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March 2010 Blogs

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

by: reference

The movie The Pianist by Roman Polanski was amazing not only because of the way he tells the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish pianist during War World II, but also because of the music by Chopin played during this film. Of course I’ve heard Chopin many times but the way the Polish pianist Janusz Olejniczakm plays his music in this soundtrack is superb.

As we know, it is not easy to play Chopin. The pianist Krystian Zimerman, one of the renowned interpreters of Chopin says: “Chopin’s music is overwhelmingly expression; he never writes one note too many.” Another famous pianist, Ingrid Fliter says: “Chopin developed a new era in piano expression, he made the piano sing, and that’s one of the most important things when you start playing his music: to develop your own voice.”

But Chopin’s music is not only difficult to perform because of the sensitivity required by the pianist but also because he composed his music in a time when piano construction was different from today.Chopin’s favorite pianos were the ones made by a French company called Pleyel. Their sonority and tone were some of the reasons why he loved them so much. The way these instruments were designed also accommodated his small, delicate hands and they were capable of producing a strong sound, full of color and textures, even when Chopin didn’t have the physical strength due to a long battle against TB. “The most difficult pieces Chopin wrote are his mazurkas, they have almost a supernatural difficulty. This is the case when the modern instrument is next to impossible to use,” says the pianist Nikolai Demidenko.

Chopin, without a doubt, is one of the most brilliant pianists of all times, his music, revolutionary because of its musical structure, is full of powerful yet delicate sounds that make his compositions unique to this day.

The Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Poland has an amazing collection of all of Chopin’s works played on historical instruments and also a list of all his compositions that you can enjoy anytime.

The February 2010 issue of the magazine BBC Music has a long and interesting article about Chopin that I used for this blog. Feel free to come to the Faulk Central Library to enjoy it. If you prefer to read books about Chopin here are some examples:

If you want to check out some CD’s, consider the following ones:

Friday, March 19, 2010

Poetry's Rhythm

by: carolyn.rogers

Nicholas Baker’s novel about poetry, The Anthologist, with its misfit hero losing his girlfriend and jeopardizing his literary career because he is unable to write an anthology introduction — actually does justice to poetry. This book is both humorously entertaining and enlightening. After reading The Anthologist, you will want to explore one of the many poets that Baker mentions, such as W.S Merwin, who has a book listed below. Baker feels that as infants we learn to talk with rhyme and then are forever drawn to it - we begin with Dr. Seuss' Hop On Pop and then later love Coldplay's rhymes. The poet/narrator actually writes free verse, but he hopes rhyme makes a come back in poetry. His likes to write poems that are about one nice thing that happened to him that day. In contrast, some of the new poetry collections below are responses to tragic events.

New Poetry Books at APL

Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni is a companion of sorts to Giovanni's 1997 breakthrough, Love Poems. In this collection, the poet explores the public and private nature of both love an loss -- her mother's death as well as the 2006 massacre at Virginia Tech, where Giovanni teaches.

Endpoint and Other Poems is John Updike's final book of poems, who reportedly completed the manuscript just months before he died. His poem "Ex Basketball Player" has long been the most viewed poem on the Poetry Foundation site.

Fire to Fire: New and Selected is the 2008 National Book Award winner by Mark Doty. The collection spans Doty's work from 1987 to the present, including the landmark 1993 release, My Alexandria.

The Shadow of Sirius is a collection of luminous, often tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory and was called Merwin's "best in a decade".

Slamming Open the Door by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno is about her daughter's murder. In 2003, an ex-boyfriend of Leidy Bonanno strangled her to death with a telephone cord. The murder and its aftermath are the subject of this collection of poems. David Kirby, in the New York Times, said of the collection, "The note of sorrow dominates the book, but it isn't a one-note book."

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Ahhhhhhhhhh… coffee!!!

by: reference

Isn’t it wonderful to wake up in the morning to a fresh, warm and delicious cup of coffee? The only coffee I like is the kind I make at home. Sorry coffee stores! I haven’t found one with better coffee than my own. I guess this leaves me out of this new coffee culture in the US, where you spend half your day at a coffee shop: you meet there with your friends or colleagues, do research on your laptop, read your favorite book, meet for a book club, play on your phone or talk to somebody on your phone, and, in the middle of all that, drink coffee.

Others drink it on the go and buy all the mugs, shirts and little memorabilia their favorite coffee shop has on sale. Some people even map the coffee shops of their favorite franchise when they travel to other countries to make sure they will have their coffee supply for the day or their much loved flavor handy. There are also coffee fans that will pay whatever for a fabulous cup of coffee, like in the case of the exotic and super expensive kopi luwak coffee which can be priced around $100 a cup. (I am not particularly interested in this coffee not only for its price but because of its process, yikes!)

This coffee culture that started to spread through the United States during the 1970’s was inspired by the European coffeehouses that since the 18th century or earlier acted as social hubs where artists and intellectuals met for hours and developed new theories and ideas. Some examples are:

Café Procope in Paris, which opened its doors in 1686 and was visited by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Sand among others.

Café de Flore also in Paris, was founded in 1890. Some of its customers were Pablo Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Ernest Hemingway.

Goethe, Liszt and Wagner are only some of the names of a long list of personalities hosted at Caffé Greco established in 1760 in Italy.

Whether you like to brew your own coffee like me or you are part of the coffee culture, here are some titles related to this “nectar of the gods“ that might interest you:

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Rudolf Nureyev

by: reference

After talking about sea lions and jury duty, it’s time to talk a little about some ballet and one of its main exponents: Rudolf Nureyev.

Nureyev is famous not only because of his amazing skills as a performer but also because the way he impacted the masculine roles in classical dance. Because of his abilities, he had more choreography than any other male dancer would have but he also believed that ballet could not exist or progress without choreography. He not only dedicated tremendous effort to perfect his technique as a dancer but he also put a lot of emphasis on what his roles needed to communicate to the public. By having a more important role in the performance, he revolutionized masculine roles in classical dance; male dancers previously were basically considered as supporting elements of the principal female dancer.

Nowadays, it is common to see choreography with both classical and modern dance elements. Rudolf Nureyev was one of the first dancers who started crossing the line between different dancing styles. He actually made progress in the way this was seen by the experts in the dance world. He was hardly criticized at that time but his efforts succeeded, over time, in transforming and broadening the way dance was perceived by the performers and the public.

If you want to see or learn more about Rudolf Nureyev, check our catalog. You will find videos with him performing and books about his life. Here are some examples:

Nureyev: the life
The real Nureyev
Guiselle (DVD)
The Sleeping Beauty (DVD)

You can also check the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation website for lots of information about him and his art.

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