Year of Chopin...it's also the year of Schumann too

(Picture taken from ABC) Just about the time that I start feeling had more than enough about Chopin and this article came up from Limelight under collaboration with Gramophone magazine in the June 2010 issue.

One of the yang boy I am working with love Chopin's pieces.  Seeing someone who starts learning to appreciate the long progressive harmony, the changes in piano's register, the distinguish techniques of Chopin at such a yang age and, is very exciting.  Thanks to him I became more aware with the information I come across every now and then when it mentioned anything about Chopin. 

Whether agree or not with some of the views from the article, it is interesting to share the thoughts.  

p. 24
Christopher Elton is the head of keyboard studies at London's Royal Academy of Music, "Technically, one of the first things you have to learn is the equivalent of bel canto.  The Nocturnes are bel canto and provide a wonderful introduction to the cantabile style of playing.  How do you teach it?  There must be a lot of firmness in the finger and a lot of suppleness in the wrist and freedom in the upper arm.  So you play with support from the shoulders, but the actual contact with the keys is like a fantastic string-player with the left hand and the vow, treating the insturment more as a string-player would.  It mustn't sound arty-farty .....

.....the ear must make it horizontal, just like a singer.  As pianists we spend our lives making vertical movements which we somehow have to convert into horizontal."

p.26
.....If you play it in too feminine a way, " says Berezovsky, "it becomes sentimental, while it doesn't respond to a too masculine approach, in my opinion. .....

By all means, I enjoy playing Chopin, but where is Schumann?  It's his 200 years too!