"The Pianist" and Chopin Piano Concerto No 1 in E Minor Op 11

Photograph of Chopin by Bisson, c. 1849

The 2002 show "The Pianist" by director Roman Polanski is about the real life experience of a Polish/Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw in the second world war and how he managed to survive whilst other Jews around him perished at the hands of the Nazis. The first thing that strike me about the film was its opening and ending not that there isn't anything substantial about the show. In fact, the entire show had my eyes glued to the screen reminding me about the atrocities of war and ears to the nicely paired background music that accompanied it.

The opening and ending had Szpilman playing Chopin pieces under different circumstances. The opening was of him playing the piece at the Polish National Radio Station midway when Nazi bombs started littering the streets of Warsaw and how he held on and continued playing albeit at increasing tempo until the piano was destroyed. The ending shows a post war concert of him playing the same piece.

Chopin wrote two piano concertos in his short life but many romantic piano pieces. Perhaps the good dies young and the wicked suffers a longer sentence on planet Earth. This piano concerto was written after his second piano concerto but was published first and therefore had a lower opus number of 11 as opposed to 22 for the second piano concerto.

The piece has 3 movements. The first starts with a longish orchestra introduction that puts the pianist twiddling fingers or nervously waiting for his turn to show his skills. Have been to concerts and saw videos of this piece and has watched varied postures taken by the pianist during this anticipatory start some of which are worth a laugh or two. At the ripe moment, the pianist enters with a very loud first minor chord and thereafter to finger runs along the piano as it is very Chopin to be very notes centric rather than chord centric like Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky. Some sources have it that Chopin aptly named this movement Allegro maestoso not that it will be a walk in the park for the maestros but rather only maestros need attempt this walk.

The second movement is both romantic and fairly lyrical and clocks in at roughly half the length of the first movement which runs for about 20 minutes. It does seems to me that this second movement is more like a bridge to the finale with most of the glory of the piece being exhibited in the first movement.

The finale is a Rondo that thunders in with an orchestration starts just like the first movement before bringing the concerto to a grand finale.

If orchestration is your meat, best to look towards Beethoven, Mozart or even Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov but the beauty of this concerto likes in the striking piano parts that can almost stand on its own as Chopin is primarily a pianist at heart and it shows in this piece where his heart lies.

I spent the last few days going through my collection to hunt for various recordings that I have of this piece and was nicely surprised that I have 7 but I thought 8 as one is missing somewhere. Was able to do so as I have almost ripped all my classical CDs into iTunes and could search at light speed compared to going through the CDs on the rack. The 7 recordings are as follows:

1.Garrick Ohlsson with Kazimerz Kord conducting the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra recorded in 1997. Ohlsson is considered one of the living Chopin experts on two counts on having recorded the entire Chopin repot-ire and having won the Chopin Piano competition himself.

2.Olga Kern with Antoni Wit conducting the same Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra recorded in 2004. Olga was a gold medalist at the 11th van Cliburn paino competition and she has a slightly wider range of composers centering on more Russian composers like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.

3.Martha Argerich with Charles Dutoit conducting Montreal Symphonic Orchestra in 1998. Argerich name is on the top top list of pianist and her rendition of this piece blows my mind away.

4.Nikolai Demidenko with Heinrich Schiff conducting The Philharmonia recorded in 1993. I have seen Demidenko live and he is very balanced and technical in his ways as in this album.

5.Yund Li with Andrew Davis conducting The Philharmonia recorded in 2006. Yund Li is also a Chopin Piano medalist like Olga Kern.

6.Lang Lang with Zubin Mehta conducting Weiner Philharmoniker in 2008. Lang Lang is a very successful pianist from China having recorded extensively with many renown conductors and orchestras. Perhaps the loud and some egotistical ways gets filtered into his interpretation making it over exuberant. I just hope that attraction of money and fame does not tip him into the dark side of pop-ciscal as in giving classical music a pop interpretation in future not that he has done it now.

7.Polish pianist Alexis Weissenberg with Stanislaw Skrowaczeski conducting Orchestre de la Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire recorded in 1967.

After a couple of days of intense listening, my vote goes to Martha Argerich as she shows she is in control of the piece and yet lets the emotions deliver the musical message. On first hearing, I was about to strike it off my list due to the orchestra start which I felt was a tinge too fast but she and Dutoit does tango well as there is very little signs of struggle between the pianist and the conductor/orchestra.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter

Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye