Chopin with Cherries

Postcards from Paris and Monsieur Chopin in Pasadena

2012-02-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

Hilda Weiss and Wayne Lindberg of Poetry LA have recently visited Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, to record Featured Reader Just Kibbe and local poets. As one of the co-hosts of the reading, I was recorded as well.

I presented my Three Postcards from Paris which will appear in Quill and Parchment later this year. The postcards are about my visit to Paris on the occasion of the Maria Szymanowska Conference in October 2011. There's nothing about Chopin in my postcards, except that he lived in Paris and I walked some of the same streets. I had visited his grave at that time, but I did not write a poem about it.

Poetry L.A. posts videos on youTube and links on their website. Thanks a lot to Hilda and Wayne! This is their labor of love.

As for the fruits of my own labor, I had already rewritten the central poem and reorganized them, moving the first one to the end. Maybe it will not be moved, in the final version. I'm still figuring out the flow. The current one is fine, too - ending on a humorous note.

Maja - Three Postcards from Paris (link to video on YouTube)

___________________________________________

If you missed the previous presentations of one-act plays by HERSHEY FELDER, including MONSIEUR CHOPIN, you have a chance to catch up at the Pasadena Playhouse (39 S. El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101)

Pasadena Playhouse

Use code: HEB10 to receive 10% off tickets for any (or all) of these exciting productions

Hershey Felder Collection

Written and Performed by Hershey Felder

Directed by Joel Zwick

MONSIEUR CHOPIN

(With MONSIEUR CHOPIN, audiences are invited to a private piano lesson that actually took place in the opulent Parisian salon of the Polish composer.)

February 28 - March 7, 2012

Tuesday - Friday at 8:00PM

Saturday at 4:00PM & 8:00PM

Sunday at 2:00PM & 7:00PM

NOTE: Sunday, March 4, at 7 p.m. is the time for Modjeska Club members to get together and watch the play with a 30% discount.

Tickets:
Weekday
Orchestra - $54.00 - $100.00
Gallery - $44.00 - $64.00

Weekend
Orchestra - $59.00 - $100.00
Gallery - $49.00 - $69.00

MAESTRO: LEONARD BERNSTEIN

(In MAESTRO: LEONARD BERNSTEIN, Felder unfolds a story spanning the entire 20th century illustrating how Bernstein broke through every artistic ceiling possible to become the world's musical ambassador.)

March 10 - 18, 2012
Saturday, March 10 at 8:00PM
Tuesday - Friday at 8:00PM
Saturday – 4:00PM & 8:00PM
Sunday at 2:00PM & 7:00PM

LINCOLN - AN AMERICAN STORY (World Premiere)

(LINCOLN - AN AMERICAN STORY, the final night in Abraham Lincoln's life is told through the eyes of Dr. Charles Leale, the young medical student who was in attendance on the evening of that fateful performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and found himself at the center of American history as he unfolds his story of tending to Lincoln in his final hours. LINCOLN - AN AMERICAN STORY will be performed in front of a 45-piece symphony orchestra for this special engagement.)

March 29 - April 7, 2012
Tuesday - Friday at 8:00PM
Saturday at 4:00PM & 8:00PM
Sunday at 2:00PM

Buy tickets at: https://pasadenaplayhouse.secure.force.com/ticket#details_a0NG0000009YRoOMAW

________________________________________

Chopin and George Sand at Valldemosa in Marta Ptaszynska's Opera

2012-01-25T13:14:00.000-08:00

The life of Chopin has attracted many film-makers, but not many opera composers. Perhaps it is due to the musicality of this creative genius, the difficulty of composing "music about music," and the narrow confines of Chopin's personal life, which posed a challenge for a dramatic form. Marta Ptaszynska's inspired by the play by Janusz Krasny-Krasinski (The Lovers of the Valldemosa Monastery) wrote her own libretto for an opera, celebrating the Chopin Year in style.

The Lovers from the Cloister of Valldemosa was staged to a great critical acclaim at the Grand Theater in Łodź, Poland in 2010. Dorota Szwarcman, writing in Polityka, listed this opera among the most important cultural events of the year 2010. The opera consists of two acts depicting the ill-fated vacations on Majorca, that was marked by an outpouring of Chopin's creative talent, an significant worsening of his health, and rifts in his relationship with George Sand. It was the beginning of the end of their relationship. As Ptaszynska writes, "the story depicts the voyage and the stay of Chopin, George Sand and her two children, Solange and Maurice, in Majorca during the winter of 1838. Their expectations of wonderful vacations together were very high, but the trip quickly became disappointing and disastrous for Chopin and George Sand."

The entire libretto may be found on the website of the University of Chicago in PDF format: Ptaszynska's The Lovers from the Cloister of Valldemosa.

A review in a recent issue of the IAWM Journal (Fall 2011) published by the International Association of Women in Music emphasizes the dramatic talents of the composer, who was able to construct a well-designed story, with rich characters, strong conflicts, and a sense of tragedy that permeates Chopin's entire life of illness and premature death.

The composer's synopsis of the opera is reproduced below.

S Y N O P S I S O F T H E O P E R A

The opera opens with the arrival of Chopin, Sand, and her children in Palma, in the villa S’on Vent. Everyone is enchanted by this place, by its fantastic sunny weather, beautiful landscapes and architecture and, most of all, by the great hospitality of the native Majorcans including Señor Gomez, the owner of the villa S’on Vent. But, very soon, this enchanting environment changes into a cold, humid, and unpleasant place with extremely rainy weather and miserable living conditions. Chopin becomes seriously ill. The three Spanish doctors, instead of helping Chopin, spread the message that he has tuberculosis. At that time tuberculosis was considered as a very infectious and dangerous disease. Señor Gomez immediately gives his verdict and tells them to leave his villa. In total desperation, they all travel to the cloister at Valldemosa, a completely empty monastery with only two monks and a cook, Maria Antonia.

Act II takes place in the monastery Valldemosa and depicts Chopin’s great struggles to compose in these enormously difficult and miserable conditions on a completely out of tune and very old “junk” type piano. But, Pleyel did not forget about Chopin and sent him a “real” concert piano at Valldemosa. Chopin, continuously ill, is working very much even in this rainy and wintry weather, forgetting entirely about George and the world. But at this time, life in the cold, humid, and dark monastery takes its turn on Chopin. Sickly and entirely in despair, he decides to return to Paris in the middle of a tempestuous storm at sea.

The beautiful idyll turned to be a great disaster for Chopin and George Sand ...
Marta Ptaszynska
_________________________________

Chopin, Taffeta and Dance

2011-12-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

In America, December is the holiday season. Houses are decorated starting on December 1 and each weekend brings at least four party invitations, luncheons, dinners, and Christmas carols sing-alongs. By the second week of January all of it will be thrown out or packed away and the Christmas season will recede into the distance.

The calendar of celebrations looked somewhat different in Chopin's Paris: yes, there were gatherings in December, but the real party season started with the Christmas day, and went on and on, until the end of Carnaval in early February. The rustle of taffeta and richly colored velvets, the glimmer of candlelight, jewels sparkling like laughter... Kerri Buckley's poem "The Songs of Chopin: A Villanelee" published in Chopin with Cherries captures the mood of the seaso, while looking back at the romantic salons frequented by Chopin:

The Sounds of Chopin: A Villanelle
by Kerri Buckley

Hearts open like French doors as Chopin plays
At his birth, cherry blossoms were splashed with snow
Entering sound deeply changes ways one prays

His concertos have filled cafes, chateaus, chalets
Inspiring toasts with brandy, champagne, or Bordeaux
Hearts are open French doors when Chopin plays

Faces aglow, women wear taffeta, velvet, brocades
Join men in bow ties, gloves, a man gleams in a tuxedo
Slipping into glissandos changes how he deeply prays

Intoxicating Nocturnes brightly sets one’s soul ablaze
Chords slice air like fire batons atop the high crescendo
Hearts could burst like French doors if Chopin plays

Lovers’ lips shine like sugar, chocolate, cherry glacés
In hours most arrive, sweethearts steal away, dolce adagio
Entering melodies softly changes ways a beloved prays

Composers’ lives overflow in continuous, sacred praise
Onstage below glimmer of candelabras, maestros glow
Hearts glisten, French doors wide open as Chopin plays
Enter music to change all deep mystical ways one prays

____________________________________________

The rotational and repetitive character of the villanelle is well suited to the subject, filled with the turns of the waltz, and the alluring moods of the evening. Kerri gave us a wonderful holiday gift in this poem. The online editor programs do not allow extra spaces which separate phrases and words, so the layout of the poem is somewhat faulty. This should not detract the readers from its beauty.

Chopin was a creature of the aristocratic salon, elegant and refined. He liked to remember the simple music of Polish countryside, including folk dances and carols. He transformed the cited or stylized music to the universal level. The beloved lullaby carol, "Lulajze Jezuniu" appears in Chopin's Scherzo in B-minor, Op 20, written in 1831-32 and dedicated to his friend Thomas Albrecht. The sweet melody appears in the central, slow section of the Scherzo, marked Molto Piu Lento.

I selected several recordings of this lovely Christmas Carol and its version in the Scherzo to share with Chopin lovers this Christmas.

Chopin's Scherzo in B Minor, Op. 20 by Claudio Arrau (10'24''), the carol starts at 4'05''
Another, later and slower version of Chopin's Scherzo by Claudo Arrau (10:50), the carol-lullaby starts at 4'40''
Chopin's Scherzo in B Minor, Op. 20, by Jozef Hoffmann (abbreviated, 4'42''), the carol starts at 1'47'' - of historical interest
Chopin's Scherzo in B Minor, Op. 20, by Artur Rubinstein (8'17''), the carol starts at 3' - a historical recording
A traditional choral version of Lulajze Jezuniu by The Polish State Folk Song and Dance Ensemble Mazowsze. The singers wear traditional cosumes from the village Kocierzew, near Łowicz in the Mazovia region.
A jazz arrangement of the Chopin's version by a Polish vocal quartet, Novi Singers: Novi Singers sing Chopin
An orchestral arrangement of Lulajze Jezuniu by Tomasz Chmiel, with soprano Grażyna Brodzińska, Adama Szerszen, chorus PAT "Psalmodia" and Symphony Orchestra of M.Karłowicz Music School in Krakow: "Krakowska Młoda Filharmonia" conducted by Tomasz Chmiel
An extensive choral arrangement of Lulajze Jezuniu with chorus and orchestra by the Polish State Folk Song and Dance Ensemble, Slask
Another blog about Chopin and his lullaby: http://austenetterespublica.wordpress.com

____________________________

For my Poetry Laurels blog, I created a couple of illustrations to my Christmas poems, one from this year and one from 2009. In early December, I was asked to read some poems at a party and realized that I have not written my annual Christmas poem yet. It came to me in the rain, when I could barely see the road ahead and the sky was heavy with darkness.

Did you know?

Some Christmases are rainy
Tears fall from overcast sky
On lonely crowds in hospitals
And prison yards

Sometimes Christmas is icy
Frozen under the pale moon
Changing faces into lifeless
Shadows at night

Some Christmases are scarlet
And green like fir garlands and hearts
Warmed by barszcz and hot chocolate,
Evenings by the fire

Sometimes Christmas is white
Snowflakes melt on my gloves
The thin wafer of opłatek we break
Shelters us in good wishes

Some Christmases are sparkly
With the tinsel of laughter
Giggling children unwrap gifts
Magic in the morning

My Christmas is golden
Like that first star of Wigilia,
Warm kisses with kompot and kutia
Blessings under the tree

© 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

I paired this poem with a photo I took this October at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. I liked the open window, looking out through the multitude of shapes and colors onto a simpler, luminous world.

The picture became the cover of my Christmas card. I also reprinted my last year's holiday poem, "Rules for Happy Holy Days" as a reminder about the importance of celebrating the holidays in the right way, by sharing and loving. This poem was written for my last year's Christmas wishes. These Rules are timeless.

Rules for Happy Holy Days

Don’t play Christmas carols
at the airport. Amidst the roar
of jet engines, they will spread
a blanket of loneliness
over the weary, huddled masses,
trying not to cry out for home.

Don’t put Christmas light on a poplar.
With branches swathed in white
galaxies, under yellow leaves, the tree
will become foreign, like the skeleton
of an electric fish, deep in the ocean.

Clean the windows from the ashes
of last year’s fires. Glue the wings
of a torn paper angel. Brighten
your home with the fresh scent
of pine needles and rosemary.

Take a break from chopping almonds
to brush the cheek of your beloved
with the back of your hand,
just once, gently. Smile and say:
“You look so nice, dear,
you look so nice.”

© 2009 by Maja Trochimczyk

_____________________________________

NOTES:

Photographs and Christmas poems (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk
Christmas tree decorations by Eva DiAngelo, California

"The Shooting Star" - More on Maria Szymanowska

2011-11-26T22:14:00.001-08:00

Is there a day in this world of seven-billion people that at least a million do not listen to Chopin? I wonder if it were possible to measure that. His music is everywhere: in films, TV shows, ads, on the radio, heard from windows, in cars, and, last but not least, in concert halls. Poets in the Chopin with Cherries anthology brought this "ubiquity" of Chopin's music to our attention. In contrast, his predecessor, twenty year older pianist-composer Maria Szymanowska remains virtually unknown.

The First International Symposium dedicated to her life and work, held in Paris in October 2011, is over, but the project of the Maria Szymanowska Society continues. Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle is close to finishing her work on the CD with all of Szymanowska's songs, to be issued by Acte Prealable in Poland. The recordings are done and the booklet is being prepared.

For those who live in Paris or nearby, the Second Maria Szymanowska Salon will take place on December 14, 2011, exactly on her 222nd birthday. Her music will be associated with poetry and music by different authors, including composers Sophie Gail, Claude Debussy, Arthur Lourié, Dmitri Shostakovich, poets Louise Labé, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Adam Mickiewicz, Aleksandr Puszkin, and Marina Tsvetaeva.

The participants will include actress Monique Stalens, as well as Florence Launay, soprano, Elisabeth Zapolska, mezzo-soprano, Małgorzata Kluźniak-Celińska, piano and
Jean-Pierre Armengaud, piano. The concert is sponsored by the Maria Szymanowska Society, the Polish Literary-Historical Society in Paris and the government of the 4th Arrondissement in Paris. It will be held on Wednesday, 14 December 2011 at 7:30 p.m. at the Salle des Fêtes de la Mairie du 4e, at 2 place Baudoyer, 75004 Paris
Métro : Saint-Paul, Hôtel de Ville. For more information or to reserve your seat, contact the Szymanowska Society, societe.mariasz@laposte.net

Reports from the Szymanowska Symposium have appeared or are scheduled to appear in: La Lettre du Musicien (November issue), Muzyka21 and Ruch Muzyczny in Poland, News of Polonia and Polish Music Newsletter in the U.S. The proceedings of the conference will appear in the Annals of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Paris Station.

Here's a new version of my poem, "The Shooting Star," based on Szymanowska's life and first presented at the First Maria Szymanowska Salon on October 1, 2011 in Paris.

The Shooting Star

Reflections on Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831)

“He brought a horse to her bed, that’s why” – they said.
“No, he did not let her play. She left…”
“Not the only one, mind you.”
Rossini wrote: “Madam, I equally adore your modesty and talent.”
“At least she was a mother – that redeemed her.
Three children, two daughters, that sort of thing.”
“Did she love them? Was she doting?”
“Didn't she leave them for three years to play her music?”

“Did she travel alone?” Always with her sister –
Paris, London, Dresden, Marienbad.
Devastated by Ulrike’s youthful charms,
Goethe found comfort in Maria’s nocturnes,
Reconciliation in the kindness of her voice.
In her, he saw Das Ewig Weiblich.
For her, he wrote Die Aussöhnung.

A Roman Goddess? In the latest London fashions?
She was the Queen of Tones for Mickiewicz,
the Polish bard. A friend of Prince Vyazemsky.
The Court Pianist of the Tsarinas.
A Warsaw brewer’s daughter,
She rose to royal heights,
Shining with the brilliance of her art.

She was elegant, refined
In her pristine muslin gowns,
With sleek belts and jewels.
Her satin slippers dared to
Outlive her by two hundred years.
They sit on a shelf, laughing.
She’s gone. Her daughters,
orphaned in a fortnight of cholera,
Are gone, too. And their daughters’ daughters.

What remains of this dazzling life?
A gold bracelet with a round-cut sapphire?
A handful of songs, etudes and dances
Scattered along the way? Sweet melodies
Frozen in the air above vast plains
of snow drifts and tundra?
The sparks of a shooting star
Falling across our dark winter sky?

___________________________________________

Illustrations: 1) Chopin plays at a salon, vintage postcard, Maja Trochimczyk Collection; 2-4) photographs from the exhibition on Maria Szymanowska held at the Polish Library in Paris in October 2011, curated by Anna Czarnocka. Portraits of Szymanowska based on a painting by Jozef Oleszkiewicz, and a panting by Waclaw Wankowicz.

On Szymanowska and Chopin in Paris

2011-11-12T20:58:00.000-08:00

I went to Paris in September, came back changed in October. An astounding city, full of history and charm. My purpose was to talk about Maria Szymanowska and visit and photograph places associated with Chopin. I found his grave and put a poem from "Chopin with Cherries" there. I went to the church where his Funeral Mass was held, with Mozart's Requiem (St. Madeleine) and I wondered about his empty chair and white evening gloves at the Bibliotheque Polonaise near the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The purpose of my trip was to give a paper about Maria Szymanowska, a Polish virtuoso composer-pianist, who preceded and inspired Chopin with her brilliant style, etudes, mazurkas and songs... Szymanowska (1789-1831) died young, too; Chopin was 39 when tuberculosis finally defeated him. Szymanowska - at 42 - went quickly, of cholera in St. Petersburg.

At the conference, I presented the first version of my poem about Szymanowska. After making some changes, I read it for the workshop of Westside Women Writers group and I received comments from Millicent Borges Accardi, Kathi Stafford, Georgia Jones-Davis and Sonya Sabanac. Here's the third version of this work in progress. I want to capture her life as I see it - she was dazzling, inspiring, enchanting, and disappeared all too quickly.

Who was Maria Szymanowska? We know her name as a predecessor of Chopin; he was studying in Warsaw when she performed there in 1827. Born in 1789 in Warszaw, Szymanowska’s came from the family of Wołowskis, but used her husband’s name professionally, during her European concert tours, even though she divorced him in 1820s. Her career as a virtuoso pianist was initiated with a short travel to Paris in 1810, and continued afterwards. Szymanowska was one of the most important Polish virtuosi of the first half of the 19th century, and also a composer who wrote in the delightful, stile brilliant of her contemporaries, such as Kalkbrenner or Hummel and early Chopin of the Piano Concerti. Her music was divided into two streams: virtuoso pieces for concert stages (etudes, polonaises, and variations), and music for home use, such as songs (including several Historical Chants to texts by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz) and salon dances. She wrote about 120 pieces and helped establish the genres of romantic piano music, such as mazurkas, polonaises, nocturnes, and etudes.

As the first female pianist who supported herself and her family with her concerts and lessons, she performed several times in London and Paris; she also toured Germany, Italy, and Russia before settling in 1827 in St. Petersburg. Since l822, she was recognized as the Court Pianist of the Tsarinas (the Tsar’s wife and mother) and she decided to settle in the capital of the empire, because it offered the best prospects for revenue from teaching the children of the aristocracy. In mid-1820s she managed to enchant Goethe, who wrote for her a poem entitled "An Madame Marie Szymanowska (Aussohnung). Known under the short title (which means "Reconciliation") it was included in the Trilogie der Leidenshaft, inspired by the poet's tragic infatuation with a young girl, Ulrike. Szymanowska's music, her empathy and beauty helped the aging poet return to his senses.

In the last years of her life, Szymanowska maintained a well-known literary and musical salon, which grouped aristocratic, literary and artistic figures – crème de crème of the Petersburg society. Her salon was also open to Poles living in St. Petersburg and was for them, a second home, an oasis of Polish language and culture. Performances in the salon included music-and-poetry evenings featuring the genre of the “melodrama” – where the poems are recited or improvised to musical accompaniment. Szymanowska also staged many “tableaux vivant” – which interpreted scenes from Polish and Russian literature. Her guests included Aleksander Puszkin and Adam Mickiewicz, whose inspired improvisations to Szymanowska’s accompaniment were the main attraction for numerous evenings. She also composed songs to Mickiewicz’s poetry, and he wrote a poem for her, “the Queen of Tones” (Their correspondence is discussed in a study by Grzegorz Szelwach published by PIASA in 2006).

To this poetic background, we should add the fact that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe considered Szymanowska the living embodiment of Das Ewig Weiblich, or the “eternal feminine” and he dedicated to her one of his last and most important poems, Aussöhnung. You can find out more about Szymanowska from a book by Slawomir Dobrzanski illustrated with his re-cording of selected pieces by this forgotten composer (published by the Polish Music Center in Los Angeles in 2007; I contributed a chapter on Szymanowska’s songs) and from a new, annotated bibliography by Anna Kijas (2010) that documents the discovery of important, hitherto unknown source materials, in addition to reviewing all available publications about Szymanowska.

The neglect of Szymanowska as a subject of serious study is coming to an end. Initiated, planned and organized by singer Elżbieta Zapolska, the President of the Maria Szymanowska Society the First International Maria Szymanowska Conference took place in Paris on September 30 and October 1, 2011. The conference proceedings will be published in the annual journal of the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Scientific Station in Paris, one of the co-sponsors of this important event. The Minister of Culture and National Heritage bestowed on this conference its honorary patronage and the sponsors and co-organizers included all major Polish institutions in Paris: The Historical-Literary Society/Polish Library, that organized a fascinating exhibition about Szymanowska and her times, as well as hosted the conference during its first day; the Polish Institute, that took care of the participants; and the Scientific Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the organizer of the second day of the conference. That day ended with a recreation of a Maria Szymanowska salon, featuring music and poetry performed by the participants in the symposium. Polish partners of this international project included also the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw, Poland, where the majority of Szymanowska sources is found; she was a friend of the poet who later married her daughter.

The symposium is one of the main elements in Elzbieta Zapolska’s project, Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), A Woman of Europe, which will also include the release of a CD with all of Szymanowska’s songs (Acte Prealable). Of the invited scholars Slawomir Dobrzanski did not come because he was, at the same time, recording his CD with complete piano and chamber music by Szymanowska, that will be released in the spring of 2012. The impressive group of scholars from around the world gathered in Paris included representatives of Poland, France, USA, Russia and Sweden (muzeumliteratury.pl/paryz-pierwsze-miedzynarodowe-seminarium-maria-szymanowska-1789-1831-i-jej-czasy/).

The first day of the symposium took place in the Polish Library on an island near the Notre Dame cathedral. The exhibition dedicated to Maria Szymanowska featured fascinating items from the collections of the Historical-Literary Society, such as previously unknown portraits of Szymanowska and her family, portraits of individuals from her artistic circle, first edition of her works, manuscripts and even personal items, such as satin slippers worn with evening gowns and precious jewelry. To see things that so insolently dare to outlive their owners has always filled me with melancholy. I was comforted at the second exhibition at the Polish Library, dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz and his cultural environment, where one can see an astoundingly beautiful, literally unknown portrait of Szymanowska as a Roman goddess, in the company of a putti, painted by Walenty Wańkowicz. I was very interested in this portrait because of the topic of my own paper, discussing the self-representation of Szymanowska as an artist and a lady. She „created” herself as a true stylist and image-maker of the 19th century. Thanks to this image, and not only to her piano talent, she became the court pianist of the Russian Empire and the teacher of countesses and princesses.

The symposium started from a lecture by Anna Czarnocka (Historical Literary Society in Paris) who discussed the archival materials associated with Maria Szymanowska in the holdings of the Polish Library. These materials were featured at the exhibition curated by Ms. Czarnocka for the conference. Another notable exhibit at the Polish Library is the Chopin Room, which recreates his last apartment, and features his chair, portraits, a lock of his hair, a death mask and a cast of his hand; rare documents and editions, as well as his piano. For the Szymanowska Symposium the 1845 Pleyel piano was taken downstairs and used in the evening concert.

Prof. Irena Poniatowska (National Fryderyk Chopin Institute) introduced the composer as a „Grande dame of Polish music” and discussed, among other topics, her influence on Chopin and contribution to the development of genres of etude and solo song. French singer and musicologist, Florence Launay (author an extensive study of French female composers of the 19th century) introduced the music and biography of Sophie Gail (1775-1819), a singer and composer from the times of Empire and Restauration. Maria Rose van Epenhuysen (Dutch-American pianist and musicologist) discussed the life and four stylistical periods in the music of a French composer-pianist Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836), a talented aristocrat who survived the Revolution, lectured at the Paris Conservatoire and wrote songs and piano music.

We heard the music by Gail and de Mongeroult during the evening concert, in the context of contemporary works by Francois-Andrien Boieldieu and Jan Ladislav Dusek, who was de Montgeroult’s teacher. During the discussion about early female composers I informed my colleagues about the discovery of more than a dozen of Polish women composers of the 19th century whose life and work remains still unknown. Some of these composers belonged to the creative circle around Duchess Maria Czartoryska-Wirtemberska, a patriot and writer. Maria Wirtemberska was the sponsor of the project of Historical Chants written by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz and set to music in 1816 by a group of composers, including also Maria Szymanowska and Princess Zofia Zamojska. During the conference, musical interludes were provided by eminent pianist and musicologist Jean-Pierre Armengaud.

The symposium continued on October 1, 2011 in the palatial ballroom of the Paris Station of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the centerpiece of an elegant palace purchased by the Polish government in 1946. Adam Gałkowski (historian from the University of Warsaw) discussed the history of the family Wołowski, discussing its links to the Frankist sect and the branch of the family that emigrated to France in the 1830s. Ewa Talma-Davous (Polish-French musicologist) discussed the history of the friendship between Szymanowska and Pierre Baillota, a French violinist and composer; she illustrated her lecture with letters and music that was previously unknown.

Dr. Benjamin Vogel, expert in the history of romantic pianos talked about Szymanowska’s preference for instruments, based on the documentation from piano maker archives and portraits of the pianists with instruments. One source was her portrait by Aleksander Kokular painted in 1825 in Rome, with an impossible keyboard, spanning seven octaves. Another source were factory books of John Broadwood & Sons in London, where Szymanowska bought a piano in 1826.

Jean-Pierre Armengaud presented a long study of Szymanowska’s compositional and pianistic technique, illustrating his ideas with musical fragments. He focused, among other issues, on the influence of Szymanowska on Chopin. Elena Gretchnaia (literature professor representing both the Academy of Sciences in Moscow and the University of Orlean) studied the Russian artistic circles of Szymanowska, based on the inscriptions in her famous „Sztambuchy” (Manuscript books). I talked about the artistic, intellectual and social image that Szymanowska created for herself and that was recorded in a series of her portraits, an important iconographic source. Her elegant but modest dresses and hairstyles were modeled on the style of aristocratic ladies of France and Russia, such as Duchesses Golicyna and Wołkońska, Countess de Berry an d Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of Nicolas I.

The Maria Szymanowska Symposium ended with an improvised concert – reproducing in modern times an evening in Maria Szymanowska salon. The evening, planned and hosted by the organiser of the Symposium, Elżbieta Zapolska featured scholars as musicians, singers, and poets. Elżbieta Zapolska, Maria Rose and Florence Launay played and sang vocal and piano music by Szymanowska, Gail, Boieldieu and Field. Highlights included the Ballade Alpuhara accompanied by the French translation of the text and the Desdemona’s Romance from Shakespeare’s Othello, with original and French texts. Maria Rose recited Goethe in German, Beniamin Vogel read Mickiewicz’s poem notated in her Sztambuch in Polish and I read three of my own poems in English, dedicated to Chopin ("How to make a mazurka" from the anthology Chopin with Cherries, 2010), Mickiewicz (Ode of the Lost), and a new poem about Maria Szymanowska.

The first international symposium about Maria Szymanowska presented new information about her, and helped to better understand her achievements in the context of Polish, French and Russian culture of the first half of the 19th century. Scholars discussed poetry, music, painting , and geneaology of Szymanowska’s family. Even the fashion history attracted scholarly attention, as befits an event held in Paris during the October Fashion Week 2011.

_________________________________________

Photographs by Maja Trochimczyk and conference participants.

1. Portrait of Maria Szymanowska by Aleksander Kokular, Rome, 1825. Copy, original in the collection of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature, in Warsaw, Poland.

2. Lithograph based on a portrait by Maria Szymanowska by Jozef Oleszkiewicz, 1825. Framed print from the collection of Bibliotheque Polonaise in Paris.

3. Maria Szymanowska's satin evening slippers and an image of Warsaw's Grand Theater of Opera and Ballet. Paris, Bibliotheque Polonaise.

4. keyboard of a 1845 Pleyel piano played by Chopin; 3) Elzabeth Zapolska with Prof. Irena Poniatowska review books on Szymanowska;

5. Chopin's chair and gloves; the Chopin Room, Bibliotheque Polonaise in Paris

7. Prof. Benjamin Vogel and Dr. Marie Rose examine the 1845 Pleyel piano;

8. Conference participants: Elizabeth Zapolski, Jean-Pierre Arganault; Irena Poniatowska, Adam Galkowski, Irina Gretchanaia, Eva Davos-Talma; Benjamin Vogel, Maja Trochimczyk

9. Maja Trochimczyk reading poetry.

Chopin's Last Day - October 17, 1849

2011-10-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

The curiosity about Chopin's death appears almost morbid today, when the cult of fitness and health has placed all disabled and sick on the margins of society. As Franz Liszt writes in his biography of Chopin, the hagiography, rather, setting the tone for the legend of the feeble, tortured body and the elevated, spiritual, noble, suffering mind: "None of those who approached the dying artist, could tear themselves from the spectacle of this great and gifted soul in its hours of mortal anguish." And a spectacle it was. As Liszt claims, Chopin planned things in advance:

"By a custom which still exists, although it is now falling into disuse, the Poles often chose the garments in which they wished to be buried, and which were frequently prepared a long time in advance [...] Chopin, who, although among the first of contemporary artists, had given the fewest concerts, wished, notwithstanding, to be borne to the grave in the clothes which he had worn on such occasions [...] He had linked his love for art and his faith in it with immortality long before the approach of death, and as he robed himself for his long sleep in the grave, he gave, as was customary with him, by a mute symbol, the last touching proof of the conviction he had preserved intact during the whole course of his life. Faithful to himself, he died adoring art in its mystic greatness, its highest revelations."

Then, he decided on his burial - the Mozart Requiem at the Church of the Madeleine, the body to be interred at the Parisian cemetery Pere Lachaise, next to Bellini and Cherubini, and the heart, submerged in brandy, carried under the skirts of his sister back to Poland, to be enshrined in a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross on the Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street in Warsaw, not far from the place where he spent his youth.

Before burial, came Chopin's last days and moments, so fastidiously and admiringly described by Liszt:

"From week to week, and soon from day to day, the cold shadow of death gained upon him. His end was rapidly approaching; his sufferings became more and more intense; his crises grew more frequent, and at each accelerated occurrence, resembled more and more a mortal agony. He retained his presence of mind, his vivid will upon their intermission, until the last; neither losing the precision of his ideas, nor the clear perception of his intentions. The wishes which he expressed in his short moments of respite, evinced the calm solemnity with which he contemplated the approach of death.

