The International Chopin Piano Competition is one of the oldest and most prestigious music competitions in the world. Held every five years in Warsaw, it is exclusively devoted to Chopin’s works for piano. The first competition was held in 1927 and last week was the final of the 17th one.

More than 450 applications were received, from which 160 pianists were selected to play in the preliminary rounds in April. The jury admitted 77 pianists to the main competition, which consisted of three rounds, followed by the final.

The whole event has been documented brilliantly on the website Chopin Competition 2015  The concerts have been uploaded almost immediately to YouTube, here is the complete list of all concerts , 28 videos, totaling more than 100 hours of recordings!

Many of the participants are really young. And surprisingly(?) many of them are of Asian descent. There are 13 participants from China, 12 from Japan, 8 from South Korea and a few from the United States and Canada who have their origins in Asia. Here are the five who made it to the final round.

Here they are again. From left to right  in the foreground Aimi, Kate, Eric and Yike with Seong Jin in the background between Eric and Yike. Seong Jin got the 1st prize, Kate the 3rd, Eric the 4th, Yike the 5th, while Aimi got a honorable mention. Yike is the youngest prizewinner ever at a Chopin competition (minimum age to participate is actually 17, which he will be only in December)

I have been watching many YouTube recordings these last few weeks. To see these promising youngsters play is added pleasure. Here are a few examples

Eric Lu

Yike Yang

Kate Liu

Aimi Kobayashi

Seong Jin Cho

In the final round, all ten participants had to play Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E minor Op. 11. Here is Yike Yang. I find it absolutely amazing that a 16 year old boy can play this beautiful concerto in such a brilliant and sensitive way.

This week is Holy Week for Western Christianity. On Good Friday Christians celebrate the Crucifixion of Jesus and on Easter Sunday his Resurrection.

Throughout the ages people have been inspired by these events to create works of art. The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (1498) is world famous.

For me the most impressive musical work of art about the last days of Jesus’ life has been written by Johan Sebastian Bach in 1727: the St Matthew passion.

When I was a school boy, my father took me for the first time to the Matthäus-Passion as it is called in German. It was performed in a church, and the atmosphere was religious. No applause for example after the concert! At that young age it was a long session, more than three hours. Still I was impressed.

When I moved to Amsterdam in 1961 for my studies, I became a regular concertgoer, mostly listening to the Matthäus Passion in the Concertgebouw. I think I must have attended it more than 40 times.

Although I am an atheist, Bach’s music still can move me to tears. For example this aria: Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben (Out of love my Savior is willing to die)

Now that I live most of the time in Malaysia, I can not always attend live performances of the Matthäus Passion, as the work has never been performed here as far as I know. But no problem, I have a few recordings on CD and we have now YouTube!

You can find there a large number of recordings. Here is my favourite: a recording by Dutch conductor and harpsichordist Ton Koopman in the St Joris church in Amersfoort, March 2005. Very clear and transparent, impressive soloists.

The orchestra is playing on authentic Baroque instruments, as is common practice these days. Also considerably faster than in the past. The (beautiful) recording in 1971 by Karl Richter takes 3 hours and 18 minutes, more than half an hour longer than Koopman’s recording.

One more recording deserves to be mentioned. In 1989 Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman’s teacher, recorded the Matthäus Passion, with the female parts (alto & soprano) sung by males (counter-tenors and boy-sopranos/altos) as was a common practice in Bach’s time.

Bach has written more Passions, but of those only the St John Passion has survived. More dramatic, shorter, for many years I did not pay much attention to it. But that has changed…:-)  Here is a recording by Ton Koopman . My favourite aria in this Passion is “Es ist volbracht”, written for alto. In Koopman’s recording it is sung by Andreas Scholl.

Listen to the performance by Panito Iconomou, boy alto in the Tölzer Boys Choir. Harnoncourt is the conductor. Try not tot get emotional…:-)

One closing remark.
It has always intrigued me that for Bach (a Lutheran Christian), it seems that the death of Jesus is the end of the story. There is no expectation of a resurrection. In the final chorus of the St Matthew, the choir starts with: “Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder” (“We sit down in tears“). They continue with “Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh!” (“Rest gently, gently rest!“)

Happy Easter!

