Maja Trochimczyk's Open Salon Blog

Chopin's Revolutionary Etude in a California Jail

Thu, 5 Apr 2012 02:04:45 -0400

On March 26, 2012, I started a new adventure - teaching a class on art and ethics to inmates of Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, CA. I designed my four-part class as lessons in connecting feelings to thoughts, to teach virtues by using artwork, music, and poetry - a full range of artistic experiences. I called it EVA, or Ethics and Values in Art. The core framework is provided by the Four Cardinal Virtues - courage, justice, wisdom or prudence and moderation, or temperance. Known since antiquity and used to teach moral values and character through over two thousand years of Western history, the virtues have largely been forgotten. Their presence in the lives of artists and their artwork is very strong, from Rembrandt to Chopin... In planning the classes I associated each virtue with an emotion - grief, shame, joy and calm - and with a moral action - compassion, forgiveness, generosity and gratitude...

While designing the curriculum, I thought I would be teaching women, so I was quite surprised when I was assigned to a men's institution. At Pitchess, they have been given a chance to think through their decisions and change their lives. The group I'm working with has decided to do exactly that. They enrolled in and graduated from the MERIT-WISE program, a part of the Sheriff's Education-Based Incarceration project. In some ways, these men have the best chance for a successful life after completing their "time out" to rethink their life choices and orientation.

In order to get ready for the challenges ahead, they participate in various workshops and classes taught by volunteers like me. The majority have never been to an art museum or a classical music concert. My goal is to help them find their way to the Hollywood Bowl . . . That and not to return to jail. How does one do that?

The Cornerstone of the Soul

Fortitude:
Keep smiling. Grin and bear.

Prudence:
Choose wisely. Think and be there.

Temperance:
Don't take more than your share.

Justice:
Do what's right, what's fair.

The Four Cardinal Virtues:
The cornerstone of the soul.

Once you've mastered the steps,
New ones appear:

Faith: You are not alone . . .
Hope: And all shall be well . . .
Love: Where we are.

The framework I designed and teach right now is non-religious and, therefore, I skip the three Theological Virtues mentioned at the end of my poem. There is enough material for discussion, though, in the paintings of the Prodigal Son and Tobias by Rembrandt, Guernica by Picasso, City Whispers by Susan Dobay... There is enough inspiration in the Revolutionary Etude by Chopin and the Ode to Joy by Beethoven. If I put my own poetry in this context, am I acting grandiose and, as someone once called me (to my immense delight) - a megalomaniac? The point is to find yourself in your own words. I may "know" what's out there or what I've been taught, but I truly know only what I have experienced myself. I have to go deep inside, to the truth about me, to express a vision of the world that is both deeply personal and unique in my poetry.

Non Omnis Moriar

Only the best will remain.
Startled by beauty
I fly into the eye of goodness.

Only the best . . .
Wasted hours, words, signs,
Sounds and fake symbols.

Only:
Blue torrents of feeling
Crystallized in empty space
Twisted above our heads
Where light freezes
Into sculpted infinity

Oh,

If I could be there

Once

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If only... To open their eyes and ears to new worlds, I take my students in blue prison garb on a wild tour of the most astounding creations of the human mind. The very first piece of music they hear is the "Revolutionary Etude" - Op. 10 No. 12, a lightning strike of a piece, designed to shake up and awaken... There applause at the end is intense. The majority has never heard anything like it.

One man said, "thank you so much! This is my most favorite piece in all music, in all the world." He had asked for Chopin in the previous class and was beyond himself with delight when his unspoken wish was answered. I asked him to explain the piece to the class and put it in context. He knew enough to talk about Chopin's rage at the war, Poland being attacked by Russia, the composer's loneliness in Paris. He also thought about expressing anger and other powerful emotions in art as a positive way of responding to something that is overwhelming and destructive. From the feeling of despair at the unfairness of the world and Poland's tragic defeat to an unprecedented masterpiece.

I did not ask, why, if he was so educated and knew so much, was he there, sentenced to jail... Everyone makes mistakes. Some more serious than others. My presence among the inmates is to help them use their time as a turning point, find a new path for the future. I use classical and romantic masterpieces to show criminals that they can and should remake themselves and live a different life. How different? Are they going to learn to play the piano and become Chopin experts? Not really, but they can learn from his courage, his fortitude. He composed while spitting blood, sick with TB since the age of 16. Suffering all his mature life, he died prematurely, but left for us timeless treasures.