As Liszt had it, everyone was blessed and raised to the heights of a spiritual realm by the very proximity of the dying "seraphic" artist: "—every knee bent—every head bowed—all eyes were heavy with tears—every heart was sad and oppressed—every soul elevated." After the final blessings, the agony began:

"A convulsive sleep lasted until the 17th of October, 1849. The final agony commenced about two o'clock; a cold sweat ran profusely from his brow; after a short drowsiness, he asked, in a voice scarcely audible: "Who is near me?" Being answered, he bent his head to kiss the hand of M. Gutman, who still supported it—while giving this last tender proof of love and gratitude, the soul of the artist left its fragile clay. He died as he had lived—in loving. When the doors of the parlor were opened, his friends threw themselves around the loved corpse, not able to suppress the gush of tears."

To remove the sanctified sheen of Liszt's verbosity let us read what Anne Woodworth wrote about this very moment in her poem published in the Chopin with Cherries anthology:

At the “Hour of Twilight”

– after reading Franz Liszt on Chopin’s death

Anne Harding Woodworth

Franz will write it all down:
that I swooned, that I asked for flowers
and music. Trouble is, I don’t know any Franz.

Tens of friends waited
in the anti-chamber. Trouble is,
I don’t have even four.

And a student held my hand,
because he wanted to return my affection
except that I’ve never had a student who loved me.

I do have a sister. I have two, but they wouldn’t think
of being prostrate at my bedside.
So who will hold my hand?

Where is a Franz who will unabashedly
describe my pillow? my sweat? my bitter suffering?
the unknown shores where next I go?

Of course, it’s true:
I don’t believe I’m going anywhere,
nowhere beyond nothing, that is.

Sing, Countess. Sing, my compatriot.
Trouble is, I’m not Polish. I don’t know any singers,
at least not one who can attain profound pathos.

And there’s no one to roll the piano I don’t own
to my bedroom door. Oh, Liszt, where are you?
I am coughing so. And the pain . . .

And the love . . .
Where is my Franz who will record
the cliché of a final agony?

The association of flowers with paying tribute to the dead, so typical of the West, was amplified in Chopin's death chamber: "His love for flowers being well known, they were brought in such quantities the next day, that the bed in which they had placed them, and indeed the whole room, almost disappeared, hidden by their varied and brilliant hues. He seemed to repose in a garden of roses. His face regained its early beauty, its purity of expression, its long unwonted serenity. Calmly—with his youthful loveliness, so long dimmed by bitter suffering, restored by death, he slept among the flowers he loved, the last long and dreamless sleep!"

The flowers are still there, in abundance. I visited his grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery on October 3, 2011, during a strangely hot Indian Summer day. The tomb was easy to find. That's where everyone was going. The cemetery office distributes maps with notable graves marked, from Heloise and Abelard, to Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Rossini. But there are no fresh flowers at almost any of them - except at Chopin's. The grave is taken care of by a local Polish Historical Society that decorates it with the national symbols (white eagle on a red flag), and vases for flowers. These are always fresh, brought to the grave by the stream of visitors. About fifty people passed by during the ten minutes we were there.

Afterward, I was asked for the location of Chopin's grave five more times on the way out - by an American, a French hobo (visibly drunk), an Italian couple, and a family with teenage kids. Some had flowers to leave at the people's shrine, I brought my poems and a cover of our anthology. I left it there for the grave-keepers to put in a makeshift historical museum, preserving notes, piano keys, and other memorabilia left for Chopin over 150 years after his death.

The intertwined themes of death, mortality and morbidity were associated with Chopin especially strongly at the end of the 19th century and through the early decades of the 20th century. Polish composer Zygmunt Noskowski (1846-1909) elaborated on the topic of the “typically Slavic” feeling of the unspecific, yet overwhelming, “sorrow” (“żal” or “żałość”) and nostalgia permeating Chopin’s music. This overriding expressive tone was associated with a general poetic quality in Noskowski’s 1899 article, “The Essence of Chopin’s Works:”

"Whatever we call the mood in Chopin’s works, be it “elegiac quality,” “longing,” or “sorrowfulness,” it is of primary importance to state that, above all, the purest poetry prevails in them and that the breath of this poetry captures the hearts in a way that cannot be described with words."

Strangely enough, Liszt attempted to do precisely that, "describe the ineffable in words" in his discussions of that most famous, and trivialized of Chopin's pieces, his Funeral March from the Piano Sonata No.

"All that the funeral train of an entire [Polish] nation weeping its own ruin and death can be imagined to feel of desolating woe, of majestic sorrow, wails in the musical ringing of this passing bell, mourns in the tolling of this solemn knell, as it accompanies the mighty escort on its way to the still city of the Dead. The intensity of mystic hope; the devout appeal to superhuman pity, to infinite mercy, to a dread justice, which numbers every cradle and watches every tomb; the exalted resignation which has wreathed so much grief with halos so luminous; the noble endurance of so many disasters with the inspired heroism of Christian martyrs who know not to despair;—resound in this melancholy chant, whose voice of supplication breaks the heart [...] The cry of a nation's anguish mounting to the very throne of God! The appeal of human grief from the lyre of seraphs!"

Seraphs or not seraphs, the music still moves us deeply, still resonates within us, still inspires. The YouTube comments of uneducated teens betray their helplessness under his sway:

"When this song is played while bright sun light shining through a big window. its simply amazing" (on Nocturne Op. 9, no. 2)

"Even when I'm sleeping its playing in my head!! Have to learn this!! Chopin rocks!" (on Prelude in D-flat major, Op. 28, no. 15, "The Raindrop")

"Full metal alchemist" (on Pollini playing the Etude Op. 10, no. 3)

"This is how music was meant to sound like, from the soul. Sounds that you can relate to and understand." (on Zimmerman playing the Ballade No. 4)

"Amazing how few notes can make you wonder in your thoughts.....ahhhhhh" (on Aszkenazy playing the Nocturne Op. 55, No. 1)

"Ok the first time I've heared this song, was because Jimmy Page did a cover of it and I must say this song is just like a sweet but really deep pain that is falling slowly and slowly as it's becoming more near to it's end...a very intense short piece of music indeed" (on Prelude Op. 28, No. 4)

So here it is, for your enjoyment, Jimmy Page (I do not even know who that is, but apparently, he plays a guitar):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZXG0fNUUXs&feature=related

______________________________________

Photos (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk, including the tombs of Bellini and of Chopin at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Vintage postcards with scenes of Chopin's death, from the private collection of Maja Trochimczyk:

Postcard with a caption in Polish: “Portrait of Chopin on his death bed, according to a watercolor by T. Kwiatkowski.” Published in Lwów: Nakł. Spółki Wydawniczej “Postęp,” n.d., ca. 1910.

Postcard The Last Chords of Chopin, based on a painting by Fr. Klimes, Les derniers accords de Chopin. Published by BKWI (Bruder Kohn) in Vienna, Austria, c. 1900-1910.

On Maria Szymanowska in Paris

2011-08-29T22:04:00.001-07:00

The year 2011 has been declared the Milosz Year, celebrating the Nobel-Prize-winning poet, and the Szymanowska Year, commemorating one of the first and most influential women composers of the romantic period. Thanks to the efforts of singer and President of Maria Szymanowska Society, Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle, a series of events will take place in the fall of 2011, as outlined below.

International Project of the Maria Szymanowska Society

Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), Woman of Europe

Honorary committee: Irena Poniatowska, Dominique Bertinotti, Elisabeth Chojnacka, Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarminska, Agata Preyzner, Monique Stalens, Maja Trochimczyk, Daniel Mesguich, Jerzy Pielaszek, Benjamin Vogel, C.Pierre Zaleski

Guest artists: Lowri Blake, Carole Carniel, Florence Launay, Maria Rose, Elisabeth Zapolska, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, Slawomir Dobrzanski, Jay Gottlieb, Bart van Oort

Partners: Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Festival Musique aux Sommets in Zakopane, Institut Polonais à Paris, Fondation Jan Michalski pour l’Ecriture et la Littérature, Fondation Marcelle et Robert de Lacour pour la musique et la danse, Société Historique et Littéraire Polonaise/Bibliothèque Polonaise à Paris, Centre de l'Académie Polonaise des Sciences à Paris, Association Mieczyslaw Karlowicz in Zakopane, Mairie du 4e arrondissement de Paris, Acte Préalable, Kulturalna Europa, Prince Henry Bred&Breakfest in Amsterdam, Air France, Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw

Media partners: Supermedia Interactive, Gazeta Paryska, Muzyka21, Polish Music Information Centre

Events 2011:

▲ Release of the CD Maria Szymanowska, Ballades & Romances (world premiere) by Elisabeth Zapolska, mezzosoprano & Bart van Oort, pianoforte Broadwood 1825 (collection Joop Klinkhamer, Amsterdam), publ.Acte Préalable

▲ Exhibition Maria Szymanowska and Her Times, 15 - 30 September, SHLP/Bibliothèque Polonaise à Paris

▲ Concert Maria Szymanowska, a Portrait of the Queen of Tones, 17 September, Festival Musique aux Sommets in Zakopane, Elisabeth Zapolska, mezzosoprano, Bart van Oort , pianoforte Jacob Weimes 1810 (collection Petr Šefl, Prague), Maciej Negrey, introduction

▲ International Conference Maria Szymanowska and her Times, 30 September - SHLP/Bibliothèque Polonaise à Paris, 1 October - Centre de l'Académie Polonaise des Sciences à Paris. Participants: Irena Poniatowska (Poland), Florence Launay (France), Elena Gretchanaïa (Russia), Maja Trochimczyk (USA), Anna Czarnocka (France), Ewa Talma-Davous (France), Maria Rose (USA), Elisabeth Zapolska-Chapelle (France), Jean Pierre Armengaud (France), Adam Galkowski (Poland), Benjamin Vogel (Sweden)

▲ Concert Salon of Maria Szymanowska, 14 December, Salle des Fêtes de la Mairie du 4e arrondissement de Paris

The conference will include a range of topics, from Szymanowska's pianos (Vogel) to her French contemporaries, Russian social networks, and gendered imagery. I wrote about Szymanowska's songs in the past (for an anthology of Women in Music by Hildegard Publishing Company and for Slawomir Dobrzanski's biography of Szymanowska).

I also looked at Szymanowska's connections to Chopin (in a study of his relationships with women composers) and on the societal constraints placed on her career, as well as careers of other women composers. At this conference, I will speak "On Genius and the Virtues of 'Sense and Sensibility' in the Image of Maria Szymanowska" and touch upon the following topics:

The dualistic feminist music theory of the 1990s represented by Susan McClary, Marcia Citron, Sally Macarthur, and rooted in the embodied feminist literary criticism of Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, did not attract much attention among 19th-century scholars focusing on Polish artists and musicians. Its radicalism seemed too remote from the ideal feminine types encountered and discussed in Polish culture. The lives and careers of female musicians were interpreted in terms of cultural stereotypes that included the innocent youthful beauty of Zosia from Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz, a self-sacrificial and heroic “Polish Mother” (Matka-Polka), an equally self-sacrificial Romantic Beloved, or the hard-working and virtuous Strong Woman (Silaczka) of the positivistic era.

The validity of a less radical, yet still sophisticated feminist approach to studies of 19th century Polish women was recently proven by Beth Holmgren, the biographer of Helena Modjeska and interpreter of the actress’s continuous self-invention on the stage (Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and the U.S., forthcoming in 2011). Like Modjeska, but two generations earlier, Maria Szymanowska also “re-invented” herself for the music stage, whether that of the public concert hall or the private salon. After leaving her husband and establishing a women’s and children’s household with her sister, Kazimiera Wołowska, Maria created an artistic “persona” of a charming, independent, inspired, beautiful, sensuous musician that – unlike her male counterparts – was also full of feminine virtues of modesty, humility, and “sense and sensibility.”

Szymanowska’s letters as well as her portraits by others depict her as full of “charming modesty” and other feminine virtues articulated in 19th century continental and British novels by such authors as George Eliot, Jane Austen, and George Sand. These virtues, while espoused in the salon and on the recital stage of the stile brillante era, were incommensurable with the aesthetics of the “musical genius” and the sublime, divinely inspired, “absolute music.” Ultimately, they pushed Szymanowska’s oeuvre of mixed value into obscurity, as she lost her struggle to balance the requirements of feminine propriety/modesty and the transgressive nature of a musical talent.

__________________________________

Illustrations: Portraits of Maria Szymanowska by Henri Benner and Antoni Borel, a litograph based on a drawing by Józef Oleszkiewicz (National Museum, Warsaw). Photo of Elizabeth (Elzbieta) Zapolska-Chapelle, and the cover of an edition of Szymanowska's Romances for Voice and Piano.

List of Maja's Publications on Maria Szymanowska:

"From Mrs. Szymanowska to Mr. Poldowski: Careers of Polish Women Composers," in A Romantic Century in Polish Music, Maja Trochimczyk, ed., Los Angeles: Moonrise Press, 2009, 1-46.

"Maria Szymanowska's Vocal Music." In Slawomir Dobrzanski, Maria Szymanowska: Pianist and Composer. Los Angeles: USC Thorngton School of Music and Figueroa Press, 2006.

"From Art to Kitsch and Back Again? Chopin's Reception by Women Composers." In Irena Poniatowska, ed., Chopin and His Work in the Context of Culture [Proceedings of the Second International Chopin Congress, October 1999]. KrakĂłw: Musica Iagellonica, 2003, vol. 2, 336-353.

"Maria Szymanowska's Vocal Music (article and an edition of Six Romances)."
Chapter of Women Composers: Music Through the Ages, vol. 4, Composers Born 1700-1799, Vocal Music. Sylvia Glickman and Martha Furman Schleifer, eds. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1998, 396-600.

"Chopin and Women Composers: Collaborations, Imitations, Inspirations." (MAH). The Polish Review 45, no. 1 (2000): 29-52.

Moonday, Chopin and Paderewski

2011-07-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

Among the multitude of poetry events and publications this summer you may find a Poets' Picnic in Benicia, California (August 6, 2011), the Poem Homes Project organized by Benicia's Poet Laureate, Ronna Leon (ongoing through the summer), the Moonday West and Moonday East readings in Pacific Palisades and La Canada-Flintridge, and the Village Poets reading series at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga.

While my participation in the Poets' Picnic is not certain, I have contributed the following selections to the Poem Homes: Tiger Nights, Buddha with Swans, Skydance, "Look at me..." and Rose Window. I have reprinted in my Poetry Laurels blog the Buddha with Swans and the Rose Window. Three other poems were posted on Poetry Laurels, but I thought it would be a fun thing for the summer to also post two of them - those related to music - among Chopin and cherries.

Tiger Nights juxtaposes a strange dream with a re-imagined concert at the Hollywood Bowl, with Joshua Bell as the soloist. It is written in the first person, to strengthen the immediacy of the experience and the intimacy of the voice. The poem appears to be a favorite of editors and publishers, as it was selected to appear in The Epiphany Magazine (No. 6, 2011), along with my profile for the Poets' Cafe radio interview, posted on Tim Green's website, and on the announcement of the upcoming Moonday Poetry Reading. Of course, the incipit of the poem also appears on my Poet Laureate portrait by Ronna Leon posted above.

For those interested, Moonday in the Village will feature myself & Lucia Galloway at Village Books for the August reading that will take place at a private home at 14839 West Sunset Blvd, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 on Monday, August 8, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. Moonday is a once-a- month poetry venue, co-produced by Alice Pero & Lois P.Jones. See www.moondaypoetry.com for more details.

Tiger Nights

Someone nailed gold-plated clouds
to the hard, polished turquoise of the sky.

