04/29/2024
Our comeback concert is next Saturday! As usual, Fine Art Music put a lot of thought into the design of the concert program. In this case, our two separate journeys merge into one:
KASIA
Ever since Chopin’s first teacher, Wojciech Żywny, gave him a book of Bach’s preludes and fugues, the Baroque master was a permanent fixture in Chopin’s life. Bach’s contrapuntal genius became, as it were, the genetic footprint of Chopin’s own musical language. Although Chopin compared Bach to an astronomer who 'discovers beautiful stars', while his own art was devoted to the universe of the human heart, we may find both approaches in their respective works.
Creating a program that interweaved Chopin’s Ballades with the music of Bach seemed only natural, as I came to realize that during the difficult Covid years, the music I turned to most often was by these two composers. Chopin’s universe of the heart – often aching and searching, sometimes traumatic and even tragic -- found a perfect counterpart in the soothing, balanced and beautiful simplicity of Bach’s musical “stars.” And since Chopin never intended that the four Ballades be performed as a cycle, Bach’s pieces also serve as tonal, motivic or expressive transitions between them – the bridges, if you will, along this musical journey.
KASIA will play three Bach transcriptions connecting with her performance of the four Ballades by Chopin.
ROLLIN
Chopin’s Impromptus, particularly the first three, have always felt to me to have a sense of traveling in them: whether riding along somewhere (as in the first one in A-flat); or walking contemplatively, day-dreaming of ideas (as in the second one in F # major); or digging even deeper into moving along towards something meaningful (as in the twining and twisting melodies of the third Impromptu in G-flat, a particular favorite of Chopin’s to play).
I wanted to frame Kasia’s interweaving of Bach’s poignant music with the epic journeys of Chopin’s rich Ballades by contributing a sort of “preludes and postlude” feeling of setting our sights on what will be an extraordinary traveling into Chopin’s world.
My last piece, Chopin’s inimitable “Funeral March” Sonata in B-flat minor, presents the composer in full form of writing music for life’s journey, containing perhaps its own final rebellion against death itself.
ROLLIN plays the three Impromptus and the Sonata #2 by Chopin.