Some time ago, a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video in which the countertenor Philippe Yaroussky sings arias by Vivaldi, Haendel, Porpora etc.

Porpora? I had never heard about him. So I searched the Internet and found a website, the Porpora Project, dedicated to this 18th century Italian composer of Baroque operas, oratoria, cantatas etc.

A composer, but also very famous in his time as a singing teacher. Especially of castrati, boys who were castrated before they reached puberty, so they kept their high (soprano) voices! Yes, no kidding! In the beginning of the 18th century that was a not uncommon practice, it is estimated that more than 4000 boys yearly underwent this “operation”. Some of them became famous singers, like Carestini, Senesino, and last not least: Farinelli. He was a student of Porpora

Here is the aria Alto Giove from Porpora’s opera Polifemo. This opera was first performed in 1735 in London, with Farinelli as singer.

Here the aria is beautifully sung by Philippe Jaroussky. Is he a castrato? Of course not, castration for musical reasons became illegal in the 19th century and the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, died in 1922. Here you can hear him in Ave Maria

Jaroussky is, like my favourite Andreas Scholl, a countertenor. His vocal chords have developed normally during puberty, “breaking” his voice. But all males can still sing high, using their “head voice” and not their “chest voice. Try it out for yourself! Technically it is called the falsetto register and countertenors are trained to use it.

About Farinelli a fascinating movie has been produced in 1994. The movie can be seen on YouTube. The movie is not historically accurate, but really worth viewing. Here two times Farinelli, a portrait and a screenshot. The singing in the movie was  done by a soprano, by the way!

There are nowadays a few singers who are “natural castrati”, for endocrinological reasons their vocal cords have not grown during puberty. One of them is Radu Marian. Here he sings Lascia Ch’io Pianga by Haendel.

Another example of a natural castrato (male soprano) is Michael Maniaci , who sings here Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate

As I wrote before, Andreas Scholl is my favourite countertenor, so this post would not be complete without a recording by him. A recording of one of the most beautiful arias I know, from the Nisi Dominus by Vivaldi.

Baroque operas often had a castrato as a lead singer. Nowadays these parts are sung by a countertenor. Or of course by a soprano. One (mezzo) soprano who does this very well is Cecilia Bartoli, another favourite of mine. Here is a collection of Castrati arias sung by her.

Many of the arias in this recording have been composed by Porpora. More about Cecilia Bartoli in a later blog.

At the moment I am working on a post about music, the title will be Countertenors and Castrati. As usual I do quite a lot of surfing on Google, Wikipedia and YouTube, to collect information. Surfing around I can get easily distracted. This time it happened again…:-) Here is an intermezzo about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

My distraction started with this YouTube recording of Mozart’s symphony nr 25 in g-minor. The Wiener Philharmoniker directed by Karl Bohm in 1978, when he was 84 year old.

When Mozart composed this symphony (in only two days), he was a teenager of 17 year old! Almost unbelievable! Even when you are not really a lover of Western classical music, you should at least listen to the opening bars of this symphony. Because it could well be that the theme is familiar to you. It is used in the award winning movie Amadeus, about the life of Mozart Here is a trailer, with the same music.

If you have not seen this movie, you don’t know what you miss. I have watched it many times and always get weepy eyes…:-). Short videos from the movie can be found on YouTube, like for example this clip, where Mozart comes home to find that his wife has left him. In the next scene his vulgar mother-in-law scolds him, and this scolding goes over in the famous Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s opera die Zauberflote. Pure magic.

You can find many recordings of this beautiful aria on YouTube. Here are two interpretations by the sopranos Diana Damrau and Lucia Popp

And here is another recording, this time by a boy soprano, 14 year old  Robin Scholtz:

Before puberty sets in, with its voice break, boys can sing soprano parts. Here is another recording, by Jacques Imbrailo , also 14 year old when this was recorded in 1993, he is now a well known baritone.

But this young man, Olmo Herdia Blanco is 16 years old. He sings the aria as a countertenor. He looks nervous, but he has a promising voice.

So we are almost back at the topic of my next blog, Countertenors and Castrati…:-)

To end this post in a lighter vein, here is a hilarious performance by a 7(!) year old Chinese boy. At the piano a not much older girl. Clear fight between the singer and the pianist, won convincingly by the girl…:-)

With a lady.