Striated, like the stripes of a tiger
I did not know I had for a pet

until he bared his teeth
at the dogs flowing through the air

to corner him in my backyard.
The blond fur glistened in shadows.

Three golden labs growled
at the cat the size of a calf.

He turned. His stripes shone
with danger. I woke up afraid.

Now I watch the gold of the clouds
change into orange, scarlet and amaranth

in a quickly darkening cupola
that rests on the hills

above the Hollywood Bowl.
Smooth tones of Joshua Bell’s violin

glow in the air, escaping
the relentless chase of the brass.

Wind snatches notes from the bow,
plays with their glossy sheen.

Stars blossom on cloud-stems
in bouquets, wild as tiger lilies

you gave me that night.
Danger lurks in your smile

as you caress my ear
with a whisper: “Remember?”

To all those, who think that "first-person" poetry is strictly autobiographical, I hasten to explain that I went to the Joshua Bell concert described in Tiger Nights with my best friend, Elizabeth, who certainly does not resemble a tiger, did not give me any tiger lilies, and did not whisper dangerous thoughts into my ear. The dream was as real as dreams are, but the tiger's smooth coat appeared to be beige and not striped at all, until I recognized the cornered, graceful creature as one of power and danger: the lovely animal turned its head at the dogs and snarled, becoming a striped beast. That was enough to wake me up. But the word "beige" is too plain for a dream poem, someone said, so I changed it to a more human "blond." The stripes on the sky, the stripes on the tiger, the tiger lilies... this fragmented imagery creates a surreal scene of uncertainty, filled with seductive charm and vague threats. The "gold-plated clouds" become real in a jewel sky as the danger passes, or, at least, seems so.

The second "imaginary romance" poem, also a favorite with audiences and publishers, draws together scattered seeds of experience: a glance from a passing biker, a long ride between slopes of California's dry golden grass, contrasting with the deep green of the live oak, and the favorite melody outlined by the flowing voice of Ella Fitzgerald. No, it did not happen in my real life. Yes, it could have happened, as the poem is cobbled together from fragments of different memories and observations. Regardless of its sources and the degree of realism, the poem works. Here, instead of two contrasting images, I use a refrain that brings back the beguiling singer's voice to lift the biker's narrative high above the melting asphalt of the prosaic.

The poem was published in Loch Raven Review (Spring 2010) and reprinted on the Poetry Super Highway website where I was a Poet of the Week in January 2010. The title comes from the first words of "Misty" as sung on that astounding collection of Ella's Blues and Ballads (Verve). The song, by Johnny Burke and Erroll Garner, ends with "I'm too misty, and too much in love..." You can listen to the version I love on YouTube. Compare it with other interpretations: by Sarah Vaughan, Julie London (with a charming alto and annoying twitter of flutes), and Ella Fitzgerald, again - with the Tommy Flanagan Trio. If you do not like singing, listen to Stan Getz, as delightful as any of the singers.

“Look at me…”

- after Ella Fitzgerald’s “Misty” and a Sunday drive to a peach orchard

the dark honey of Ella’s voice
filled the valley with a golden sheen

The bike stopped at the red light.
The biker looked at me intently.
All in black leather, he did not seem familiar.

the dark honey of Ella’s voice
spilled onto the asphalt

The light changed to green. I was touched
by the brightness in his eyes as he drove by,
turning his head, clearly off-balance. He stopped
to gaze at my metallic Honda. I felt his surprise.

the dark honey of Ella’s voice
blossomed in an aftertaste of sweetness

I knew he realized who I was,
the woman he found irresistible again
and again and again. I wonder if he told
his girlfriend about our sunny encounter.

the dark honey of Ella’s voice
flowed over the wonderland –
the dark honey, oh, the dark honey

The country road led me towards live oak
and grassy slopes, shining yellow and bronze.
There was no hatred, just being alive
after the storm. I was silent. I had nothing to say.

I will read this poem at Moonday, on August 8, 2011, along with my favorite Chopin with Cherries ones, and, of course An Ode of the Lost - published in The Cosmopolitan Review in 2010, along with Dragonfly Days, Rivers, and a personal reflection on the challenges and victories of immigration.

The most recent issue of this wonderful online journal, dedicated to Polish culture in America and around the world, features another music-themed poem by a California poet: Kathabela Wilson's reflection on Paderewski, his love of music and his devotion to Poland - What Paderewski taught me about being. This poem was inspired by her introduction to Paderewski's world at the 2010 Chopin and Paderewski Conference at Loyola University of Chicago. We held a Chopin with Cherries poetry reading there, and Kathabela Wilson read her work, accompanied by her husband Rick Wilson playing historical 19th century flutes.

For the anthology Chopin with Cherries, Kathabela submitted an entirely different love story:

How I Fell in Love with Chopin

he did not own a piano
hesitant shy unsure

I brought him to my mother’s house
where the old upright
moved in by seminarians last winter
still leaked snow

frail on the long walk
uphill he carried
the polonaises

told me how
he’d had polio as a child
came breathless to the bench
transfixed

we were all long afternoon
turned to dark
white moon balanced
ebony benched the sky

polished sound and circumstance
power I leaned into

he moved into my small apartment
took my mother’s piano apart to rework it
keys scattered everywhere
for three years

it did not last

I had to collect them in a box

I don’t think it ever got back together
but I realized in that time

I had fallen in love
with Chopin

Thanks to the scattered piano keys of Kathabela's poem, we celebrated poets and musicians at the Ruskin Art Club back in May 2011 with piano-key bouquets, complete with ribbons and decorative leaves, but without flowers. The poets were delighted...

_____________________________________________

"How I fell in love with Chopin" by Kathabela Wilson appears in Chopin with Cherries, edited by Maja Trochimczyk for Moonrise Press, 2010. Used by permission.

Poetry and photographs by Maja Trochimczyk (c) 2009-2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

On Chopin and Film

2011-06-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

The failure of actors and directors to adequately portray a "genius" composer - be it Beethoven, Mozart or Chopin - speaks to the richness of our collective imagination that creates a mental image of the composer of such complexity and sophistication that it becomes virtually impossible to match it with just one man.

When you see Hugh Grant in Impromptu (1991) do you really think of Chopin? Or is the enchanting persona of the famous actor too large for the composer to humbly fit in? Polish fans of Piotr Adamczyk would adore him in Chopin: Desire for Love (CHopin: Pragnienie Milosci) - but would they see the "real Chopin" in this handsome, healthy youth? His love-interest, George Sand, played with incredible charisma by Danuta Stenka stole the show anyway... At least, this film, directed by Jerzy Antczak and with Jadwiga Baranska as Chopin's mother, is recognized as the most historically accurate depiction of Chopin's life.

Much earlier, Charles Vidor attempt to narrate Chopin's life in A Song to Remember (1945), but the main protagonist in this film, Cornel Wilde, looked more like a gun-slinger from a Western than the sick and feeble Romantic. At least the pianist, Jose Iturbi, gave justice to the music.

Paradoxically, the most "Chopin-like" of all actors trying to impersonate the extraordinary pianist was Czeslaw Wollejko in The Youth of Chopin (Mlodosc Chopina) directed by Aleksander Ford in 1952. This film does away with the romance that fascinates virtually all other film makers and focuses on the years 1825-1831, Chopin's first European tours, rise to fame, and emigration. Here, the young composer is filled with patriotic zeal; he is tormented at the thought of being unable to return to Poland from Vienna where the news of the 1830 November Uprising reached him. Portraying Chopin as the friend of peasants and workers, the "soul" of the nation in the new Socialist-Realist aesthetics, the film is invaluable to music historians as it contains a unique scene with original Polish folklore performed by villages and not trained dance troupe based on Soviet models. Just for this scene, a crowded wedding dance with furious obereks, the film is worth its weight in gold...

I have to admit here that my knowledge of filmed Chopins is incomplete, since I have never seen the 1934 film by Géza von Bolváry, released in German, Abschiedswalzer: Zwei Frauen um Chopin (Farewell Waltz). The film starred Wolfgang Liebeneiner as Chopin and Sybille Schmitz as George Sand. Recently found and screened in Japan, The Farewell Waltz apparently inspired a famous Japanese film-maker, Kihachiro Kawamoto to create puppets based on the main characters. It is possible that this film added to the incredible popularity of Chopin in Japan - you may see its fragment on the website of Nishikata Film Review.

Thus, we may conclude that there are no successful "Chopin"'s on the screen. How about the music? In contract to the compser, it seems that it has become the perennial favorite of movie-makers, appearing in just about everything, from romantic comedy to period drama, and action movies. I've adapted the table of credits from another website (Music Timeline by Art Sulit) by adding some titles, including the biographies and The Karate Kid that I discussed on this site:

Titles of Chopin's Works - Title of the Film

Prelude No.2 in A min, Op.28 No.2 "Presentment of Death" - Autumn Sonata

Waltz in C# min, Op.64 No.2 - The Avengers

Nocturne in Eb "Murmures de la Seine", Op.9 No.2 - Blue Lagoon

Nocturne No.8 in Db "Les plaintives 2" - Bodily Harm

Various (played by Janusz Olejniczak) – Chopin: Desire for Love (Chopin’s biography, 2004)

Mazurka, Op.17 No.4 - Cries and Whispers

Mazurka No.13 in A min, Op.17 No.4 - Empire of the Sun

Prelude in Db, Op.28 No.15 "Raindrop" - Face/Off

Various – The Farewell Waltz (Chopin’s Biography, 1934)

Les Sylphides - Getting It Right

Waltz (Waltz No.1 in Eb "Grande valse brillante", Op.18 B62) Les Sylphides - The Hudsucker Proxy

Various – Impromptu (Chopin’s biography, 1991)

Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. Posth. – The Karate Kid

Nocturne in Eb "Murmures de la Seine", Op.9 No.2 - Man Trouble

Nocturne No.19 in E min - Mind Games

Prelude in Db, Op.28 No.15 "Raindrop" - Moonraker

Mazurka No.23 in D, Op.33 No.2 and Waltz No.10 in B min, Op.69 No.3 - Nixon

Polonaise No.6 in Ab "Héroique" - Nothing Lasts Forever

Etude No.23 in A min "Winter Wind" Nothing Lasts Forever

Prelude No.20 "Funeral March" - Paradise Road

Nocturne in C# min, Op.27 No.1 and Nocturne in F min, Op.55 No.1 - The Peacemaker

Mazurka in A min, Op.68 No.2 - The People vs Larry Flynt

Nocturne in C Sharp Minor, Op. Posth. Nocturne in E Minor, Op. Posth.; Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48, No. 1; Ballade No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 38; Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34, No. 2; and Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28, No. 4 (Janusz Olejniczak) and Wladyslaw Szpilman, playing Chopin's Mazurka, Op. 17, No. 4, in Warsaw in 1948 - The Pianist

Polonaise in Ab, Op.53 and Prelude in Db, Op.28 No.15 "Raindrop" - Shine

Waltz No.14 in E min - Sneakers

Various (played by Jose Iturbi) – A Song to Remember (Chopin’s biography, 1945)

Marche funébre (Funeral March) Piano Sonata No.2 - Space Jam

Piano Concerto No.1, 3rd mvmt. - 10 Things I Hate About You

Piano Concerto No.1, 2nd mvmt. - The Truman Show

Waltz No.11 in Gb major, Or 70, No. 1 - V.I. Warshawski

Various – The Youth of Chopin (Chopin’s biography, 1952)

Enough? Perhaps for today. The list continues... Let us listen to a non-filmic Chopin, recorded by Artur Rubinstein: Fantaisie Impromptu Op. 66.

The Spiritual Quartet in Ventura on May 28

2011-05-25T07:13:00.000-07:00

The Spiritual Quartet consisting of four female poets - Lois P. Jones, Susan Rogers, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, and Maja Trochimczyk - will be featured at the gorgeous Artists Union Gallery, on May 28 (Saturday) at 7:30 p.m. in Ventura, CA. Each poet comes from a different spiritual background, while sharing the focus on compassion, beauty, enlightenment, and a creative expression of positive energy. They weave their poems around themes of light, love, forgiveness, hope, and friendship. They contemplate nature, mountains, birds and gardens, and draw inspiration from the poetry of Rumi, Rilke, the music of Chopin and Gorecki, and their own spiritual traditions.

Below are short introductions to the worlds of each poet, and a sample of their poetry read during the SQ appearances.

LOIS P. JONES’s poetry and photographs have been or will soon be published in American Poetry Journal, Raven Chronicles, Qarrtsiluni, Rose & Thorn, Tiferet, Kyoto Journal, and other print and on-line journals in the U.S. and abroad. She is co-founder of Word Walker Press and a documentarist of Argentina’s wine industry. You can hear her as host on 90.7 KPFK’s Poet’s Cafe (Pacifica Radio) on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month at 8:30 p.m. and see her as co-host of Moonday’s monthly poetry reading in La Canada, California. She is the Associate Poetry Editor of Kyoto Journal and a 2009 and 2010 Pushcart Nominee. In August 2010 her poem “Ouija” was selected as Poem of the Year by judge Dana Goodyear.

"Show what the light gave her

washing warmth into a neck
until it’s dune, a cliffside

that holds a head of surf.
Paint as you would before you awaken,

when sunlight falls like milkweed
and you are an empty silo

letting her grain fill you–
buttery malt and biscuit

for the love of honey."

(From "Ways to Paint a Woman" by Lois P. Jones)

SUSAN ROGERS considers poetry a vehicle for light and a tool for the exchange of positive energy. She is a practitioner of Sukyo Mahikari— a spiritual practice that promotes positive thoughts, words and action. She is also a photographer and a licensed attorney. Her poems were part of the 2010 Valentine Peace Project and have been performed at museums and galleries in Southern California. Her work can be found in the book Chopin and Cherries, numerous journals, anthologies and chapbooks Her work can be heard online or in person as part of the audio tour for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California. She was recently interviewed by Lois P. Jones for KPFK’s Poets Café.

"The dove knows the way
follow her.

Your heart knows the way
listen well.

Within your deepest self
are wings of light.

They cover the earth
with waves of love.

Do you remember?
You once knew.

Stand in the warmth
of sunlight and recall.

The origin of the world
is one."

From The Origin is One, a poem dedicated to Kotama Okada and inspired by a painting by Susan Dobay.

Long-time educator, published author, artist, TAOLI-AMBIKA TALWAR has been involved in holistic arts/sciences for many years. Her mission is to be a reflective, gentle and creative change agent. Her film, “Androgyne” won the best script award at a festival in Belgium. She has published two books, Creative Resonance: Poetry¬Elegant Play, Elegant Change (2006) and 4 Stars & 25 Roses (2007) and has two chapbooks from Laguna Press, Words for Hungry Tongues (2000) Songs of the Body. Kyoto Journal published her poem titled, “What the Trees Say” for their biodiversity issue. Taoli-Ambika has also been published in the anthology, Chopin with Cherries, Inkwater Ink, vol. 3 and other collections. Her photographs and paintings have appeared in Tiferet Journal. She teaches English at Cypress College, Cypress. “Because poetry is the bridge to new worlds.”

Where Flowers Wander

cells love it
when we smile
even if worlds break

nothing matters
but the great empty
from which all comes

chalice is passages
for the flow
of the fountain

always traveler
longs for the great empty
flowers grow there

© 2011 Taoli-Ambika Talwar

MAJA TROCHIMCZYK, the Sixth Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, is also a music historian and non-profit director born in Poland, educated in Poland and Canada and residing in Sunland. As an author of four scholarly books and hundreds of articles, she is well established in the music history world, with two main specializations: Polish music of the 19th and 20th centuries, and 20th-century contemporary music. She founded Moonrise Press and published three books of poetry: Rose Always, Miriam's Iris and the Chopin with Cherries anthology. Her poetry and photography appears in such journals as the Epiphany Magazine, Loch Raven Review, The Huston Literary Review, Ekphrasis Journal, Phantom Seed, PoeticDiversity and many anthologies by Poets on Site and others. See: www.trochimczyk.net, poetrylaurels.blogspot.com.