Etudes are, in essence, practice exercises; they are designed to learn certain skills, solve particular technical problems - arpeggios, chordal patterns, layering of melodies, the use of specific fingers. Practice makes perfect. After 10,000 hours of practicing a skill, we may become experts in it, as Malcolm Gladwell assures us. That is another lesson for offenders serving their sentences. Moral character takes time and effort to develop. Even the least educated inmates in the Los Angeles County jail may be inspired by the perfection of Chopin's art, transforming a humble exercise into a perfectly structured and intensely emotional artwork that has and will survive the ravages of time.

Versions (Pollini's is my favorite):

Svatoslav Richter: extremely fast and apparently transposed a halftone higher, the image does not go with the sound

Stanislaw Bunin: not technically perfect, but immensely popular, 2:33

Janusz Olejniczak: The phrase endings are somewhat rushed, but the drama is immense! 2:33

Maurizio Pollini: as dramatic and tender as it has to be, with great climaxes, and a score to follow, 2:49

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Photos from Big Tujunga Wash (c) 2012 by Maja Trochimczyk

Chopin's last known photograph - daguerreotype by Louis-Auguste Bisson, 1849.

On Kocyan Playing Chopin and Liszt

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 21:03:26 -0400

When I first saw Polish pianist Wojciech Kocyan on the concert stage about twenty years ago, I felt he looked just like Fryderyk Chopin: frail, with longish dark-blond hair, sensitive, and sophisticated. Here was a pianist with great emotional and musical intelligence, a refined technique, and subdued charm. He excelled in the Mazurkas, but was equally fascinating in the repertoire of Debussy, Ravel and Skryabin. I felt that his well-thought out large-scale musical structures and his attention to expressive and textural detail made him a "pianist's pianist" - like Chopin himself who was thriving in salons of the aristocracy but abhorred crass and vulgar behaviors of the general public.

Over the years, I have invited Kocyan several times to play for events I organized, and I was always delighted with the charm and virtuosity he shared with his listeners, helping us make new discoveries even in well-known pieces. One outstanding appearance was not at a concert at all: Kocyan agreed to play a number of Chopin's compositions in-between readings of poetry from the anthology Chopin with Cherries.

The Ruskin Art Club event of May 2010 has remained in the memory of everyone in attendance. The fifteen or so poets who were present inspired the pianist and the pianist inspired the poets. Magic was in the air. In the elegant, old-fashioned interior of the Ruskin Art Club (a Los Angeles cultural landmark with over 120 years of history), we found ourselves in a 19th century salon. The interplay of profound, nostalgic, and romantic music with the spoken word remains unforgettable.

On Friday, March 9, 2012, we had an opportunity to witness another unforgettable event centering on Mr. Kocyan. His Faculty Recital at Loyola Marymount University's Murphy Recital Hall was a feast of music-making that revealed to me a side of Kocyan's talent I did not know well. After listening to his monumental interpretations of Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt I have looked for an appropriate adjective to capture my experience. The old-fashioned expression "a Titan of the keyboard" came to my mind - with its 19th century extravagance and uncanny accuracy.

Kocyan's appearance on the stage is hardly "Titanic" - he seems frail and delicate, like Chopin, not Liszt (and now with short-cropped hair). Yet, this is how the music sounded to my ears - majestic, awe-inspiring, sublime. The program followed a trajectory from an early Beethoven Sonata (in E-flat Major, Op. 7), through Chopin's Barcarole Op. 60 and Concert Paraphrase of Verdi's Rigoletto by Liszt, to a culmination in the latter's composer's masterly Sonata in B minor. Kocyan found the right tone for the various movements of the "Grand Sonata" (one of the longest written by Beethoven, exceeded only by the "Hammerklavier"). His virtuosity and technical prowess were obvious from the start of the Allegro molto e con brio and quite prominent in the second Allegro. The delicacy of feeling and graceful phrasing in the final Rondo were exceeded only by the emotional depth and structural flow in the second movement, Largo, con gran espressione . His program notes identified this movement as one of the greatest in all music, "overwhelming in the simplicity of means and the depth of its message."

