Chopin: Piano Favourites

Idil Biret

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Cat No: 8554046

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943404621

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: CHOPIN

Description
Chopin PianoFavouritesFryderyk Chopin was born in 1810 at Zelazowa Wola, near Warsaw. Hisfather Nicolas Chopin was French by birth but had moved to Poland to work as anaccounting clerk, later serving as tutor to the Laczynski family and thereafterto the family of Count Skarbek, one of whose poorer relatives he married. Hissubsequent career led him to the Warsaw Lyceum as a respected teacher ofFrench, and it was there that his only son, Fryderyk, godson of Count Skarbek,whose Christian name he took, passed his childhood.Chopin showed an early talent for music. He learned the piano from hismother and later with the eccentric Adalbert Zywny, a violinist of Bohemianorigin, and as fiercely Polish as Chopin's father. His later training in musicwas with Jozef Elsner, director of the Warsaw Conservatory, at first as aprivate pupil and then as a student of that institution.In the 1820s Chopin had already begun to win for himself a considerablelocal reputation, but Warsaw offered relatively limited opportunities. In 1830he set out for Vienna, a city where he had aroused interest on a visit in theprevious year and where he now hoped to make a more lasting impression. Thetime, however, was ill-suited to his purpose. Vienna was not short of pianists,and Thalberg, in particular, had out-played the rest of the field. During themonths he spent there Chopin attracted little attention, and resolved to moveto Paris.The greater part of Chopin's professional career was to be spent inFrance, and particularly in Paris, where he established himself as afashionable teacher and as a performer in the houses of the rich. His playingin the concert hall was of a style less likely to please than that of the moreflamboyant Liszt or than the technical virtuosity of Kalkbrenner or Thalberg.It was in the more refined ambience of the fashionable salon that his genius asa composer and as a performer, with its intimacy, elegance and delicacy ofnuance, found its place.Chopin could not but admire the ability of Liszt, while not sharing histaste in music. His own background had been severely classical, based on themusic of Bach, Mozart and Haydn, and by these standards Beethoven, the objectof adulation for Liszt and his circle, seemed on occasion uncouth, by comparisonwith the classical restraint of Mozart's pupil Hummel. At the same time he heldreservations about the Bohemian way of life that Liszt followed, although hehimself was to become involved in a liaison with the novelist George Sand(Aurore Dudevant), which lasted for some ten years, coming to an end two yearsbefore his death, while Liszt's more dramatic association with another marriedwoman, a less successful blue-stocking, the Comtesse d'Agoult, forced hiswithdrawal from Paris society. Both women were to take literary revenge ontheir paramours.Paris was to provide Chopin with a substantial enough income as ateacher, and there was a ready market for his compositions, however reluctanthe might be to commit them to paper. The co
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