the world, according to the Chopin Institute. The competition is modeled on the venerable International Chopin Piano Competition, launched in Poland in 1927 and held every five years since 1955. Winning the prestigious event opens doors to international careers. But winning a competition with period pianos poses perhaps an even greater challenge to musicians accustomed to standardized modern instruments.
“These instruments are extremely demanding at the technical level, the level of listening and the level of managing the acoustics of the instrument, not to mention the acoustics of the room,” according to Chevallier.
“They are unforgiving. For example, they have very uneven musical scales, while on a modern piano the transition between scales goes totally unnoticed,” she said, referring to octaval changes being much less fluid on antique pianos for technical reasons.
EVERY ERA ITS OWN STYLE
Like his competitors, French pianist Benjamin d’Anfray, 30, is well aware of this.
“Every era has its own style of piano and its own technique, so we can’t play these instruments in the same way that we play a large concert Steinway. “We can’t be heavy-handed, we can’t use the pedal in the same way, we focus more on the keyboard,” he said, after his first recitals on the Buchholtz and Pleyel models most favored by Chopin.
“The Pleyels have exceptional singing qualities, that we’ve lost in our modern pianos.
“When we play them we can be sucked into another world, we can have sound sensations and worlds of sound that are completely different,” d’Anfray said.
Finding these revered pianos is by no means a simple task.
“Very old pianos in good condition are very rare but when you find one, it’s paradise,” d’Anfray remarked, pleased that there are 20 period pianos available for the pianists to explore at the competition both on stage and in rehearsal rooms. According to Chevallier, there is also an ecological and social note to the event.
“It’s really organic, I mean we’re recycling existing instruments and that could create an extraordinary market and a lot of work for many restorers and tuners.”
One of the biggest sore spots in Taiwan’s historical friendship with the US came in 1979 when US president Jimmy Carter broke off formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan’s Republic of China (ROC) government so that the US could establish relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Taiwan’s derecognition came purely at China’s insistence, and the US took the deal. Retired American diplomat John Tkacik, who for almost decade surrounding that schism, from 1974 to 1982, worked in embassies in Taipei and Beijing and at the Taiwan Desk in Washington DC, recently argued in the Taipei Times that “President Carter’s derecognition
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
You can tell a lot about a generation from the contents of their cool box: nowadays the barbecue ice bucket is likely to be filled with hard seltzers, non-alcoholic beers and fluorescent BuzzBallz — a particular favorite among Gen Z. Two decades ago, it was WKD, Bacardi Breezers and the odd Smirnoff Ice bobbing in a puddle of melted ice. And while nostalgia may have brought back some alcopops, the new wave of ready-to-drink (RTD) options look and taste noticeably different. It is not just the drinks that have changed, but drinking habits too, driven in part by more health-conscious consumers and
RSS