The Death of Chopin - 175th Anniversary - The great Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko played at the Church of the Holy Cross, Warsaw

Watercolour and pencil drawing of Chopin on his death bed by Kwiatkowski. The painter was a witness to his last hours and death and drew a number of likenesses

The plinth in which the heart of Fryderyk Chopin has been laid 
Holy Cross Church, Warsaw

The grave of Fryderyk Chopin in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise Paris 

Today was the 175th anniversary of Chopin's death in Paris at two in the morning on 17 October 1849. This immortal work was performed at his funeral at his request. He always felt himself close to Mozart and admired his music above all excepting that of Bach. This single death took me on a journey towards the universality of this dark or light mystery.

I truly loved the performance on the solo instrument last night. Kholodenko avoided imitating orchestral instruments to the advantage of this alteration of sensibility.The emotional temperature and intimacy was heightened by the presence of his mother who had travelled the fraught distance from embattled Kyiv for the concert.

The work was faithfully transcribed for solo piano by Liszt's favorite pupil and Wagner's friend Karl Klindworth. Kholodenko played the Mozart Requiem on a superb 1858 Erard period instrument.

This extraordinary transcription takes you into the realms of the deepest conception of mortality (especially now, in real time, with our constant sight of daily horror, death and destruction in the Ukraine conflict and the entrails of the authentic hell of Gaza). Yes, the universality of death comes to us all but seems not to dissuade some from embracing it murderously with vengeance.

These realms of internal feeling are not touched in such an intimate manner by the massive orchestral/choir original score, that work of immense, tragic grandeur we are all familiar with, the masterpiece known as Mozart's Requiem. 

My imagination and human empathy were moved beyond calculation into the fluid landscape of human emotion and suffering in the face of death, taken there by the consoling universality of Mozart and Chopin, their sublime music, destiny and expression of grief.  

There were some extraordinary moments where expressive polyphony, cantabile phrasing and internal details not normally heard, came poignantly into the musical foreground. The Chopin mazurka (Op. 17 No.4 in A minor) that concluded the evening, one of the most moving and unusual of this genre, seemed so appropriate as a heartfelt lament in these distracted times.

Please watch this:

https://sklep.nifc.pl/en/produkt/77398-mozart-requiem-for-piano-solo