Playing Chopin His Way

Romantic Pianos and Performance Practice

a Westfield Center Conference
at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments

24–26 September 2010

Registration form available here

Silhouette of Fryderyk Chopin at the piano
F. Phillip, Lebrecht Music & Arts

2010 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Chopin, a composer whose style—highly original and designed for the intimate drawing rooms of Paris’s high society—became the bread and butter of twentieth-century virtuosos. Decades after Wanda Landowska’s famous remark to Casals, “continue to play Bach your way, and I’ll play him his way,” there have been few attempts to discover what playing Chopin “his way” might be like.

The conference will bring together:

• appropriate instruments, including: ca. 1830 Bösendorfer, 1842 Pleyel, ca. 1842 Broadwood, 1864 Steinway, ca. 1864 Bechstein, 1881 Erard
• scholars working on Chopin performance practice, including Jonathan Bellman (University of Northern Colorado), James Parakilas (Bates College), Sandra Rosenblum (author of Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music), Donald Manildi (University of Maryland)
• restorers knowledgeable about 19th-century piano building styles, including Anne Acker
• pianists open to questioning the assumptions of the Chopin Tradition

Sessions will be devoted to:

• examining and hearing the relevant instruments in the Yale Collection
• particular problems in Chopin performance (pedaling, articulation, fingering, rubato)
• close investigation of musical sources (comparison of manuscripts and first editions)

Featured Performer:
Other performers include David Breitman (Oberlin Conservatory) and Andrew Willis (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

Program

All events are at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, 15 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven CT, unless otherwise noted.