She is three months younger than I am and her name is Maria João Pires

It was love at first hearing.

I have never met her.

But I hope soon I will…:-)

In Amsterdam, next month.

She is Portuguese, now living in Brazil, and acclaimed as one of the greatest interpreters of Mozart. Listen to this YouTube where she is playing his last piano concerto, composed and performed by Mozart not long before he died, only 35 years old.

You can find a lot of YouTube clips with her, but many of them are only audio and it is such a pleasure to watch her play…:-). Here are a few audio recordings:

Schubert, 4 Impromptus, D935
Bach, Keyboard concerto, BWV1052
Mozart, Piano concerto KV466, my favourite
Beethoven, Piano concerto nr 3

And here are two video recordings, the 2nd Chopin concerto and Mozart’s D minor concerto

For the most fascinating video some background information is needed. In 1999 she was going to play Mozart with the Concertgebouw orchestra under Ricardo Chailly.
As a preparation for the evening performance, there was a public rehearsal. When Chailly started the first bar of the KV466 concerto, she was shocked, because she had prepared a different Mozart concerto!

Watch the video (skip the first 40 seconds), look at her face, how she almost panics. Then watch how Chailly gives (while conducting!) some peptalk: you can do it! And she can, she controls herself, makes the switch to this D minor concerto and starts playing. Absolutely amazing.

Until recently I only knew her by name, and that she was the teacher of two talented young Dutch pianists, Lucas and Arthur Jussen.

By chance I listened recently to one of her YouTube recordings and I fell in love with her playing. I checked her  tour dates and discovered that she will give a concert in Amsterdam, 26 September. But then I will be in Amsterdam myself!

So I booked a ticket for that concert for the extravagant price of 95 Euro’s. She will play the 3rd Beethoven piano concerto. Looking forward to it.

Last year an interesting interview with her was published: Maria João Pires: The Buddhist warrior who won. A remarkable lady

In 1741 Johann Sebastian Bach published a work for harpsichord, consisting of a theme and a set of 30 variations. Its modest title was Clavier Ubung (Keyboard Practice) and it may have had its first performance by an in those days famous harpsichord player, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. It is now known as the Goldberg Variations and generally considered one of Bach’s masterpieces.

Of course Bach has composed numerous masterpieces, so it is no wonder that this one went more or less unnoticed for a long time, until in 1955 the young Canadian pianist Glenn Gould recorded it for Columbia. It became a huge success and established Gould’s reputation.

Not surprisingly, you will find numerous recordings of the Goldberg Variations on YouTube. More surprising is the Open Goldberg Variations, a Kickstarter project based on what is called crowd funding. Aim of the project is to make the musical score, together with a first-class performance, available to the general public. There is even an app now for the iPad, Open Goldberg, which gives you both the musical score and the recording in an interactive way.

Here is the app on my iPad, showing the theme of the Variations. A colored bar follows the score, karaoke style, while it is played.

The theme (Aria) is played by the German-Japanese pianist Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka

She has recorded the complete Goldberg Variations for the above-mentioned project.

Here are a few of the YouTube recordings with some comments.

As Bach wrote this work originally for harpsichord, it is appropriate to start with this instrument, although it is not my personal favourite.
However, Gustav Leonhardt, a Dutch harpsichordist (1928-2012), plays it beautifully. In this YouTube, he plays variation 25

Many recordings for piano can be found on YouTube, for example by Murray Perahia and Andras Schiff , just to mention a few. And of course Glenn Gould (his 1955 recording)

Gould made another recording in 1981, one year before his (premature) death. This time not only sound but also video. Fascinating to see him play! And hear his humming, because that is Gould’s trademark. Some people hate it, others do not mind.

Some of the variations have been written by Bach for a harpsichord with two manuals (keyboards), where left and right hand can each use one keyboard. Not easy to play on a piano with only one keyboard. Watch the YouTube to see how Gould plays it. Fascinating!

You can find on YouTube also versions for other instruments. I found one for organ and a guitar version (theme and 1st variation). The most exotic one is the version for saxophone and contrabass , performed by the Japanese group of Yasuaki Shimizu . Five saxophones and four contrabass, you must see it to believe it. But still very much Bach!