How would a simple gondolier's song, the Barcarolle, fit in this context? Surprise, surprise... in this most beloved Chopin's work, Kocyan revealed the "titanic" elements of Chopin's style that permeate many of his etudes, sonatas and scherzos. Under the pianist's fingers, the Barcarolle was neither sentimental, nor simplistic -he was able to structure the overall arch of dramatic flow of the music, reaching a climax of expressive passion. Having listened to a lot of nocturnes and mazurkas recenty (and just one astounding concerto, by Garrick Ohlsson with the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Krzysztof Kaspszyk in February 2012), I was thrilled by the raw emotional power coupled with Olympian clarity that Kocyan brought out from this piece.

As for Liszt, I never liked his "show-off" pieces of a three-ring-circus-master variety. The Rigoletto Concert Paraphrase certainly belongs among such magicians' tricks - pulling a rabbit out of a hat, or a complete orchestra out of a black-and-white keyboard. Kocyan's admirable technique was on display here - both in the velocity of his fingers, flying in a blur from end to end of the keyboard, and in the multiplicity of colors and textures he was able to create. The 19th century listeners had no recordings, no Ipods, no CDs, no music-in-the-cloud... After hearing an opera, they could experience it again only in transcription. Liszt's raised the bar of technical impossibility very high and shifted the attention away from the music or drama, towards the sheer mastery of the instrument.

I thought that this was the most difficult piece on the program, but Kocyan stated that the Sonata in B-minor was by far the most complicated and involved work that he had ever learned. And learn he did - the truly monumental (I'm running out of adjectives here) piece reaches the heights of elation when waves of sound wash over the whole concert all only to crush in the tragic darkness at the end. Kocyan deserves an award for the incomparable profundity of expression in rendering those dark chords more piercing and dramatic than any of the contrasts and upheavals that went on before it. Hopefully, the documentary recording will be made available. We are so lucky that music once played remains...

Born in Poland and a student of the legendary pedagogue Andrzej Jasinski (M.A. degree with the teacher of Krystian Zimerman) and the eminent John Perry at USC (DMA degree), Kocyan won his share of awards at piano competitions, including the Busoni, Fiotti, XI International Chopin Competition (special prize), and the Paderewski Piano Competition (first prize). He is notably at home in the recording studio and issued many CDs, on the Dux label.

In 2007, the Gramophone magazine chose his recording of Prokofiev, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff as one of 50 best classical recordings ever made. The Gramophone web site includes the following recommendation about Kocyan's Dux CD (no. 0389) with sonatas by Prokofiev and Skryabin, as well as Rachmaninoff's preludes:

"Small label and unknown pianist deliver world-class artistry and first-rate engineering. Wojciech Kocyan not only stands ground alongside Pollini, Ashkenazy and Richter, but he also offers original insights that totally serve the music. If you see this disc, grab it."

Kocyan currently serves as the Professor of Piano at Loyola Marymount University and Artistic Director for the Paderewski Music Society in Los Angeles. His students are lucky, indeed... and so are his listeners. By the way, I had a close look at Kocyan's miraculous hands when turning pages for him at the Ruskin Art Club. I did not take any pictures this time, so all the illustrations are from 2010.

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Photos from An Evening of Poetry and Music - Chopin with Cherries reading at the Ruskin Art Club, May 2010. Kocyan at the piano, with Maja Trochimczyk and choreographer Edward Hoffman.

Cover of Kocyan's CD by Dux (Poland).

Chopin's Valentines and His Letters

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:02:34 -0500

The association of Chopin's music with romance and love stories of all sorts is so profound that it is hard to imagine how mundane and trivial many of his own letters really were. He poured his heart in his music, and did not have to do it on the page. Instead, his letters are dedicated to ordinary matters, an equivalent of email or text messages of our times.

In April I posted here an article about Chopin's letters. Excerpts are included below, to celebrate Valentine's day with Chopin. For this, we need some Valentine Day's music, so let us start with some links:

Etude in E Major, Op. 10 No. 3 (Vladimir Ashkenazy)

Etude in E Major, Op. 10 No. 3(Eleni Traganas, with beautiful artwork)

Etude in E Major, Op. 10 No. 3 (Maurizio Pollini, with the score to read along)

Nicknamed "La Tristesse," the Etude was completed on August 25, 1832 and originally envisioned in a much faster tempo than played in these recordings. Chopin's first tempo marking was that of Vivace, later changed to Vivace ma non troppo. Only for its French publication in 1833 was the tempo of the outer sections dramatically slowed down to Lento ma non troppo. Newly arrived in Paris, Chopin was then at a threshold of an international career. He just signed agreements with French (Schlesinger), German and English publishers; was preparing his first major solo concert in Paris; and started giving lessons to music-loving aristocrats.

