Sunday, December 3, 2017

SPEECH IN HOUSTON ON CHOPIN FOR VIETNAMESE EDUCATOR-RETIREES (MY PARENTS' FRIENDS) -- Xmas season 2017

This private-event's speech is dedicated to my father, who introduced me -- the child in Vietnam -- to the piano, Chopin, Irish folk songs, Japanese songs, My Fair Lady and London's musical theater, and Louis Armstrong. It is also a tribute to Mrs. Do Thuc Khang, music teacher at Trung Vuong HIgh School, Saigon, who was also my piano teacher when I was 15.




Thật ra tôi không bao giờ chọn đề tài không liên quan hay không có xu hướng gợi nhớ đệ́n chính mình. Ngoài lý do âm nhạc, tôi chọn Chopin vì đất nước và cuộc đời ông cũng đẫm lệ như chúng ta, the Vietnamese in exile.
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WHO’S CHOPIN? LOVE, PATRIOTISM, AND THE PIANO

The psychology of geniuses:
--The “reincarnation” theory
--An existentialist view regarding geniuses: Kiep sau cua nguoi khac (death) chinh la kiep nay cua chung ta (hien huu) -- Hell is Other People?
____________________

1. From Warsaw, Poland to Paris, France:
The 1830 Poland Uprising – political insurrection

2. Child Prodigy
Father, mother and sisters – the boarding house
Internationalism: Europe
Compositions made for, inspired by, others

3. Friendship & Peers: Schumann, Listz, Mendelson, Berlioz, Delacroix, the Rothschild, the circle of Polish exiled and the literary Paris salon

4. Love: Maria Wodzińska & George Sand

Solange & her sculptor husband
--Admirer/supporter, near-death: Jane Stirling
“I am closer to grave than the nuptial bed”

5. Health

6. Work & Legacy:

Romantic era
Heritage: Bach, Schubert, Mozart, Clementi, Bellini, and Polish folk
Innovation: -- musical form and harmony; the “instrumental ballads”
--the piano keyboard (and the Cello)
--Poetic lyricism: piano legato and the singers
Compositions & performances: les salons de Paris
2 Concertos versus mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, études, impromptus, scherzos, preludes
and sonatas
Dances and the Piano: Polonaise, Mazurka, Waltz

7. Money & vocation: the teacher

8. Death:

Last composition: The Cello
Last public performance: The Polish refugees
Cast: face and left hand
Chopin’s heart






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M56RtC_cXxE

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