Mountains of Grief

For Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, the composer
of The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,
in memoriam

"Euntes ibant et flebant..."
(Psalm 126:6, The Vulgate,
used as one of Gorecki's titles)

“Mom, don’t cry – Mamo, nie płacz –“
the soprano soars above
lush chords of the orchestra

Sorrow, endless sorrow

He grew up bitter,
alone at the keyboard,
waves of sound crashing all around him

His Mama, smothered with a pillow
on her hospital bed,
an orphaned child, sickly

With a leg damaged by illness,
limping gait – a great man comes,
truly great

How do I know? He taught me –

To do everything well,
with my whole heart, whole being,
dance despair into frenzy,
relish that last plate of barszcz

Laugh loudly, play the second fiddle
in góralska muzyka,
find Chopin's mazurka under my fingers

Look beyond the edge of grief,
toward the mountains,
shrouded by the clouds of unknowing

Sing lullabies of consolation,
weave music from strands of pain,
sudden glimpses of grace

Seek safety in the cocoon of timelessness,
under gold stars on the blue cloak
of Mother Mary –
sixteen portraits on one wall
of his studio in Katowice

Give of myself fully –
an offering of daily bread,
beg for crumbs of mercy,
morsels of blessings

Carry the cross, my cross

Walk towards the glimmer of light
on the horizon,
bearing the fruit of my harvest

(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

The Gorecki poem is reprinted here in honor of the upcoming performances of his music by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Master Chorale in the next two weeks.

Notes to the poem:

* Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010), Polish composer of: Euntes Ibant et Flebant op. 32 (1972), Third Symphony “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” op. 36 (1976), and Kleines Requiem für Eine Polka, op. 66 (1993).
* “Euntes ibant et flebant portantes semina sua – venientes autem venientes in exultatione…” “He went off, went off weeping, carrying the seed. He comes back, comes back singing.” Psalm 126: 6
* “Mamo, nie płacz” – the first words of an inscription on the wall of a Gestapo prison in Zakopane by young Helena Błażusiak, text used the second movement of the Third Symphony.
* “Barszcz” – traditional beet soup we shared in Katowice in 1998.
* “Góralska muzyka” – folk ensemble of four strings playing music from the Tatra Mountains, Górecki’s chosen home. His last name means “of the mountains” and he settled in the village of Ząb in the Foothills area (Podhale) after spending most of his life in his native Silesia, in Katowice.

______________________________

Photos of Gorecki and apple blossoms by Maja Trochimczyk

Photos of members of the Spiritual Quartet - various photographers

"Mountains of Grief" was first published in The San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly and reprinted on this blog.

Cherished Chopin & Poets Cafe

2011-04-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

My October 2010 interview for Poets' Cafe (KPFK 90.7FM) found its permanent home on the website of Timothy Green, editor of Rattle who graciously supports KPFK's initiative to document poetry life in Los Angeles.

Lois P. Jones, an amazing, spiritual, insightful, and incredibly talented poet (I forgot sensuous and erudite), is a fantastic hostess at the Poets' Cafe, airing on Wednesday evenings at 8:30 p.m. She prepares well for her interviews, reading poetry, talking to her prospective guests, asking them to bring a lot of poems. She is warm and lovely and then... ambushes her guests with completely unexpected questions. Thrown off their planned path, guests have to reveal more about themselves than they knew they would, or would have planned to. The hosts laughs with them, shares her favorite lines of their poems, and leads them into a deeper self-understanding and, might I say, enlightenment. Well done, Lois!

After my hour in the studio, that was to be about the "Chopin with Cherries" anthology, but turned out to be all about the poetic me: Who am I? Why am I here, in Los Angeles? Writing in English? What and who do I love? How do I capture the ineffable in words?

Interview: Maja Trochimczyk on Poets' Cafe, hosted by Lois P. Jones and broadcast on Pacifica Radio, KPFK, on March 30, 2011.

Our lovely friend, Kathabela Wilson organized a listening party for the broadcast date of the interview, on March 30, 2011, which she did not know for I did not tell her, nor shared it with Lois, was the 25th anniversary of my baptism during the Easter Vigil at St. Martin's Church in Warsaw, Poland. That miraculous night opened the way across the ocean for me, a Californian by choice. Ultimately, it led to a level of illumination that only now I'm slowly beginning to grasp.

I read one poem from the "Chopin with Cherries" anthology - the title poem, a memory from my Polish childhood, spent in the villages where my grandparents lived. That one is dedicated to my maternal grandparents, Stanislaw and Marianna Wajszczuk who settled in his ancestral village of Trzebieszow in the Lublin region after escaping from the area taken over by the Soviets during World War II. My mother was born in Baranowicze, now in Belarus. Each house in the village was surrounded by gardens, neatly divided by fences into sections where children were allowed into (orchard) and those they were not (flower and vegetable gardens). Children were like pets, or like livestock, in their capacity for destruction. My grandmother took no chances with her crop of tomatoes and strawberries...

We were not allowed to climb the cherry trees, either - the branches were too fragile, cracked easily. But the ancient Italian Walnut tree, with a smooth broad trunk and a perfect spot to sit in, with a book and a cup of cherries, that was something else.

The walnuts, first covered in smooth green skin, and completely white (if you peeled off the yellowish skin off each bitter-sweet nut), were scattered to dry in the attic. Full of old clothes, spinning wheels, weird instruments, and bunches of herbs hanging from the rafters, the attic was my refuge on rainy days. I'd read the old weeklies or books, and eat the walnuts or cherries, or whatever other edibles could be found, scattered on old newsprint. Who said, children had to watch TV or play video games to have fun? All you need is the rain, and a little bit of Chopin.

A Study with Cherries

After Etude in C Major, Op. 10, No. 1 and the cherry orchard
of my grandparents, Stanisław and Marianna Wajszczuk

I want a cherry,
a rich, sweet cherry
to sprinkle its dark notes
on my skin, like rainy preludes
drizzling through the air.

Followed by the echoes
of the piano, I climb
a cherry tree to find rest
between fragile branches
and relish the red perfection –
morning cherry music.

Satiated, sleepy,
I hide in the dusty attic.
I crack open the shell
of a walnut to peel
the bitter skin off,
revealing white flesh –
a study in C Major.

Tasted in reverie,
the harmonies seep
through light-filled cracks
between weathered beams
in Grandma’s daily ritual
of Chopin at noon.

_____________________________________

I was ready to read two other poems from the Chopin anthology, but Lois moved on, first to my "Ode of the Lost" - about the pain of emigration, dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz of the Great Emigration generation of Poles who settled in France after the fall of the November Uprising of 1830. An Ode of the Lost was published in The Cosmopolitan Review, in a special issue about immigrant experience in poetry that I edited, based on materials from a session at the Polish American Historical Association meeting held in San Diego in January 2010. Since that version (The Cosmopolitan Review) did not include any line breaks, I think it will be nice to see the poem with its stanza divisions.

An Ode of the Lost

~ to Adam Mickiewicz and all Polish exiles

Tired exiles in rainy Paris listen to Mickiewicz
reciting praises of woodsy hills, green meadows —
distant Lithuania, their home painted in Polish verse,
each word thickly spread with meaning,
like a slice of rye bread with buckwheat honey.

“Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie.
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie,
Kto cię stracił” — he says, and we, homeless Poles
without ground under our feet, concur,
sharing the blame for our departure.
There’s no return.

Are not all journeys one way? Forward,
forward, go on, “call that going, call that on.”
The speed of light, merciless angel with a flaming sword,
moves the arrow forward. Seconds, minutes
stretch into years. Onwards. Go.
The time-space cone limits the realm of possibility.
If you stay, you can go on. If you leave—

Can you find blessing in the blur of a moment?
In a glimpse of soft, grassy slopes shining
like burnished gold before the sun turns purple?
Can you learn to love the sweet-fluted songs
of the mockingbird, forget the nightingale?

How far is too far for the lost country
to become but a dream of ancient kings—
where children never cry, wildflowers bloom,
and autumn flutter of brown, drying leaves
whispers of the comforts of winter?
Sleep, sleep, eternal sleep,
in the spring you will awaken…

Note: Quotation from Adam Mickiewicz’s Invocation to Pan Tadeusz, or the Last Foray in Lithuania (“My country! You are as good health: /How much one should prize you, he only can tell who has /lost you”), from Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable, and from the author.

__________________________________

Quickly moving through time in an interview that became my best portrait, I then came to my California inspirations. I read one poem from that strange novella in verse, "Rose Always - A Court Love Story" that preoccupied me from 2005 to 2008 (and still echoes in various love poems I write from time to time, they are all related!). Published just with a number (76), but often entitled just "The Music Box," this poem is the most miraculous, I feel, of the whole interview.

The magic comes from an actual music box, the one you see in my portrait above. I bought it for five dollars at a garage sale from a neighbor on my street. A white porcelain box with a pink rose in a gold frame on the lid, it plays a lovely song. I found it and then the poem just wrote itself, as I put this and that into the box. I do have a weakness for music boxes: my collection is not large, maybe ten or twenty boxes, mostly carved from wood with decorative inlays and carvings. The white china box, delicate and elegant, was a perfect expression of the nostalgic tone of the poem.

The Music Box

What the world needs now
is love, sweet love…

My china music box plays a song
from your childhood.
Under the lid with one pink rose
I keep my sentimental treasures –
the miniature portrait
in a grey enamel frame echoing
the color of your tank top
worn in defiance
of my sophistication.

The white tulle ribbon – a memento
from my wedding gown?
It held the ornament up
on the bough of the Christmas tree
after that second, numinous summer.

My broken ring, bent not to be worn again,
with a deep scar from your blunt saw,
a shape marked by the strength of your fingers.

It was a moment of liberation –
I don’t have to – anything – any more.

The three little diamonds –
faith, hope and love – embedded
in the scratched gold, still shine,
though not as brightly as the forty three
specks of light surrounding your face.

The missing ring piece hit the ceiling
when it broke off with the pent-up energy
of unwanted love – the marriage that wasn’t.
It is still somewhere in the corner
of the coldest room in my house.

What else?
Three brown leaves from the ash tree
that grew by itself and died,
unwelcome. The Cross of Malta
waiting to shine on your chest.

* * *

What the world needs now
is light, God’s light. . .

My music box plays on. I make up the words
just as I made up this love of clay and gold,
the dust of the earth and starlight –
partly fragile and partly eternal.

______________________________________

If one were to look for a poem, amidst all I wrote, that better defines me, not as a music scholar, nor an administrator, nor a award-winning historian, nor an usher who's always late for Mass, nor a mother who only cooks for holidays, nor even a poet, but simply as a person, this is that poem. T.S. Eliot ended "Little Gidding" - the fourth of the Four Quartets, with these prophetic words:

"And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."

_______________________________________

PHOTOS: Maja with Lois in KPFK Studio, October 2010. Maja with Lois at Kathabela and Rick Wilson's Salon, summer 2009; Collage art by Barbara Koziel Gawronski in a California landscape (Tujunga Wash in Sunland) photo by Maja Trochimczyk, and portrait of Maja Trochimczyk by Jolanta Maranska-Rybczynska.

On Letter-writing and the Intimate Chopin

2011-04-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

Is the art of letter-writing dead? How little would we know about the lives of people long gone if not for their letters, or diaries and letters... Many of them had a chance to sift and sort, deciding which letters to keep and which to burn, creating their own portrait for posterity. When future historians gain access to every single email, FB status update, and Tweet, in addition to realms of recordings, would they be able to create a better, more insightful, more complete picture of the subject of their study? I think not. It seems that it will be much harder to distill the essence of a person's character, interests, and passions from this avalanche of trivial information and redundant data.

Who knows what type of "letters" will scholars study in the future. For now, we have the letters of Fryderyk Chopin and his friends, hundreds of letters and notes, a dozen of editions. The image that emerges from these handwritten notes is not that of a sublime romantic genius, conversing with the greatest minds of his time about the most elevated subjects, dwelling in a spiritual realm. Not at all: in Chopin's letters we discover his humanity, we learn how vulnerable and weak he was, how angry at his illness, self-centered and inconsiderate of his friends, yet often greatly concerned about the well-being of his parents and sisters. The Chopin that we feel we know from his music does not seem to be the same Chopin that we discover in his letters.

There is a lot of suffering there, true, and a lot of humor. There are quick notes left when visiting someone who happened not to be at home (the equivalent of a phone call or texting). There are discussions about arrangements of the most mundane matters - ordering sets of evening gloves, tailored suits and shirts, or bill payments and earning from teaching.

All the collections of Chopin's letters start from a card he wrote for his father. It is his epistolary message no. 1 in the following collections and editions:

Bronisław Edward Sydow, editor - Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of F. Chopin], in 2 volumes. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1955.
Bronisław Edward Sydow, editor - Correspondance de Frédéric Chopin. Paris: Richard-Masse, 1953-1960. In three volumes, reprinted in 1981.
Arthur Hedley, editor and translator - Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, abridged from Sydow. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963.
Krystyna Kobylańska, editor - Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina z rodziną. [F. Chopin’s Correspondence with his family]. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1972.
Zofia Helman, Zbigniew Skowron, and Hanna Wróblewska-Straus, editors. Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Fryderyk Chopin's Correspondence] , volume 1: 1816-1831. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Universytetu Warszawskiego, 2009.
Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina [The Fryderyk Chopin Institute]. Chopin’s Letters. Warszawa: Internet Chopin Information Centre, 2010. http://en.chopin.nifc.pl/chopin/letters/search/

What did the boy say to his dad? The equivalent of "Happy birthday" and "I love you, Dad" - but in a more formal fashion, surprising for a six-year old. The lovely card was written for Nicholas Chopin's "Name-day" - a far more important celebration in Poland than that of a birthday. The Chopin family paid homage to their patriarch on the feast day of St. Nicholas, December 6 (1816):

Gdy świat Imienin uroczystość głosi Twoich, mój Papo, wszak i mnie przynosi Radość, z powodem uczuciów złożenia, Byś żył szczęśliwie, nie znał przykrych ciosów, Być zawsze sprzyjał Bóg pomyślnych losów, Te Ci z pragnieniem ogłaszam życzenia. F. Chopin. Dnia 6 grudnia 1816

Whereas the world proclaims the celebration of your Name-day, my dear Papa, thus it is also a great joy of mine, occasioned by the expression of heartfelt feelings, to wish you a happy life, that does not know sorrow, nor adversity, that is always blessed by God with good fortune, so these are, longingly expressed, my wishes. F. Chopin. On the 6th day of December, 1816.

If written by a child, and not dictated by his mother, older sister, or caretaker, these wishes surprise with the maturity of vocabulary and complication of syntax. What was Chopin's last letter, then? And how many letters did he write? This remains an issue of contention.

Scholars Zofia Helman, Zbigniew Skowron, and Hanna Wróblewska-Straus have been working for more than two decades on a fully annotated critical edition of all currently known Chopin's letters. The national edition, handsomly issued by the University of Warsaw (available in Polish only) features not only detailed context of each letter, revised and defined placement in chronology, but also extensive notes about every single person mentioned in the letters or in any way associated with them. The hosts of summer vacations, the musicians and friends of musicians, the students and their families - all find their life-stories briefly noted. They were blessed and immortalized by their encounters with a genius whom the world does not want to forget. The one issue that makes it difficult to use along with older edition is letter numbering. The universally accepted numbering by Sydow has been changed, as new letters were inserted in the proper slots and those that were assigned to wrong dates or years, were moved to the appropriate point on the chronology.

