Zimerman at 19 plays Chopin Concerto no. 1

Just found on Youtube. Teenaged Z with Krakow University Orchestra under Jan Krenz, recorded in 1976. This is the slow movement - the rest is out there too. It's the most sublime Chopin I've ever heard, and I've heard quite a lot.

Walt Handelsman 'Worst Side Story'

Apropos de USA, enjoy this 'recession singalong' of a West Side Story remix from award-winning (and marvellously named) Walt Handelsman of Newsday...

Zimerman causes furore with political statements in Disney Hall

Massive fuss in LA after Krystian Zimerman used his recital debut at the Walt Disney Hall to criticise America's foreign policy and to declare that he will never play in the USA again.

About 30 or 40 people in the audience walked out, some shouting obscenities. “Yes,” he answered, “some people when they hear the word military start marching.”

Others remained but booed or yelled for him to shut up and play the piano. But many more cheered. Zimerman responded by saying that America has far finer things to export than the military, and he thanked those who support democracy.

There will always be those who tell musicians to shut up and play their music, including, sometimes, other musicians. Including even Opera Chic, who surprises me by doing so.

Also a lot of people don't have much clue about why America's effect on Poland should be an issue right now. I suggest reading up here (summary: Poland rushes into Iraq on America's exhortation when Germany said no way Jose) - and there's the small matter of America's plans to install a missile defence shield on Polish soil, which many Poles regard as effectively a military occupation and a potential provocation to Russia. Not to mention the economic fallout from America in Poland, for which please refer to Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine...

It sounds as if Krystian had plenty of support. If the world's leading musicians don't make a stand, then who will? I applaud his actions wholeheartedly, and only wish he'd done it a few years earlier.

If any Americans are wondering what they're missing by losing Krystian, just have a look at this review from Seattle which appeared the other day. Update: and this one from the LA concert itself.

Or simply watch this.

As for the various people who are saying "nobody cares what artists think" - that's not correct. They do. Otherwise there wouldn't be so much fuss.

And yes, I'd be pretty cross too if some idiot pulled my Steinway Model D to pieces because the glue smelled funny.

UPDATE, Tuesday 2.20pm: Responses to Zimerman in the press are starting to filter through, so I will update this post as and when, rather than adding extra posts. Here is the first: excellent piece by Tom Service, the Guardian's classical music blogger, saying Zimerman did The Right Thing.

Tuesday, 4pm: Editorial from The Los Angeles Times

Wednesday: Shirin Sadeghi in The Huffington Post: "In this age of vapid celebrity personalities who gurgle amidst a significant burgeoning of global political consciousness, too few of the high profile artists of our world offer anything in the way of honest political awareness. Krystian Zimerman is an exception to be admired. "

And an editorial in The Guardian (the one British newspaper whose editor is an accomplished pianist himself): "Poland has a heritage of patriotic and political pianists that stretches from Chopin himself through the nation's virtuoso post-first-world-war prime minister Jan Paderewski. To that tradition, now add Krystian Zimerman, an exceptional musician - and more."

UPDATE: Fellow piano glory Stephen Hough in the Telegraph blogs on moral decisions re concerts, from Sars to swine flu to this.

UPDATE weekend: my boss in the Independent, headed 'The pianist doth protest too much'. I foresee some discussions when next we meet.

One thing you won't hear in the UK this week

Vladimir Sofronitsky plays Scriabin's Etude in C sharp minor Op.42 No.5, recorded live in Moscow in 1960. You won't hear playing like this anywhere.

The joy of olbas pastilles

It's Sunday, I am still coughing fit to bust and I still feel c**p. Meanwhile every PR in town is on at me about Please Blog About Our Concert. All right already. Not that I'm behind on paid work after my flu, not that I feel comfortable about coughing my head off through the whole damn lot, but there is certainly plenty good stuff going on this week and if I were superhuman I would go to absolutely everything, but as things are I am just going to cheer on my friends and carry out my pre-concert talk engagement for as long as my olbas pastilles hold out.


TODAY
Wigmore Hall, 7.30pm: Piers Lane piano recital with Chopin Preludes.

Kings Place, 6.30pm: Philippe Graffin, Claire Desert and soprano Susanne Teufel with 19th-century violin music that shares inspiration with songs, eg Schubert Fantasie in C, Brahms G major sonata with Regenlied and Strauss's Morgen.

Barbican, 7.30pm: Lang Lang solo piano recital. No link, because it's sold out. I recommend either of the above events as a preferable alternative.

TOMORROW & ALL WEEK, 27 April to 2 May
Kings Place: Faure Festival with the Schubert Ensemble of London led by William Howard. As I have mentioned before, Faure is like a London bus: nothing for months, then masses all at once. And this really is masses.

TUESDAY
Wigmore Hall, 7.30pm: Philippe and Claire are back, this time with the Razumovsky Ensemble, programme to include works by Ravel, Saint-Saens and the Faure G minor Piano Quartet. See what I mean about the buses?

Royal Festival Hall, 7pm: grand final of the London International Piano Competition. I don't bet on music competitions, as you can imagine, but my money would be on Sasha Grynyuk.

(UPDATE, Monday afternoon: well, Grynyuk didn't make the final. Tom came back from rehearsal today reporting that the standard is astronomical this time; he's hugely impressed with the Latvian candidate, Andrejs Osokins, who's playing Liszt 1. Other 2 finalists are Alessandro Taverna (Italian with cheekbones, Chopin 1) and Behzod Abduraimov (about 18, from Uzbekistan, Prok 3).

WEDNESDAY
Royal Festival Hall, 7.30pm: Angela Hewitt plays the Goldberg Variations. I am interviewing her on stage before the show, 6.15pm.

THURSDAY
Cadogan Hall: Tasmin Little plays the rare and precious Karlowicz violin concerto for Polish dignitaries to launch a festival of Polish culture entitled POLSKA! Not a public event, though.

606 Club: superjazzer Gilad Atzmon is joined by special guest Nigel Kennedy in a London Concert for Medical Aid for Palestinians. Thanks to my pal LondonJazz for this one.

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester: Natalie Clein and Kathryn Stott give a cello & piano recital, including the world premiere of a new piece for solo cello that Natalie commissioned from Fyfe Dangerfield of The Guillemots.

Thanks for the halo, folks, and please allow me to go back to my steam bowl now.