Last but absolutely not least there is this beautiful transcription for string orchestra by Dmitry Sitkovetsky This Russian-born violinist and conductor also created a version for string trio, here recorded by (again) Japanese musicians…:-)

This post could also have been called Variations of Goldberg 🙂

Today, 29-5-2013, it is exactly 100 years ago that in Paris the world premiere took place of Le Sacre du Printemps (the Rite of Spring), a ballet written by the young Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. This first performance caused a scandal, the fashionable Parisian audience almost rioted and made it nearly impossible for the dancers to hear the music. Here is a report in the New York Times, a week later

Now the “Sacre” is widely considered as one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.

The ballet has as subtitle: “Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts“. The first part, named  L’Adoration de la Terre (Adoration of the Earth), is about the celebration of spring. In the second part, “Le Sacrifice (The Sacrifice)”, one girl is selected by fate as the one who will be sacrificed.  In a dramatic finale she dances herself to death.

To give an impression of this first performance, here is a  photo of the dancers in the 1913 premiere. The choreography was by the famous dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.

A few years ago an attempt has been made to recreate the original Nijinsky choreography. Even after hundred years it is easy to understand the shock this kind of dancing must have given to an audience used to classical ballet.

Many modern performances are nowadays available on YouTube, for example by Pierre Boulez (in a circus with horses!) and Maurice Bejart (very “naked”). Personally I find the performance by Pina Bausch with the Wuppertal Dance Theater the most impressive. I have been fortunate that I could attend both concerts she gave in Amsterdam, in 1982 and in 1995. The stage was covered with brown “earth” and the primitive, erotic vitality of the dancers was fascinating. Here you see them after the concert. The girl in red is the sacrifice.

Here is a video of the last part of the Sacre du Printemps in the choreography of Pina Bausch, where the selected girl dances herself to death. Note how the male dancer lies down after about two minutes on his back. Then the girl starts dancing ecstatically. Is the man waiting for the girl? Watch this short clip until the end to find out.

Sacre du Printemps, Pina Bausch, last part 

Although originally created as a musical ballet, nowadays the Sacre du Printemps is often performed without ballet. The most impressive orchestral performance is for me the one conducted by Jaap van Zweden in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. But you can find several more on YouTube.

What would life be without music….:-)?

The Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was only twenty-sex years old when  he died in 1736 from tuberculosis. In the year of his death he wrote a masterpiece, the Stabat Mater.

For those readers without a Christian background, the Stabat Mater is a sorrowful hymn, dating back to the 13th century about Maria, the mother of Jesus, during the crucifixion of her son. A mother watching her son dying is very emotional, also for non-Christians. It has been put to music by many composers, Vivaldi, Rossini, Dvorak, etc. If you are interested in the full text (Latin and English) of the Stabat Mater, click here . The singers are Emma Kirkby and James Bowman

Nowadays, with YouTube accepting video clips exceeding the ten minute limit, there is a wide choice of interpretations available. Here I will give a few links with some personal comments.

Originally Pergolesi composed the Stabat Mater for a male alto and a male soprano (a castrato!), customary in his days. Here is a performance by counter-tenor Rene Jacobs and boy-soprano Sebastian Hennig. Can you hear that actually two males are singing?

Beautiful performance, although the vocal parts are sometimes a bit loud, IMHO. Here is a traditional interpretation  by Dominique Labelle, soprano and Meg Bragle, mezzo-soprano.

Alto, mezzo-soprano, counter-tenor, pick your choice. This performance is in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, walking distance from my former domicile. Soloists here are soprano Johannette Zomer en counter-tenor Maarten Engeltjes

Here is an interesting performance coming from Armenia(!), where several of the solo arias are being sung by a choir. Impressive!

Finally, here is my favourite. Performed by Les Pages & les Chantres de la Chapelle, conducted by Olivier Schneebeli. Also here soloists and choir. I like the instrumentation very much.

After listening to these five different interpretations of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, you may be in the mood to listen to something different?

Here is Andreas Scholl in the Stabat Mater by Vivaldi. My favourite counter-tenor.

Take care that you view the YouTube clips one by one, or it will become a chaos..:-)