The first volume, covering the years up to Chopin's departure from Poland and ending with the famous, tortured pages from his so-called Stuttgart Diary, written after Chopin heard about the end of the November Uprising (started in November 1830), with the fall of Warsaw to Russian troops on September 7, 1831. As the editors ascertained, the Stuttgart press published the first reports about these tragic events on September 16. The famous, dramatic and despairing monologue of an embittered exile was written partly before and partly after that date. Following von Sydow, it is customarily attributed to September 8, a day after the fall of Warsaw, but Helman and her team were able to argue for a more accurate date. After the outburst of despair, on September 18, 1831, Chopin left Stuttgart to continue his way on to Paris where he spent the rest of his life.

The long and dramatic text, permeated with interruptions and exclamations, written in a stream-of-consciousness narrative expresses the composer's distress at a turning point of his life. The format and accusatory tone recall the - written much-later - monologue from Adam Mickiewicz's romantic play, The Forefather's Eve Part III. Chopin really sounds like Konrad in his Grand Improvisation: "Oh God, You are there! You are there and take no revenge! Have You not had Your fill of Muscovite crimes – or – or else You are Yourself a Muscovite! And I sit here idle, and I set here with my hands bare, sometimes just groaning, grieving at the piano, in despair..."

___________________________

The "national edition" of the last letters is not ready yet, though the second volume went to print. Therefore, for Chopin's final word in epistolography, I turned to the online edition of full text of his letters in Polish and the original languages found on the Fryderyk Chopin Information Centre website, managed by the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Poland. Alas, the list compiled by NIFC includes mistakes in dates in the summaries of letters - so much so that it appears that he was still writing letters to Auguste Franchomme while dying (listed on October 17, the actual date was September 17) and to Tytus Wojciechowski, that Chopin appears to have written three days after breathing his last (listed on October 20, but actually written on August 20).

The last words, scribbled on a piece of paper, were not a letter but a somber instruction to his attendants, family and friends: "When all this coughing will finally suffocate me, I beg you, please order my body to be opened, so that I will not be buried alive." (Comme cette toux m'étouffera je vous conjure de faire ouvrir mon corps pour je suis pas enterré vif). These are customarily dated "somewhat before October 17, 1849" - not by Chopin.

One of the final dates Chopin wrote in his own hand was that of August 1849, when he sent a note to Auguste Franchomme in Paris, asking for some good wine to be delievered at Chailot where the composer was spending his summer:

"My Dear. Send me some of your Bordeaux. I must drink wine today and I do not have any at home. But pack the bottle well and do not forget to mark it with your seal; oh, these messengers! I do not know to whom you will entrust this package. How suspicious have I become! Yours truly, C. (Mon Cher, Envoie-moi un peu de ton Bordeaux. Il faut que je boive aujourd'hui un peu de vin et je n'en ai d'aucune sorte. Mais enveloppe bien la bouteille et n'oublie pas d'y mettre ton cachet, car les porteurs!! Je ne sais à qui tu confieras cet envoi. Comme je suis devenu soupçonneux! Tout à toi C.

From filial devotion, to patriotic duty, to mundane concerns: Chopin's letters reveal a complicated, conflicted man whose idyllic childhood was followed by adult age tormented by loneliness and disease, yet transfigured in the most inspired music. Two studies of letters of his friend Julian Fontana and his lover George Sand reveal Chopin's character and habits to a greater extent and merit further exploration.

_______________________________

As if Chopin's own letters were not enough, poets wrote new letters in his name. The anthology Chopin with Cherries includes three imaginary letters to and from Chopin by Tammy L. Tillotson. She tries to capture Chopin’s heartbreak in the 1830s, marked by a packet of letters, that he had tied with a ribbon and inscribed “moja bieda” (“my misery”).

Similarly, through two epistolary poems, Martin Willitts Jr. recreates the growing discord between Chopin and Sand after their romance fell apart and the sick pianist was close to death in 1847. Willitts was nominated for four Pushcart Awards. His recent poems appeared in Blue Fifth, Parting Gifts, Bent Pin, New Verse news, Storm at Galesburg and other stories (anthology), The Centrifugal Eye, Quiddity, Autumn Sky Poetry, Protest Poems, and others. His tenth chapbook was The Garden of French Horns (Pudding House Publications, 2008) and his second full length book of poetry is The Hummingbird (March Street Press, 2009). He also has won many national storytelling contests and was invited to Denmark to tell many of the Hans Christian Andersen stories.

"Discord" consists of two letters, one from Chopin to George Sand and one from her to her "beloved little corpse" that she lovingly nicknamed her former lover and patient. Through these invented letters, Willitts tells the story of a romance with a bitter end.

Discord

by Martin Willitts, Jr.

1. Chopin to George Sand, 1847

The delicate touch you felt on your neck
is the same as on a piano, with the same lyrical rush,
the music of leaves in the resolute winds.
It is the same idiomatic language of geese leaving.
My heart has the same feeling, restless, yearning.
When I play a rondo, no one can hear the silence after.
I leave these early movements behind
like I must leave you.
Some things are finished when they are finished.

I thought of returning to you.
I hesitated at your window.
I knew if you saw me with that melodic look you have,
it would enrapture me.
Our bodies would become counterpoints.
But it would be fragmentary motifs. Textural nuances
of what used to be.

Our love was illicit, some say.
I say, it was melodic, rhythmic, and full of music.
Our love was repetitions of a single note.

You criticized me for my primitive sense of form
when we would lie in bed, soaked in harmonic intonations.
You were right about me as well as everything else.
I cannot help being in the soundscape of textures,
in the lightness of sound, in the last moment leaving you.
For life is opening one door and descending unknown stairs.

Would the real Chopin ever write anything like it? We do not know. That is what poetic license is for. Another poet, Roxanne Hoffman, writes in Chopin's persona to Sand. Hoffman is an experienced and widely published poet. Her poems and stories appears on and off the net, most recently in Amaze: The Cinquain Journal, Danse Macabre, The Fib Review, Lucid Rhythms, MOBIUS The Poetry Magazine, Word Slaw and two anthologies: The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology By Gang Members And Their Affiliates (Soft Skull Press), and Love After 70 (Wising Up Press). She and her husband own the small press, POETS WEAR PRADA, www.reverbnation.com/pradapoet

Taking the cue from the composer’s notebooks, Hoffman entitles her letter-poem, “G” for George and signs it “F” for Frédéric.
G

by Roxanne Hoffman

G,

I tell my piano
the things I used to tell you,
pull back its fallboard
after propping up the lid,
stroke its sturdy trusses,
hear the strings vibrate in sympathy,
undampered escapement permits,
as my fingers depress and release its keys
to unlock unsaid thoughts,
the music I dream.
The solid back frame
understands the balanced tension
of romance:
the give and the take
of the player and the played,
the rhythm of two heartbeats, even at rest,
the somber melody
of disharmony.
We of equal temperament
speak at length,
practice our arpeggios and scales,
regulate our voices,
and play Mozart in your absence.

F.

Poet's Note: Lines 1 and 2 are a quotation attributed to Chopin. Toward the end of his life he had a falling out with his long time love George Sand, they separated, and she was absent from his funeral. A final request of Chopin’s was to have Mozart’s Requiem sung in his memory. After his death, among his possessions, a lock of her hair was found in a small envelope embroidered with their initials “G.F” tucked in the back of his diary.

A different Chopin emerges as the lyrical subject and protagonist in a poem by Elizabyth Hiscox, ostensibly narrated by "3784 Chopin" a small asteroid up in the sky:

Fryderyk Speaks to George of the Sky

by Elizabyth A. Hiscox

“3784 Chopin” – small asteroid in main belt

They’ve placed me in the vault:
fashioned me
near Jupiter and Mars;
fastened me to the side of old gods.

Power and War, my love,
a chaos created by moveable giants;
an uprising of stone circling itself
all orbital resonance and constant revolution.

Crowded together like notes
written in failing health.

I miss the way the earth broke
over itself each morning:
tender eyedawn of aurorean love.
Broke all of us.

Space, its extended nocturne
is a grand room, my love.
But, as with the past, there is no sound
– only music.

Poet's Note: Italicized line is from John Keat’s “Ode to Psyche.”
George Sand was the pseudonym for Chopin’s one-time lover, Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin.
Hiscox's venture into the night skies is an imaginative way of personalizing astronomy with a musical romance. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals – most recently The Fiddlehead and Hayden’s Ferry Review. She is the author of the chapbook Inventory from a One-Hour Room (2009) from Finishing Line Press. Former poet-in-residence at Durham University U.K., she currently serves as Program Coordinator for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

She "met" with Willitts and Hoffman in Chopin with Cherries, a book that provided a meeting space for poets and music lovers. Three of the epistolary poems cited here explored the fascinating love affair of Chopin and Sand, and this will be the subject of our next exploration on this forum.

__________________________________________

PHOTO CREDITS:

Photo of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, with the pillar containing Chopin's heart on the left. (c) copyright February 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk.

Photo of Zelazowa Wola, Chopin's birthplace by Wojsyl (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo of Chopin's piano at the Chopin Museum in Warsaw, Poland. (c) copyright February 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk.

Rare Autograph Musical Quotation Signed of Frederic Chopin Op.53 Polonaise. Provenace: Private Collection. May 25, 1845. Frederic Chopin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

First known photograph of Chopin (1847) published in John O'Shea, Music and Medicine: Medical Profiles of Great Composers (London, Dent, 1990). O'Shea's source is the Fryderyk Chopin Society in Warsaw. The original is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

George Sand. Paper art decoration at the Chopin's Birthday Concert in Warsaw, Poland, Grand Theater of Opera and Ballet, March 1, 2010, (c) copyright by Maja Trochimczyk (photograph only).

Sharon Chmielarz on Chopin

2011-03-15T21:47:00.000-07:00

At the end of February, a wonderful poet Sharon Chmielarz visited Southern California for a tour of poetry readings, including appearances at Ventura, Pasadena, La Canada, and Tujunga. She read her erotic poetry in Ventura and poems inspired by the art of painter Stephen Lindsteadt, not about Chopin. Her visit created an opportunity to ask her about Chopin. Chmielarz provided the following response to my inquiry about her interest in Chopin's music:

"Strangely my interest in Chopin began with a non-interest in Chopin. I’d always wondered what the hoopla was all about. That changed one evening in Krakow when my husband and I attended an all Chopin concert. That night I heard Chopin. Oh! “An American Hears Chopin,” a poem in CHOPIN WITH CHERRIES, tries to convey the experience."

"It was my husband Tad (Tadeusz), a refugee after WWII, who introduced me to classical music. I’d skirted its edges before, but with him I listened. It was a gift he gave when he was alive and which I treasure."

"I love music, but poetry is my thing. I have two new books out, CALLING and THE SKY IS GREAT THE SKY IS BLUE. Each has a few poems about music or musicians, place/ travel, history, women. I had a chance to read from them in Ventura and Tujunga. It was a great trip, especially after months of winter in Minnesota; to California, a parallel universe of ice and snow."

One of Chmielarz's contributions to the Chopin with Cherries anthology, entitled "Chopin: Apples" was recognized by a Pushcart Prize nomination for the year 2010.

Chopin: Apples

And what country hasn’t he lived in,
his music chilling the listener’s arms?

And when haven’t his glissandos
spilled over history, the colossus

that upsets lives like apple carts?
Apples rolling over cobbles.

God-fall we think,
finding among the bruised,

a handful of sweet apples.
The easy thank you is listening

to someone playing at a window
in Warsaw, turning the rumble

of despair into a mazurka.
“Beloved little corpse,” Sand called Chopin,

sitting beside him at the keyboard.
Her “angel.” His music, his wings.

We could hear that poem during the Chopin with Cherries reading at the Chopin & Paderewski 2010 conference held at the Loyola University Chicago in November 2010. Chmielarz appeared as a member of a group of poets, with Kathabela Wilson, Katrin Talbot, George Bodmer, and others.

Sharon Chmielarz's books include Different Arrangements, But I Won’t Go Out in a Boat, The Other Mozart (made recently into a two-part opera) and The Rhubarb King. She’s had poems published in magazines like The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, The Laurel Review, The Hudson Review, Water~Stone, Great River Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Salmagundi and many others. She’s had one chapbook published, A Stranger in Her House. Two new books of poems are forthcoming from Loonfeather Press and Whistling Shade Press.

More information about her may be found on her website: www.sharonchmielarz.com

____________________________________

Group photo from Village Poets Reading at Bolton Hall Museum, Tujunga, February 27, 2011. Sharon is in a red sweater in the front row, surrounded by other poets.

Chopin for Children in Pacoima

2011-03-06T21:01:00.000-08:00

On March 4, 2011, during the national "Read Across America" celebration, Chopin with Cherries found its way to Pacoima Charter Elementary School in Pacoima, California. As a volunteer reader, I decided to introduce California children (most of whom were Latino, speaking English as a second language) to the beauty of poetry. The readings were illustrated with Chopin's music from a CD of preludes and a PowerPoint presentation with the poems and illustrations from vintage postcards published in the book.

While having a guest in the classroom is always attractive and I did several guest readings in various schools already, so I was happy to face this young audience, the Chopin material had its challenges. It was potentially too "high-brow" for children who - most likely - have never heard a piece of classical music (apart from TV commercials), nor attended a piano recital, nor read a poem.

I thought I would give them a glimpse of the role of art and music in Polish culture. What do they do in the evening? "Watch TV!" - was the unanimous answer. What could Polish people do in the 19th century, when they had no TV, no radio, no phones, and no electricity? They could listen to the piano, like the man in the postcard of an evening in a salon.

The image of an elegant musician in a long gown, playing by candle light was a good introduction to Kerri's Buckley poem, Ruby and Sapphire. Just in case, I asked if the children knew what "rubies" and "sapphires" were - most of them did not. I also brought a silk scarf to illustrate the elegance of the noble ladies listening to Chopin playing the piano in a romantic salon.

Ruby and Sapphire

by Kerri Buckley

Evening belongs to Chopin,
crimson silks and sparkling wines, trails of smoke

From balconies, stiff, rustling fabrics of
tailored suits, perfume, chocolate truffles rolled in

Waxed paper cones, shiny as diamonds, as pearls,
and the music — notes one breathes in, holds fully

So it might never
be forgotten, sound of richness, of ruby, of sapphire,

Elegant nod to all refined things,
to the ivory on a piano key, thrown from a window

Into a golden glitter of leaves by Russian soldiers

The destruction of Chopin’s piano occurred during one of the battles in the tumultuous period after the January Uprising in 1863, when Russian soldiers ravaged a Warsaw palace where the piano was housed and threw the historic instrument out of the window. This moment became a symbol of savage destruction of beauty by violence, the polar opposition of art and war. References to this symbolic brutality appear in three other poems in Chopin with Cherries: by Charles Adés Fishman, Leonard Kress, and Cyprian Kamil Norwid (in Kress's translation).

Both groups of children were responsive to the idea of music;s association with peace, beauty, and inspiration, especially that they could hear such inspired sounds right then and there. The fifth-graders also heard poems by Nils Peterson (After Listening to all the Preludes and my A Study with Cherries and the second-graders were introduced to Maxine R. Syjuco's humorous and surreal Chewing Chopin.

The centerpiece of both presentations was the poem about my village childhood, Harvesting Chopin. I thought that these first-generation Angelenos would be spending their summers abroad, with their grandparents, living ten months here and two months in a different world, different culture. A show of hands confirmed my assumption. I, too, used to spend my school years in a big city, Warsaw, and the summer vacations in two distant villages of my grandparents: Bielewicze of the Belarussian Grandma, Nina Trochimczyk, and Trzebieszow of the Polish Marianna and Stanislaw Wajszczuk.

