Classical Music in Poland and the Europe of Chopin - From the Reviewer's Notebook

This morning I try to write the account of a musical evening engraved indelibly on my heart and mind. Those of you who read my extensive notes know I can usually write quite rationally about music but this morning....I am still vibrating with what was presented to us... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Sonata C-dur KV 545 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Fantasia c-moll KV 475 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Sonata c-moll KV 457 Robert Schumann –  Arabeske  op. 18 Robert Schumann –  Fantazja  C-dur op. 17  How can words describe the overwhelming, profound experience of this great musical soul revealing itself.... All the Mozart was played far slower and at a more meditative tempo particularly K 457. Here was a thinking and deeply introspective, even philosophical Mozart. Ornamentation and inner details revealed as never before. The  C-minor Fantasia emerged as an improvisation of thought, searching for, touching upon harmonies and shifting emotions as an opaque sun is intermittent

Click on photographs to enlarge Dust Jacket Design Amelia Walker :  www.ameliadesign.net This post is for those of you who may have been reading my blog over the last six years. In many posts I described my travails in writing this latest book, a biography of Edward Cahill, the glamorous but now forgotten Australian concert pianist. A long journey but a rewarding one. The book was published by  Australian Scholarly Publishing  in November this year. Available at:  http://scholarly.info/book/516/ I managed to obtain three excellent reviews  by eminent musicians  of the rare private recordings of Liszt and Chopin that survived his peripatetic lifestyle. They generously made time from busy international schedules to listen via the internet to his recordings. This link will be printed in the book for readers to access. It will add a remarkable extra dimension and element of discovery to the biography of a now forgotten musician. His life was one that young pianists of today co

For the 10th International Paderewski Piano Competition  6th-20th  November 2016  Bydgoszcz, Poland Refer to this link: www.michael-moran.org/blog

Click on photographs to enlarge Dust Jacket Design Amelia Walker : www.ameliadesign.net This post is for those of you who may have been reading my blog over the last six years. In many posts I described my travails in writing this latest book, a biography of Edward Cahill, the glamorous but now forgotten Australian concert pianist. A long journey but a rewarding one. The book will be published by  Australian Scholarly Publishing in November this year. I managed to obtain three excellent reviews  by eminent musicians  of the rare private recordings of Liszt and Chopin that survived his peripatetic lifestyle. They generously made time from busy international schedules to listen via the internet to his recordings. This link will be printed in the book for readers to access. It will add a remarkable extra dimension and element of discovery to the biography of a now forgotten musician. His life was one that young pianists of today could only dream of living - a captivating socia

Click on photographs to enlarge NIEDENTHAL CHOPIN - From Martial Law to Fryderyk Chopin  Book Launch at the 101 Project Gallery of Modern Art Warsaw Poland On the closing evening of the Chopin i Jego Europa Festival   I noticed a melee in the foyer of the Filharmonia. Who did I see but the famous Polish photographer Chris Niedenthal signing copies of his 'fresh off the press' book NIEDENTHAL CHOPIN - The 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition. He had been contracted by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute to cover the 2015 competition in photographs.  This exciting moment was followed a couple of weeks later (September 8th) by the official book launch (cocktails, vodka, snacks) at the strikingly attractive, industrially deconstructed 101 Project Gallery of Modern Art in Central Warsaw - at 4 Nowogrodzka Street. There was also a recital of Chopin by the talented young pianists Krzysztof Markiewicz and Katarzyna Mróz.  Appropriately for a Niedenthal event the

                                            From Mozart to Bellini And so it is straight into this excellent festival after Duszniki Zdroj!  August in Poland is always dominated by outstanding performances of music in Warsaw with the additional time stress in writing an internet journal of my personal impressions. It is a great pity that you as a reader (if there are any out there) cannot refer to the substantial book that accompanies this festival which is one of the finest examples of serious programme notes and musicological introductions to both festival, concerts artists and music I have seen.  The Artistic Director of the Festival Mr. Stanislaw Leszczynski is to be heartily congratulated as ever for putting together such a fine collection of artists in what has now become a major European musical event. I would like to go to everything but as is the case with many summer music festivals in Europe (Saltzburg, Verbier, Bayreuth, Cheltenham, the Proms) sometimes a