United States or Somalia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She made her Boston début as a pianist in 1883, at the age of sixteen, playing a Moscheles concerto and a Chopin rondo. Her success was instantaneous, and in the same season she gave several recitals with similar result. In the next year she played a Chopin concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a Mendelssohn work with the Thomas Orchestra.
All the young Chopins had a great fondness for literature and writing; they occasionally tried their hand at poetry, and the production of original one-act plays, written for birthday fêtes and family parties. The most important event of Frederic's fifteenth year was the publication of his first composition for piano, a Rondo in C minor.
She told Otto Jahn long years after, when she was sixty-eight years old, that Beethoven had first inscribed to her the Rondo, Op. 51, No. 2, but, in his fickle way, he transcribed it to the Countess Lichnowsky, and put her own name over the "Moonlight Sonata" instead.
Because of their labors, he was born freer of the classical traditions than they had been, and was able to make music plot more exactly the curves of his concepts, to submit the older forms, such as the rondo and the theme and variations, more perfectly to his purpose.
"Stay where you are! don't move an inch!" shouted Servadac; "I have just thought of the end of my rondo." And in a voice of inspiration, accompanying his words with dramatic gestures, Servadac began to declaim: "Listen, lady, to my vows O, consent to be my spouse; Constant ever I will be, Constant...." No closing lines were uttered.
Some days later, during a performance of La Fille du Regiment at Brighton, in the last act, while the orchestra was playing the prelude to the final rondo, "Jenny Lind said to me in a whisper, 'Listen well to this song, Roger, for these are the last notes of mine that you will hear in any theatre."
One of his admirers was the Duchess Ludvika Czetvertynska, whose majestic figure and aureole of hair reminded one of the pictures of Giorgione. Her friend, the Governor of Poland, the Grand Duke Konstantin, through her introduction accepted Chopin as one of his most welcome guests; he was musical, and greatly admired Chopin's music. Whenever his violent temper carried him away, the grand duchess would send secretly for Chopin, who would seat himself at the piano, and at the first notes the grand duke would appear in the drawing-room with his temper cured. Thus was Chopin another David to a latter-day Saul. Chopin was an intimate friend of the grand duke's son, Paul, whose instructor was a Count Moriolles. It was his daughter, the Comtesse Alexandra, in whose eyes Chopin found inspiration; he improvised never so beautifully as when she sat next to him at the piano. His adoration was no secret. He was often teased on account of the beautiful "Mariolka," as he called her. In his letters to his friends, we find many allusions that prove that the young comtesse loved him in turn. But both knew that this love was hopeless, and therefore Chopin's musical expressions of his dreams for her are melancholy. One remembrance of this attachment is the Rondo
"Monsieur, the Rue Galiache is a street which hath at one end the Rue de la Verrerie, and at the other the Rue de la Tixeranderie." "Well, yes! my good friend Jehan, my poor comrade, the Rue Galiache is good, very good. But in the name of heaven collect your wits. I must have a sou parisis, and the appointment is for seven o'clock." "Silence for the rondo, and attention to the refrain,
Among his works, besides piano pieces and songs, are: "A May Song," for women's chorus and piano; six pieces for violin and piano; "Harold," a ballad for male chorus, barytone solo, and orchestra; "Were It Not For Love," composed for male chorus; several sets of male choruses; a motet for mixed chorus a cappella; a berceuse for string orchestra, an introduction and rondo for violin and orchestra; and a "Marche Nuptiale," for grand orchestra.
A critic, writing in the Gazette Musicale of March 11, 1855, of a concert given by the Princess at which she played an andante with variations for piano and violoncello by Mozart, a rondo for piano and orchestra by Mendelssohn, and Chopin's F minor Concerto, being assisted by Alard as conductor, the violoncellist Franchomme, and the singers Madame Viardot and M. Fedor praised especially her rendering of the ADAGIO in Chopin's Concerto.
Word Of The Day