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The earliest Valentines that a child makes are for his/her parents. Chopin made colorful "laurki" greeting cards for his father and mother...

What did the boy say to his dad? The equivalent of "Happy birthday" and "I love you, Dad" - but in a more formal fashion, surprising for a six-year old. The lovely card was written for Nicholas Chopin's "Name-day" - a far more important celebration in Poland than that of a birthday. The Chopin family paid homage to their patriarch on the feast day of St. Nicholas, December 6 (1816):

Gdy Å›wiat Imienin uroczystoÅ›Ä‡ gÅ‚osi Twoich, mój Papo, wszak i mnie przynosi RadoÅ›Ä‡, z powodem uczuciów zÅ‚oÅ¼enia, ByÅ› Å¼yÅ‚ szczÄ™Å›liwie, nie znaÅ‚ przykrych ciosów, ByÄ‡ zawsze sprzyjaÅ‚ Bóg pomyÅ›lnych losów, Te Ci z pragnieniem ogÅ‚aszam Å¼yczenia. F. Chopin. Dnia 6 grudnia 1816

Whereas the world proclaims the celebration of your Name-day, my dear Papa, thus it is also a great joy of mine, occasioned by the expression of heartfelt feelings, to wish you a happy life, that does not know sorrow, nor adversity, that is always blessed by God with good fortune, so these are, longingly expressed, my wishes. F. Chopin. On the 6th day of December, 1816.

If written by a child, and not dictated by his mother, older sister, or caretaker, these wishes surprise with the maturity of vocabulary and complication of syntax. What was Chopin's last letter, then? And how many letters did he write? This remains an issue of contention.

Scholars Zofia Helman, Zbigniew Skowron, and Hanna Wróblewska-Straus have been working for more than two decades on a fully annotated critical edition of all currently known Chopin's letters. The national edition of Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina, issued by the University of Warsaw (available in Polish only) features not only detailed context of each letter, revised and defined placement in chronology, but also extensive notes about every single person mentioned in the letters or in any way associated with them. The hosts of summer vacations, the musicians and friends of musicians, the students and their families - all find their life-stories briefly noted. They were blessed and immortalized by their encounters with a genius whom the world does not want to forget. The one issue that makes it difficult to use along with older edition is letter numbering. The universally accepted numbering by Sydow has been changed, as new letters were inserted in the proper slots and those that were assigned to wrong dates or years, were moved to the appropriate point on the chronology.

The first volume, covering the years up to Chopin's departure from Poland and ending with the famous, tortured pages from his so-called Stuttgart Diary, written after Chopin heard about the end of the November Uprising (started in November 1830), with the fall of Warsaw to Russian troops on September 7, 1831. As the editors ascertained, the Stuttgart press published the first reports about these tragic events on September 16. The famous, dramatic and despairing monologue of an embittered exile was written partly before and partly after that date. Following von Sydow, it is customarily attributed to September 8, a day after the fall of Warsaw, but Helman and her team were able to argue for a more accurate date. After the outburst of despair, on September 18, 1831, Chopin left Stuttgart to continue his way on to Paris where he spent the rest of his life.

The long and dramatic text, permeated with interruptions and exclamations, written in a stream-of-consciousness narrative expresses the composer's distress at a turning point of his life. The format and accusatory tone recall the - written much-later - monologue from Adam Mickiewicz's romantic play, The Forefather's Eve Part III. Chopin really sounds like Konrad in his Grand Improvisation: "Oh God, You are there! You are there and take no revenge! Have You not had Your fill of Muscovite crimes – or – or else You are Yourself a Muscovite! And I sit here idle, and I set here with my hands bare, sometimes just groaning, grieving at the piano, in despair..."

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The "national edition" of the composer's final letters is not ready yet, though the second volume went to print. Therefore, for Chopin's final word in epistolography, I turned to the online edition of full text of his letters in Polish and the original languages found on the Fryderyk Chopin Information Centre website, managed by the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Poland. Alas, the list compiled by NIFC includes mistakes in dates in the summaries of letters - so much so that it appears that he was still writing letters to Auguste Franchomme while dying (listed on October 17, the actual date was September 17) and to Tytus Wojciechowski, that Chopin appears to have written three days after breathing his last (listed on October 20, but actually written on August 20).

