Chopin's Piano: In Search of the Instrument that Transformed Music

A fascinating fleshing-out of Chopin's biography and art (particularly the Preludes) via his milieu, minutiae and accoutrements. Its raison d' être is the minute detail available but deemed--of necessity, by volume--superfluous to the large-picture biographer like Alan Walker (whose new bio runs to 600 pages without it) and has much to say about his posthumous "life." Terrific on Chopin's piano of choice, the Pleyel. Worthwhile companion work, though it loses some steam after Chopin's death about a third of the way in. Interesting still on the history of the piano, on the Liszt vs. Chopin approach to playing Chopin, embodied later by Anton Rubinstein and Wanda Landowska (with whom Kildea seems quite enamored). Landowska eventually show more possesses the Bauza piano on which Chopin composed some Preludes in Majorca (which, post-Nazi looting, has gone missing). Retains interest, though it almost becomes two different books. show less

A biography of sorts for the Mallorcan piano created by Juan Bauza for Frederic Chopin during his & George Sand's brief stay in Majorca. The main significance of this instrument? It is where about half of Chopin's preludes were sketched and refined, before being finished on a Pleyel piano Chopin ordered from the mainland. The book is divided in two parts: the first, of Chopin's life starting from the Majorca trip and through his death (he left the Bauza in the monastery they stayed in) with thumbnails on the music scene of Paris and how the pianos then were transitioning to the sturdy heavy-hitters of Steinway & Sons' cast iron cross-stringed behemoths; and the second, the life of music scholar, Chopin fan, and gifted harpsichordist show more Wanda Landowska, also a Pole living in France who obtained the Bauza piano but had to leave it in her French apartment when fleeing the Nazis. Predictably, Nazi seizure makes tracing the instrument hard and still lost, though the paper trail does carry us into the mid-20th century. The seizure and restitution (still ongoing!) of art under the Nazis are yet another reminder of how they're a political group not to be admired or emulated... but I digress.

I would strongly encourage having YouTube and headphones at the ready while reading this, so you can listen to the Preludes when Kildea describes them, especially for where different pianists have wildly different interpretations of these improvisational sketches. show less

You will want to have an interest in Chopin, Wanda Landowska, or old pianos, before you open this book. If you specialize in any of those, then five stars maybe. Otherwise, proceed with caution. Landowska owned one of Chopin's pianos but was considered more of a Bach performer.