I thought it would be interesting for the children to hear about life on a Polish farm in the 1960s and 1970s, without running water and heavy machinery to harvest the fields of rye or wheat. The harvesting technology there did not change in a thousand years, until the rise of the machines. (The illustration, "The Harvesters" by Pieter Brueghel The Eldest is from 16th century Netherlands; the harvest technology and tools were the same four hundred years later in Poland).

While describing the harvesting scene, I drew pictures of a rake and a scythe. The latter one was greeted with smiles of recognition: "That belongs to the Grim Reaper" - the children said. "Reaper" means "harvester" - I explained,finding a connection between American Halloween and Polish village customs. There is one huge difference, though, in my youth Chopin's music could be heard daily on radio broadcasts reaching the whole country. Is there any music that all of them know as well as we knew Chopin then? I did not ask that question. The answer would have been too obvious.

Harvesting Chopin

The straw was too prickly,
the sunlight too bright,
my small hands too sweaty
to hold the wooden rake
my uncle carved for me.
I cried on the field of stubble;
stems fell under his scythe.

I was four and had to work –
Grandma said – no work no food.
How cruel! I longed for
the noon’s short shadows
when I’d quench my thirst
with cold water, taste
the freshly-baked rye bread

sweetened by the strands
of music wafting from
the kitchen window.
Distant scent of mazurkas
floated above the harvesters
dressed in white, long-sleeved shirts
to honor the bread in the making

The dance of homecoming
and sorrow – that’s what
Chopin was in the golden air
above the fields of Bielewicze
where children had to earn their right
to rest in the daily dose of the piano –
too pretty, too prickly, too bright

__________________________________________

Photograph of "The Harvesters" by Pieter Breughel the Elder from Wikimedia Commons, postcards of Chopin at the piano and a romantic salon from Chopin with Cherries. Poems published in Chopin with Cherries (Moonrise Press, 2010), copyright of the authors.

The End of the Chopin Year

2011-02-06T07:43:00.000-08:00

We spent a very special year in the company of Fryderyk Chopin, his music, his thoughts, his friends and poets writing about him. In February 2010, Chopin with Cherries was officially unveiled at the Third International Chopin Congress in Warsaw. In the past, there were many studies of Polish poets associated with Chopin: friends whose poems he set to music, and those writing about him and his music after his death. The Chopin with Cherries anthology and presentations of various aspects of its contents is the first effort to gather and study English-language poetry about Chopin. Our year-long journey was filled with exciting events and publications, leading to an increased recognition of the lasting value of this collection. The next step will be issuing a version for e-book readers, but it is time to celebrate what has been accomplished so far.

The Poets

I am the most grateful to all the poets who submitted their work to this anthology and helped me find more poems to include. John Z. Guzlowski’s assistance has been invaluable in publicizing this collection through his Polish-American blogs and contacts. He also told me of Margaret C. Szumowski’s wonderful poem and connected me to Charles Fishman, who in turn sent me an inspired poem by William Pillin. Kathabela and Rick Wilson attended each of the four Chopin with Cherries group readings, in Pasadena, Los Angeles, Venice, and Chicago. At Venice and in Chicago, Rick played Chopin on historical flutes from his collection. They also hosted a Chopin Salon in Pasadena, helping local poets connect to Chopin's music. Dr. Mira Mataric has faithfully participated in all California readings and is working on Serbian translations of selected poems.

A sincere thank-you to all the poets featured in Chopin with Cherries: Millicent Borges Accardi, Austin Alexis, Lucy Anderton, Sheila Black, George Bodmer, Lia Brooks, Kerri Buckley, Allison Campbell, Peggy Castro, Sharon Chmielarz, Victor Contoski, Clark Crouch, Beata Pozniak Daniels, Jessica Day, Diane Shipley DeCillis, Lori Desrosiers, Charlie Durrant, T. S. Eliot, David Ellis, Donna L. Emerson, Charles Ades Fishman, Jennifer S. Flescher, Gretchen Fletcher, Linda Nemec Foster, Emily Fragos, Jarek Gajewski, Helen Graziano, John Z. Guzlowski, Lola Haskins, Shayla Hawkins, Elizabyth A. Hiscox, Marlene Hitt, Roxanne Hoffman, Laura L. Mays Hoopes, Ben Humphrey, Carol J. Jennings, Charlotte Jones, Lois P. Jones, Georgia Jones-Davis, Christine Klocek-Lim, Jean L. Kreiling, Leonard Kress, Emma Lazarus, Marie Lecrivain, Jeffrey Levine, Amy Lowell, R. Romea Luminarias, Rick Lupert, Radomir V. Luza, Mira N. Mataric, Ryan McLellan, Anna Maria Mickiewicz, Elisabeth Murawski, Ruth Nolan, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Rosemary O'Hara, Dean Pasch, Nils Peterson, Richard Pflum, William Pillin, Kenneth Pobo, Carrie A. Purcell, Marilyn N. Robertson, Susan Rogers, Alison Ross, Mary Rudge, Russell Salamon, Gabriel Shanks, Marian Kaplun Shapiro, Joseph Somoza, Lusia Slomkowska, Kathi Stafford, Maxine R. Syjuco, Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Margaret C. Szumowski, Katrin Talbot, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, Thom Tammaro, Mark Tardi, Cheryl M. Thatt, Tammy L. Tillotson, Helen Vandepeer, Devi Walders, Erika Wilk, Martin Willitts, Jr., Kath Abela Wilson, Leonore Wilson, Meg Withers, Anne Harding Woodworth, and Marianne Worthington.

Three poets have responded to my requests for personal comments about Chopin’s music and their inspirations: Mark Tardi, Tammy L. Tillotson, and Ben Humphrey. It would be nice to hear from more poets…

____________________________________________

Pushcart Prize Nominations

As the editor of the collection, I took the liberty of nominating some of my favorite poems to the 2010 Pushcart Prize for Poetry. It was a very hard choice since I love all the poems in this anthology. I picked those who could “use” a nomination, so to speak… The Pushcart Prize and publication in the annual collection of the best poetry published by small presses and literary journals nationwide has become one of the most prestigious honors in the poetry field. The nominations are made by editors and publishers who select the best of the best from amongst the work that they have published during the past year. We are proud to present the following Pushcart Prize 2010 nominees:

Lia Brooks for "During Nocturne"
Elizabeth Murawski for "Polonaise"
Diane Shipley DeCillis for "Postcards of Home and Homesick"
Sharon Chmielarz for "Chopin: Apples"
Katrin Talbot for "It's been a tough symphony week," and
Leonard Kress for "The Piano of Chopin," a translation of Cyprian Kamil Norwid's poem "Fortepian Szopena"

Congratulations to all the poets! It would not be amiss to mention here that some of our poets have received other nominations and prizes. Elizabeth Murawski won the prestigious 2010 May Swenson Award (read her blog entry) Lois P. Jones and Millicent Borges Accardi were nominated for Pushcart Prizes by other small-presses.

_____________________________________

Reviews

CHRISTOPHER WOODS: “For those who have been moved by the music of Fryderyk Chopin, this new international anthology will be a treat… one breathtaking aspect of the anthology is the diversity of voices, both stylistically and geographically. .. One of the striking aspects of the anthology is the way in which the editor, Polish born Maja Trochimczyk, arranges the various sections, not only by musical forms, but also into sections like beauty and death, words that often come to mind when considering Chopin’s life, his passions and his early demise.” Christopher Woods in Contemporary World Literature 5 (Feburary 2011).

ELIZABETH KANSKI: "In Poland, June is the month for Bing cherries (czeresnie) and July for sour cherries (wisnie), but it is Chopin season year-round, especially in 2010, the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great composer. Maja Trochimczyk, Polish American music historian, poet and photographer, decided to celebrate Chopin's birthday in an unconventional manner: with 123 poems by 92 poets, gathered together into a handsomely produced and exciting new anthology." Elizabeth Kanski in the Polish American Journal, September 2010, p. 21.

ALISON ROSS: "What is most striking about this verse tribute is how deftly the editor weaves together the various themes, treatments and styles within the volume, meticulously detailed in the introduction and then presented format-wise in the book... All in all, I am immensely pleased with how this anthology turned out. In fact, it exceeded my expectations, because it is so comprehensive and cohesive. The poems are fascinatingly diverse in voice, topic, content, and style, and the poems reveal such richly individualistic interpretations of Chopin's powerful pathos. . . "Chopin with Cherries" is an anthology to treasure as intimately as one might cherish Chopin's compositions. Alison Ross, in the Clockwise Cat, May 2010

JOHN Z. GUZLOWSKI: "Maja Trochimczyk's Chopin with Cherries... is a masterful celebration of this composer and the complex range of emotions, impressions, memories, and dreams his music evokes... Finally, let me say that I cannot remember reading an anthology of poems centered around a single-theme that I liked more. The poems Maja Trochimczyk has gathered together to commemorate Chopin's 200th birthday are inspiring and exhilarating, as I have already noted, and - I don't know how else to say this - fun to read." John Z. Guzlowski in The Cosmopolitan Review 2 no. 1 (Spring 2010).

_________________________________________

Poetry Readings and Conferences

Annual Meeting of the Polish-American Historical Association, Boston, Mass., January 8, 2011. Maja Trochimczyk’s paper "The Image of Chopin's Death in Art and Poetry".

Semi-Annual Conference of the Polish American Historical Association, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, June 26, 2010. Maja Trochimczyk’s paper "Chopin in Polish-American Poetry: Lost Country, Found Beauty." Publication forthcoming in the Polish American Studies.

Chopin with Cherries IV - Anthology Reading at Loyola University Chicago, part of Chopin & Paderewski 2010 Conference, November 13, 2010.

With poets: Sharon Chmielarz, Gretchen Fletcher, George Bodmer, Ben Humphrey, Katrin Talbot and Maja Trochimczyk. The photographs from the event are posted in a Picasa Web Album.

Chopin Lecture, Recital and Poetry Reading at Polish Fest LA, Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, September 25, 2010, at 1 p.m. - featuring poets Maja Trochimczyk, Mira N. Mataric, Susan Rogers, and Lois P. Jones. www.polishfestla.com

Chopin with Cherries III - Anthology Reading at Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA, September 12, 2010 at 3 p.m.

With Maja Trochimczyk, anthology editor, Rick Wilson, flute (historical crystal glass and ivory flutes) and sixteen poets, appearing in person: Marlene Hitt, Georgia Jones-Davis, Lois P. Jones, Marie Lecrivain, R. Romea Luminarias, Radomir Vojtech Luza, Rick Lupert, Mira Matric, Ruth Nolan, Marilyn Robertson, Susan Rogers, Kathi Stafford, Taoli Ambika Talwar, Maja Trochimczyk, Kathabela Wilson, and Erika Wilk. A full program with the list of poems and the poets' biographies was included in this blog: Chopin at Beyond Baroque and photos are on Chopin III Picasa Web Album.

Chopin with Cherries II: An Evening of Poetry and Music. Ruskin Art Club, Los Angeles, CA, Saturday, May 8, 2010, 7 p.m. Chopin recital by eminent Polish pianist Dr. Wojciech Kocyan with readings by poets from around the country.

The poetry reading and concert by pianist Wojciech Kocyan was hosted by Maja Trochimczyk, editor and featured 14 poets: Gretchen Fletcher, Millicent Borges Accardi, Georgia Jones-Davis, Donna Emerson, Erika Wilk, Laura Mays Hoopes, Mira Mataric, Maja Trochimczyk, Kath Abela Wilson, Kathi Stafford, Marian Kaplun Shapiro, Beata Pozniak Daniels, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, and Susan Rogers. The festivities ended with a polonaise to Chopin's music, led by Edward Hoffman, choreographer of the Krakusy Polish Folk Dance Ensemble. See photos at Picasa Chopin II Photo Album and the PDF flyer with more information: Chopin at the Ruskin.

Chopin with Cherries I: An Evening of Poetry and Music. South Pasadena Library Auditorium, 1115 El Centro St., South' Pasadena, CA, 91030; Sunday, April 11, 2010, 6 p.m.

Reading by 20 poets with Chopin's music played by American pianist, Dr. Neal Galanter and by students of Prof. Roza Yoder from Azusa Pacific University. pianists Kristi Chiou, Stacy Chiou, and Anna Nizghorodtseva, Dr. Neil Galanter and Sue Zhou, poets Mira N. Mataric, Erika Wilk, Lois P. Jones, Kathabela Wilson, Marilyn N. Robertson, Rick Lupert, and Radomir Luza poet Russell Salamon,. Maja Trochimczyk, Susan Rogers, artist Monique Lehman, Peggy Castro. Photo album from this event is at Chopin I: Picasa Web Album.

Concert of Romantic Music, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA, Tuesday, Feburary 16, 2010, 7:30p.m. With Roza Yoder, Director. Piano music performed by APU students. Readings from Chopin with Cherries by Maja Trochimczyk and local poets. Erika Wilk, Mira Mataric, Susan Rogers, Taoli-Ambika Talwar and Maja Trochimczyk

Bicentennial Chopin Celebration, Colburn School of Music, Los Angeles, CA, Saturday, February 27, 2010, 8 p.m. With eminent pianists John Perry, Wojciech Kocyan and actress Jane Kaczmarek reading poems from Chopin with Cherries. Presented by the Paderewski Music Society and Helena Modjeska Polish Arts and Culture Club. All proceeds will be used to support the first International Paderewski Piano Competition in California, May 2010.

3rd International Chopin Congress, Warsaw, Poland, February 25 - March 1, 2010. Congress organized by Fryderyk Chopin Institute and the University of Warsaw.

The official presentation of the book during Maja Trochimczyk's paper "From 'Eternal Eloquence' to 'What Does he Know' - Images of Chopin in English-language Poetry." University of Warsaw Old Library, Warszawa, ul. Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28, Poland. See pictures in the Chopin Congress Photo Album.

Chopin Salon for Poets on Site – Pasadena, August 1, 2009. Maja Trochimczyk’s presentation at Kathabela and Rick Wilson’s Poetry Salon for poets and friends of poets interested in Chopin’s image and place in Polish history, including reading of several poems from the first round of submissions.

67th Annual Meeting of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, Jersey City, New Jersey, June 2009. Maja Trochimczyk’s paper "From 'Eternal Eloquence' to 'What Does He Know?' - Images of Chopin in English-language Poetry."

_______________________________________

Poetry Reprints

Poems from the Chopin with Cherries anthology were reprinted in this blog, but also in other venues:

Wyspa Kwartalnik Literacki, A Polish literary quarterly (December 2010) featured a translation of "Rubies and Sapphires" by Kerri Buckley, by a Polish poet, Mira Kus ("Rubiny i szafiry").

The Cosmopolitan Review (February 2010) featured a selection of poems from the book, i.e., works by: Kerri Buckley, Ryan McLellan, Rick Lupert, Elizabeth Murawski, Ruth Nolan, William Pillin, Katrin Talbot, and Maja Trochimczyk.

_____________________________________

... and our Readers

Gifts of Chopin with Cherries were received by, among others:

Lech Walesa, Polish politician, former Solidarity leader and winner of Nobel Peace Prize, got his copy of Chopin with Cherries on December 17, 2010; with a photo to prove it.

Jane Kaczmarek, Polish-American actress who read a selection of poems at Chopin Bicentennial Celebration in February 2010 received her copy during the First International Paderewski Competition in Los Angeles, June 2010.

The Polish Museum of America, a gift accepted by Ms. Malgorzata Kot, Librarian, during the Loyola University Chicago Chopin & Paderewski Conference in November 2010.

Chopin in Colorado with Ben Humphrey

2011-01-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

The last 2010 group reading from the Chopin with Cherries anthology took place at the November 2010 Chopin & Paderewski Conference at the Loyola University Chicago.

A lively and lovely group of poets gathered, including guests from Chicago who listened to visiting poets from around the country. George Bodmer, Sharon Chmielarz, Ben Humphrey, Gretchen Fletcher, Katrin Talbot, Maja Trochimczyk, Kathabela and Rick Wilson were there in person, sharing the poems by others.