The last words, scribbled on a piece of paper, were not a letter but a somber instruction to his attendants, family and friends: "When all this coughing will finally suffocate me, I beg you, please order my body to be opened, so that I will not be buried alive." (Comme cette toux m'étouffera je vous conjure de faire ouvrir mon corps pour je suis pas enterré vif). These are customarily dated "somewhat before October 17, 1849" - not by Chopin.

One of the final dates Chopin wrote in his own hand was that of August 1849, when he sent a note to Auguste Franchomme in Paris, asking for some good wine to be delievered at Chailot where the composer was spending his summer:

"My Dear. Send me some of your Bordeaux. I must drink wine today and I do not have any at home. But pack the bottle well and do not forget to mark it with your seal; oh, these messengers! I do not know to whom you will entrust this package. How suspicious have I become! Yours truly, C. (Mon Cher, Envoie-moi un peu de ton Bordeaux. Il faut que je boive aujourd'hui un peu de vin et je n'en ai d'aucune sorte. Mais enveloppe bien la bouteille et n'oublie pas d'y mettre ton cachet, car les porteurs!! Je ne sais à qui tu confieras cet envoi. Comme je suis devenu soupçonneux! Tout à toi C.

From filial devotion, to patriotic duty, to mundane concerns: Chopin's letters reveal a complicated, conflicted man whose idyllic childhood was followed by adult age tormented by loneliness and disease, yet transfigured in the most inspired music. Two studies of letters of his friend Julian Fontana and his lover George Sand reveal Chopin's character and habits to a greater extent and merit further exploration.

What about his love life? Unhappy in securing a marriage with either of the two noble-born ladies he was interested in (Konstancja Gladkowska and Maria Wodzinska), he spent seven years in a tumultuous relationship with novelist George Sand (Baroness Aurore Dudevant), that ended in bitterness and separation.

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As if Chopin's own letters were not enough, poets wrote new letters in his name. The anthology Chopin with Cherries includes three imaginary letters to and from Chopin by Tammy L. Tillotson. She tries to capture Chopin’s heartbreak in the 1830s, marked by a packet of letters, that he had tied with a ribbon and inscribed “moja bieda” (“my misery”).

Similarly, through two epistolary poems, Martin Willitts Jr. recreates the growing discord between Chopin and Sand after their romance fell apart and the sick pianist was close to death in 1847. Willitts was nominated for four Pushcart Awards. His recent poems appeared in Blue Fifth, Parting Gifts, Bent Pin, New Verse news, Storm at Galesburg and other stories (anthology), The Centrifugal Eye, Quiddity, Autumn Sky Poetry, Protest Poems, and others. His tenth chapbook was The Garden of French Horns (Pudding House Publications, 2008) and his second full length book of poetry is The Hummingbird (March Street Press, 2009). He also has won many national storytelling contests and was invited to Denmark to tell many of the Hans Christian Andersen stories.

"Discord" consists of two letters, one from Chopin to George Sand and one from her to her "beloved little corpse" that she lovingly nicknamed her former lover and patient. Through these invented letters, Willitts tells the story of a romance with a bitter end.

Discord

by Martin Willitts, Jr.

1. Chopin to George Sand, 1847

The delicate touch you felt on your neck
is the same as on a piano, with the same lyrical rush,
the music of leaves in the resolute winds.
It is the same idiomatic language of geese leaving.
My heart has the same feeling, restless, yearning.
When I play a rondo, no one can hear the silence after.
I leave these early movements behind
like I must leave you.
Some things are finished when they are finished.

I thought of returning to you.
I hesitated at your window.
I knew if you saw me with that melodic look you have,
it would enrapture me.
Our bodies would become counterpoints.
But it would be fragmentary motifs. Textural nuances
of what used to be.

Our love was illicit, some say.
I say, it was melodic, rhythmic, and full of music.
Our love was repetitions of a single note.

You criticized me for my primitive sense of form
when we would lie in bed, soaked in harmonic intonations.
You were right about me as well as everything else.
I cannot help being in the soundscape of textures,
in the lightness of sound, in the last moment leaving you.
For life is opening one door and descending unknown stairs.

Would the real Chopin ever write anything like it? We do not know. That is what poetic license is for. Another poet, Roxanne Hoffman, writes in Chopin's persona to Sand. Hoffman is an experienced and widely published poet. Her poems and stories appears on and off the net, most recently in Amaze: The Cinquain Journal, Danse Macabre, The Fib Review, Lucid Rhythms, MOBIUS The Poetry Magazine, Word Slaw and two anthologies: The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology By Gang Members And Their Affiliates (Soft Skull Press), and Love After 70 (Wising Up Press). She and her husband own the small press, POETS WEAR PRADA, www.reverbnation.com/pradapoet

Taking the cue from the composer’s notebooks, Hoffman entitles her letter-poem, “G” for George and signs it “F” for Frédéric.
G

by Roxanne Hoffman

G,

I tell my piano
the things I used to tell you,
pull back its fallboard
after propping up the lid,
stroke its sturdy trusses,
hear the strings vibrate in sympathy,
undampered escapement permits,
as my fingers depress and release its keys
to unlock unsaid thoughts,
the music I dream.
The solid back frame
understands the balanced tension
of romance:
the give and the take
of the player and the played,
the rhythm of two heartbeats, even at rest,
the somber melody
of disharmony.
We of equal temperament
speak at length,
practice our arpeggios and scales,
regulate our voices,
and play Mozart in your absence.

F.

Poet's Note: Lines 1 and 2 are a quotation attributed to Chopin. Toward the end of his life he had a falling out with his long time love George Sand, they separated, and she was absent from his funeral. A final request of Chopin’s was to have Mozart’s Requiem sung in his memory. After his death, among his possessions, a lock of her hair was found in a small envelope embroidered with their initials “G.F” tucked in the back of his diary.

A different Chopin emerges as the lyrical subject and protagonist in a poem by Elizabyth Hiscox, ostensibly narrated by "3784 Chopin" a small asteroid up in the sky:

Fryderyk Speaks to George of the Sky

by Elizabyth A. Hiscox

“3784 Chopin” – small asteroid in main belt

They’ve placed me in the vault:
fashioned me
near Jupiter and Mars;
fastened me to the side of old gods.

Power and War, my love,
a chaos created by moveable giants;
an uprising of stone circling itself
all orbital resonance and constant revolution.

Crowded together like notes
written in failing health.

I miss the way the earth broke
over itself each morning:
tender eyedawn of aurorean love.
Broke all of us.

Space, its extended nocturne
is a grand room, my love.
But, as with the past, there is no sound
– only music.

Poet's Note: Italicized line is from John Keat’s “Ode to Psyche.”
George Sand was the pseudonym for Chopin’s one-time lover, Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin.
Hiscox's venture into the night skies is an imaginative way of personalizing astronomy with a musical romance. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals – most recently The Fiddlehead and Hayden’s Ferry Review. She is the author of the chapbook Inventory from a One-Hour Room (2009) from Finishing Line Press. Former poet-in-residence at Durham University U.K., she currently serves as Program Coordinator for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

She "met" with Willitts and Hoffman in Chopin with Cherries, a book that provided a meeting space for poets and music lovers. Three of the epistolary poems cited here explored the fascinating love affair of Chopin and Sand, and this will be the subject of our next exploration on this forum.

Postcards from Paris and Chopin in Pasadena

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:02:47 -0500

Hilda Weiss and Wayne Lindberg of Poetry LA have recently visited Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, to record Featured Reader Just Kibbe and local poets. As one of the co-hosts of the reading, I was recorded as well.

I presented my Three Postcards from Paris which will appear in Quill and Parchment later this year. The postcards are about my visit to Paris on the occasion of the Maria Szymanowska Conference in October 2011. There's nothing about Chopin in my postcards, except that he lived in Paris and I walked some of the same streets. I had visited his grave at that time, but I did not write a poem about it.

Poetry L.A. posts videos on youTube and links on their website. Thanks a lot to Hilda and Wayne! This is their labor of love.

As for the fruits of my own labor, I had already rewritten the central poem and reorganized them, moving the first one to the end. Maybe it will not be moved, in the final version. I'm still figuring out the flow. The current one is fine, too - ending on a humorous note.

Maja - Three Postcards from Paris (link to video on YouTube)

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If you missed the previous presentations of one-act plays by HERSHEY FELDER, including MONSIEUR CHOPIN, you have a chance to catch up at the Pasadena Playhouse (39 S. El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101)

Pasadena Playhouse

Use code: HEB10 to receive 10% off tickets for any (or all) of these exciting productions

Hershey Felder Collection

Written and Performed by Hershey Felder

Directed by Joel Zwick

MONSIEUR CHOPIN

(With MONSIEUR CHOPIN, audiences are invited to a private piano lesson that actually took place in the opulent Parisian salon of the Polish composer.)

February 28 - March 7, 2012

Tuesday - Friday at 8:00PM

Saturday at 4:00PM & 8:00PM

Sunday at 2:00PM & 7:00PM

NOTE: Sunday, March 4, at 7 p.m. is the time for Modjeska Club members to get together and watch the play with a 30% discount.

Tickets:
Weekday
Orchestra - $54.00 - $100.00
Gallery - $44.00 - $64.00

Weekend
Orchestra - $59.00 - $100.00
Gallery - $49.00 - $69.00

MAESTRO: LEONARD BERNSTEIN

(In MAESTRO: LEONARD BERNSTEIN, Felder unfolds a story spanning the entire 20th century illustrating how Bernstein broke through every artistic ceiling possible to become the world's musical ambassador.)

March 10 - 18, 2012
Saturday, March 10 at 8:00PM
Tuesday - Friday at 8:00PM
Saturday – 4:00PM & 8:00PM
Sunday at 2:00PM & 7:00PM

LINCOLN - AN AMERICAN STORY (World Premiere)

(LINCOLN - AN AMERICAN STORY, the final night in Abraham Lincoln's life is told through the eyes of Dr. Charles Leale, the young medical student who was in attendance on the evening of that fateful performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and found himself at the center of American history as he unfolds his story of tending to Lincoln in his final hours. LINCOLN - AN AMERICAN STORY will be performed in front of a 45-piece symphony orchestra for this special engagement.)

March 29 - April 7, 2012
Tuesday - Friday at 8:00PM
Saturday at 4:00PM & 8:00PM
Sunday at 2:00PM

Buy tickets at: https://pasadenaplayhouse.secure.force.com/ticket#details_a0NG0000009YRoOMAW

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Chopin, Taffeta, and Dance

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:12:14 -0500

In America, December is the holiday season. Houses are decorated starting on December 1 and each weekend brings at least four party invitations, luncheons, dinners, and Christmas carols sing-alongs. By the second week of January all of it will be thrown out or packed away and the Christmas season will recede into the distance.

The calendar of celebrations looked somewhat different in Chopin's Paris: yes, there were gatherings in December, but the real party season started with the Christmas day, and went on and on, until the end of Carnaval in early February. The rustle of taffeta and richly colored velvets, the glimmer of candlelight, jewels sparkling like laughter... Kerri Buckley's poem "The Songs of Chopin: A Villanelee" published in Chopin with Cherries captures the mood of the seaso, while looking back at the romantic salons frequented by Chopin:

The Sounds of Chopin: A Villanelle
by Kerri Buckley

Hearts open like French doors as Chopin plays
At his birth, cherry blossoms were splashed with snow
Entering sound deeply changes ways one prays

His concertos have filled cafes, chateaus, chalets
Inspiring toasts with brandy, champagne, or Bordeaux
Hearts are open French doors when Chopin plays

Faces aglow, women wear taffeta, velvet, brocades
Join men in bow ties, gloves, a man gleams in a tuxedo
Slipping into glissandos changes how he deeply prays

Intoxicating Nocturnes brightly sets one’s soul ablaze
Chords slice air like fire batons atop the high crescendo
Hearts could burst like French doors if Chopin plays

Lovers’ lips shine like sugar, chocolate, cherry glacés
In hours most arrive, sweethearts steal away, dolce adagio
Entering melodies softly changes ways a beloved prays

Composers’ lives overflow in continuous, sacred praise
Onstage below glimmer of candelabras, maestros glow
Hearts glisten, French doors wide open as Chopin plays
Enter music to change all deep mystical ways one prays

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The rotational and repetitive character of the villanelle is well suited to the subject, filled with the turns of the waltz, and the alluring moods of the evening. Kerri gave us a wonderful holiday gift in this poem. The online editor programs do not allow extra spaces which separate phrases and words, so the layout of the poem is somewhat faulty. This should not detract the readers from its beauty.

Chopin was a creature of the aristocratic salon, elegant and refined. He liked to remember the simple music of Polish countryside, including folk dances and carols. He transformed the cited or stylized music to the universal level. The beloved lullaby carol, "Lulajze Jezuniu" appears in Chopin's Scherzo in B-minor, Op 20, written in 1831-32 and dedicated to his friend Thomas Albrecht. The sweet melody appears in the central, slow section of the Scherzo, marked Molto Piu Lento.

I selected several recordings of this lovely Christmas Carol and its version in the Scherzo to share with Chopin lovers this Christmas.

Chopin's Scherzo in B Minor, Op. 20 by Claudio Arrau (10'24''), the carol starts at 4'05''
Another, later and slower version of Chopin's Scherzo by Claudio Arrau (10:50), the carol-lullaby starts at 4'40''
Chopin's Scherzo in B Minor, Op. 20, by Jozef Hoffmann (abbreviated, 4'42''), the carol starts at 1'47'' - of historical interest
Chopin's Scherzo in B Minor, Op. 20, by Artur Rubinstein (8'17''), the carol starts at 3' - a historical recording
A traditional choral version of Lulajze Jezuniu by The Polish State Folk Song and Dance Ensemble Mazowsze. The singers wear traditional cosumes from the village Kocierzew, near Lowicz in the Mazovia region.
A jazz arrangement of the Chopin's version by a Polish vocal quartet, Novi Singers: Novi Singers sing Chopin
An orchestral arrangement of Lulajze Jezuniu by Tomasz Chmiel, with soprano Grazyna Brodzinska, Adama Szerszen, chorus PAT "Psalmodia" and Symphony Orchestra of M.Karlowicz Music School in Krakow: Krakowska Mloda Filharmonia conducted by Tomasz Chmiel
An extensive choral arrangement of Lulajze Jezuniu with chorus and orchestra by the Polish State Folk Song and Dance Ensemble Slask

Another blog about Chopin and his lullaby: austenetterespublica.wordpress.com
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For my Poetry Laurels blog, I created a couple of illustrations to my Christmas poems, one from this year and one from 2009. In early December, I was asked to read some poems at a party and realized that I have not written my annual Christmas poem yet. It came to me in the rain, when I could barely see the road ahead and the sky was heavy with darkness.

Did you know?

Some Christmases are rainy
Tears fall from overcast sky
On lonely crowds in hospitals
And prison yards

Sometimes Christmas is icy
Frozen under the pale moon
Changing faces into lifeless
Shadows at night

Some Christmases are scarlet
And green like fir garlands and hearts
Warmed by barszcz and hot chocolate,
Evenings by the fire

Sometimes Christmas is white
Snowflakes melt on my gloves
The thin wafer of opÅ‚atek we break
Shelters us in good wishes

Some Christmases are sparkly
With the tinsel of laughter
Giggling children unwrap gifts
Magic in the morning

My Christmas is golden
Like that first star of Wigilia,
Warm kisses with kompot and kutia
Blessings under the tree

I paired this poem with a photo I took this October at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. I liked the open window, looking out through the multitude of shapes and colors onto a simpler, luminous world.

The picture became the cover of my Christmas card. I also reprinted my last year's holiday poem, "Rules for Happy Holy Days" as a reminder about the importance of celebrating the holidays in the right way, by sharing and loving. This poem was written for my last year's Christmas wishes. These Rules are timeless.

Rules for Happy Holy Days

Don’t play Christmas carols
at the airport. Amidst the roar
of jet engines, they will spread
a blanket of loneliness
over the weary, huddled masses,
trying not to cry out for home.

Don’t put Christmas light on a poplar.
With branches swathed in white
galaxies, under yellow leaves, the tree
will become foreign, like the skeleton
of an electric fish, deep in the ocean.

Clean the windows from the ashes
of last year’s fires. Glue the wings
of a torn paper angel. Brighten
your home with the fresh scent
of pine needles and rosemary.

Take a break from chopping almonds
to brush the cheek of your beloved
with the back of your hand,
just once, gently. Smile and say:
“You look so nice, dear,
you look so nice.”

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NOTES:

Photographs and Christmas poems (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk
Christmas tree decorations by Eva DiAngelo, California