Photos from the event may be seen at the Loyola University Chopin Album, and, to those who are friends of Kathabela, on her Facebook page, but a more substantial review still waits for its completion.

Each of the poets presented their work in a different way. Colorado-based Ben Humphrey decided to write out little introductions to his two poems and allowed me to reprint them, along with his poems.

______________________________________

Ben Humphrey - Introductions and Poems

Introduction to An Invitation in D-flat Major

When I go to a reading, I like to know a little about the poet and how a poem came to be written, so I’ll trouble you with a few comments about my own work.

I live at 9,300 ft in the Rockies. I’m six miles from a paved road, so it’s quiet, and except when I’m listening to music, there is only the sound of the weather or “the sound of silence.”

I’m never annoyed by the weather. I have a dog; she always has her coat. So we go for walks whatever nature has to offer. Rain, snow, sleet and hail are a blessing; we need water for the trees and wild flowers.

I like to watch the snow fall and my dog loves to romp in snow drifts. One day in watching the swirling snow, the idea of the wind whistling a waltz can to mind and that lead to Chopin’s Minute Waltz.

An Invitation in D-flat Major

Snowfall over, sun’s out,
wind whistles a Waltz,
refracting flakes whirl in triple time.

My focus limited
to page, paragraph.
Sun warms my cabin’s roof.

A crescendo of clattering slabs
Awakens me from my book
calls me – to take a Minute for the dance.

* * * * * * * * * *

Introduction to: A Pastoral Piece in D-flat Major

It’s quiet where I live, and I enjoy the sound of the weather, rain, wind, sleet or hail. Poor Chopin, his vacation in Majorca was ruined by rain.

One morning, I was enjoying the sound of rain against my windows. I started to write a poem, cited the repetitious notes and then Chopin’s: The Raindrop Prelude, came to mind.

I reworked the poem and included as many musical terms as possible: motif, pianissimo, figures, grace notes, theme and cadence.
Finally it occurred to me, if the solo piano can take center stage, so can the weather.

A Pastoral Piece in D-flat Major

Gently beating on a window pane,
a rain storm’s motif
usually a patter, pianissimo
like repetitious figures of a Chopin prelude.

There are grace notes in raindrops,
a passing pastoral theme and a final
closed cadence. An atmospheric disturbance
has occupied center stage.

________________________________

NOTE: Photos from the Loyola University Chicago Conference include all poets present in person with musician Rick Wilson. L to R: Rick Wilson, Sharon Chmielarz, Kathabela Wilson, Gretchen Fletcher, Maja Trochimczyk, Katrin Talbot, George Bodmer, and Ben Humphrey. The second photo depicts Ben Humphrey in conversation with Gretchen Fletcher. Ben provided the following biographic note for the book:

"In his somewhat wasted youth, G. BENNETT HUMPHREY received a MD and PhD from the University of Chicago, a disfiguring experience that turned his head into an egg. In his not so wasted youth, Ben studied piano, trumpet and later the banjo. Music was and still is an escape into solitude. Ben is pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this tribute to Chopin. He has been a guest on several occasions in Poland and wishes to express his gratitude for the hospitality that was extended to him by the Polish people. A retired Professor of Pediatric Oncology, Ben has been writing poetry since 2005. His poems have been published in American and British Journals and anthologies. He is an active member of Poetry West and serves on its Board of Directors."

______________________________________

Happy New Year 2011!

2011-01-03T01:33:00.000-08:00

Our Chopin adventure is coming to a close, with the festivities of the Chopin Year largely completed. In January 2011 at the Polish American Historical Association's Annual Meeting held in Boston, Mass., I will read a paper based, in part, on poetry and illustrations from Chopin with Cherries. The topic will be more sombre than other ones: the association of Chopin and his music with morbidity and death in popular culture and poetry. The vintage, turn-of-the-century postcards, like the one reproduced below will provide some of the most radical and kitchy illustrations of the fin-de-siecle spiritual malaise.

A report from this event will have to wait, as I have not even written about our fantastic group reading at the Chopin & Paderewski 2010 Conference at Loyola University Chicago back in mid-November 2010. In the backlog, we also have a guest blog by Ben Humphrey who wrote introductions to both of his poems presented at the conference.

The new year will bring new amusements and divertisements... I hope it will be healthy and happy for everyone. Among hundreds of wishes in my inbox this year (Christmas, Holiday, Birthday and New Year's Wishes), the following one in Serbian from Mira Mataric, a wonderful Serbian-American poet:

Živeli zdravo, radosno, radoznalo, raskošno, razumno i razborito, povremeno se okliznite u avanturu i ne zažalite za onim što odlazi!

I do not know exactly what it means, but it certainly looks good! I also liked very much the anumated wishes from two Polish friends, "Happy New Year Everybody" from Krysia Kaszubowska and "Happy New Year" from Eva Matysek Mazur. It seems that paper cards have been replaced with lovely animated ones these days, just as books are slowly giving way to electronic "reads" on things like I-Pads, Kimbles and other electronic book readers. I like cleaning the frost flowers off the electronic window to see the village covered in snow outside - just like the villages and the frozen flowers of my (and Chopin's) Polish childhood. The flat fields covered in a white blanket, snowflakes swirling in moonlight, the allure of warmth inside the homes, lights shining from their windows into the cold darkness around... Feeling nostalgic for real winter yet? I must admit I like electronic snow much more than the real one, and that's why I live in Southern California...

At a recent Haiku Party of the Southern California Haiku Study Group, chaired by Debbie Kolodji at the welcoming home of Wendy and Tom Garen, I read two new haiku celebrating the change of the year, from the tumultuous Year of the Tiger to the placid Year of the Rabbit. These are my first poems of the year, expressing the hope for a serene and content future, or, at least, some rest. The first one got accidentally printed on four lines. The white rabbit is the one from Monty Python, of course. Enjoy! Even without Chopin or cherries...

Happy New Year! Dosiego Roku!

Christmas and New Year's Wishes

2010-12-24T16:39:00.000-08:00

Everyone loves "Chopin with Cherries" - even Lech Walesa! He came to California for a brief, unofficial visit, on behalf of his foundation, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Solidarity movement. There were lectures and receptions and an opportunity to present him with a copy of our anthology, inscribed "to a wonderful hero of our times." If he does not lose it on the way, scholars of political history will find the book in his library and wonder how on earth did it get there...

__________________________

For the holiday season, I was asked to write something "Christmasy" for the party of Little Landers Historical Society at Bolton Hall in Tujunga. I thought that a recent poem for a married couple celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary would fit it quite well, if there was a carol in the text. I chose to quote a carol that remains one of the most beloved Polish carols, cited by Fryderyk Chopin in his Scherzo in B-minor, op. 20.

Married Christmas

May your path be smooth,
and your sunlight mellow
~ an old blessing

He said
“You are the apple of my eye”
She said
“Let us have tea for two”

Steam rises from bronze liquid
freshly-baked szarlotka waits its turn
scent of cinnamon sweetens the air
the music box plays an ancient carol

Lulajże, Jezuniu, moja perełko,
Lulaj ulubione me pieścidełko

She does not have to finish –
one glance and he knows
after thirty-five years together
faithful like cranes on a Chinese etching

Their looking glass is hidden away
in a box of treasures they don’t need
to find blessings
among daily crumbs of affection

The carol's text incipit means: “Hush, hush, Baby Jesus, my little pearl, my lovely little darling…” – This ancient Polish carol is a simple lullaby, filled with tender love for the infant, held in the arms of his gentle mother. There are many lullabies among Polish carols; the focus of Polish Christmas is on the baby and his mother, on the familial love that binds them. The Lulajże Jezuniu carol is sung throughout the Christmas holiday season, from Christmas Eve to February 2nd, the Candlemas.

Last year, I was traveling close to Christmas, and the empty airports were full of fake cheer, recorded Christmas carols blaring from the loudspeakers and tinsel with childish decorations everywhere. The poem I wrote about that is similar in tone to the "Married Christmas" - extolling the virtue of the subtle affection, gentle understanding of a shared life, the true family virtue...

Rules for Happy Holy Days

Don’t play Christmas carols
at the airport. Amidst the roar
of jet engines, they will spread
a blanket of loneliness
over the weary, huddled masses,
trying not to cry out for home.

Don’t put Christmas light on a poplar.
With branches swathed in white
galaxies, under yellow leaves, the tree
will become foreign, like the skeleton
of an electric fish, deep in the ocean.

Clean the windows from the ashes
of last year’s fires. Glue the wings
of a torn paper angel. Brighten
your home with the fresh scent
of pine needles and rosemary.

Take a break from chopping almonds
to brush the cheek of your beloved
with the back of your hand,
just once, gently. Smile and say:
“You look so nice, dear,
you look so nice.”

This is the poetry of a moment in the kitchen, home cooking meals of the season and sharing a togetherness and affection that is quite beyond words, yet forms the very fabric of life.

Thanks to all poets and friends who have shared our Chopin with Cherries journey through the Chopin year. Happy New Year with Chopin, Music and Poetry!

Tammy Tillotson on Chopin and Cherries

2010-12-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

Time to return to Chopin with Cherries, the fruit of the season! After Mark Tardi's responses to my four questions back in October, we had a hiatus of two months, but finally have a contribution from another poet featured in the anthology, Tammy L. Tillotson.

Her poetry has appeared in Sweetbay Review 2008 and won an honorable mention in the Writer’s Eye 2008 and the 2009 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. She is the editor of the Writers Studio Young Authors Anthology, entitled Bull Bay Review. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Old Dominion University and her Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Hollins University.

Ms. Tillotson contributed three epistolary poems to Chopin with Cherries. These letters are ostensibly written by three different people, protagonists in Chopin's personal drama concerning his failed marriage plans to Maria Wodzińska. His personal documents contain a packet of letters to/from Maria Wodzińska, marked "moja bieda" ("my sorrow") - it was one of his great personal tragedies and Ms. Tillotson dramatizes it in her three poems:

A Letter from Countess Wodzińska to her Daughter Maria, Winter, 1835
A Letter from Maria Wodzińska to F. Chopin, September, 1836
A Letter from Fryderyk Chopin to Himself, September, 1836

INTERVIEW WITH TAMMY L. TILLOTSON

[Maja Trochimczyk]: What is your earliest or most intense memory associated with Chopin's music?

Tammy L. Tillotson: My earliest memory associated with Chopin’s music is connected to my suffering through piano lessons as a child. Since my mother wanted my sisters and I to learn to play an instrument, she arranged for a private teacher, who was also a family friend, to come to our house and teach my sisters and I one afternoon a week. My turn was always last as I was never very good and I dreaded the lesson, especially because it took me away from whatever book I would rather have been reading that afternoon.

Before my lesson would begin, the teacher would sometimes take a moment to play something himself. At first, I thought he did so because I was a difficult student and it helped him be more tolerant of my not-so-gentle touch. He was very patient with me, even while his ears were cringing and his bushy eyebrows were wrinkling up. He repeatedly, yet very kindly, often admonished, “Tammy, you must practice, practice, practice, and then, one day, you will play like this...” He would close his eyes and his fingers would dance across the keys, transporting him somewhere else entirely. Once, he stopped playing abruptly and I saw there were tears glistening in his eyes. In awe, I clapped and asked what he had just played. He answered, “Chopin.” Then he quickly closed the lid over the keys and announced, “Today’s lesson is over.”

MT: Why do you like Chopin's music and what does it mean to you?

TLT: It was during those brief moments of listening to my piano teacher play, that I felt, in his own way, he understood me. I felt the piano, for him, was like what writing and escaping into a book was for me.

I was some years older when I learned my piano teacher was of German/Polish descent. His closest relatives had been killed during the Holocaust, and he alone had survived because somehow he had been sent to another town a day ahead of his relatives. His wife once told me how he came from a family that had been very talented musically and how, when they were courting, he used to play Chopin, Bach, and countless others for her. She loved to hear him play though she thought he didn’t play as often anymore because the songs made him so very sad.

Because of these early experiences, I saw how people sacrifice a piece of themselves for beauty, art, and music to exist in the world...I suppose this is more vital to our making sense in a nonsensical world than we will ever truly realize or appreciate.

MT: What is your favorite piece by Chopin and what do you like about it?

TLT: “Romance-Largetto” – the inclusion of this particular Chopin piece is still what I love the absolute most about “The Truman Show.”

MT: Do you like cherries, if not what is your favorite fruit?

TLT: While I like cherries, they will never be my favorite fruit. If I am completely honest, this is partly because both my older sister and my younger sister can tie a cherry stem in a knot with their tongues. I am still a bit jealous, but I can humbly admit that it is not due to lack of effort on my part. Yet, I could always hull strawberries twice as fast as they could and especially in the summer, they still prefer to come to my house for daiquiris. I’d have to choose strawberries any day of the week over cherries!

MT: What are your current poetry projects?

TLT: Since Chopin with Cherries, I continue to write in-between keeping up with a busy three-year-old and a strong-willed kindergartener who remains convinced it is infinitely better to stay home with his brother than go to school!

Most recently, I’ve had poems included in Volume 26 of The Poet’s Domain and Sweetbay Review 2010. Several others are forthcoming. “Scare Crow” will appear January 1, 2011 in Beltway Poetry Quarterly’s special theme issue celebrating the legacy of Langston Hughes. “Overlooking the Blue Ridge Parkway” will appear in The University of Nebraska Gender Programs / Women's Center Becoming anthology. Also, a short poem and nonfiction memoir will be included in the Silver Boomer Books Flashlight Memories anthology.

MT: Now, that's a lot of work! You are one busy poet! You mentioned your sons, I'm just curious, do they like cherries? What is their favorite fruit?

TLT: Both my boys love blueberries and one of their favorite books is Blueberries for Sal. This summer I took them blueberry picking for the first time and pretty much they just sat down and ate berries! They were both a bit disappointed we didn't see any bears, though my youngest laughed and laughed, "Mommy, me full up with berries for the winter!" I owe Robert McCloskey the biggest bear hug ever.

MT: That's a lovely story and congratulations, again. This time, for being a wonderful mother. The portrait with blueberries is very cute. In time, someone will play Chopin to your sons, too...

Górecki, Chopin, and the Mountains

2010-11-28T08:26:00.000-08:00

In the summer of 1997, I traveled to the mountain town of Zakopane, in Podhale (the Foothills) area of Tatra Mountains, to persuade Henryk Mikolaj Górecki to come to Los Angeles for a residency at the University of Southern California, called the Górecki Autumn. He conducted his Third Symphony, in a historical, legendary performance that lasted good 10 minutes longer than any other. . . I was his personal translator and accompanied him everywhere, like a substitute daughter (my middle name is hers, Ania).

We talked a lot (a short interview appeared in the Musical Quarterly in 1998), but for an in-depth musical conversation I had to go back to Poland. In April 1998, we shared a plate of his wife's beet soup, and hours of conversations about music. He played for me Chopin's Mazurka in A-minor op. 17 no. 4, his favorite one. He talked about musicological discoveries that excited him, though soon faded into obscurity in the academic world of changing theories and fashions. Here is a fragment of that interview I translated and published in 2003.

"Composing is a Terribly Personal Matter": Henryk Mikołaj Górecki in Conversation with Maja Trochimczyk (Katowice, April 1998), fragment of an interview by Maja Trochimczyk [1]

Maja Trochimczyk: Thank you for agreeing to talk to me today. I have a lot of questions to ask. Where shall we start?

Henryk Górecki: I would like to share with you my excitement about a true musical revolution. Grzegorz Michalski first told me about this discovery which was announced during a small musicology session in Warsaw. During the session, Jan Węcowski - I'm sure you know him - revealed a bit about the mystery that he is working on.[2] In his study he proves that Chopin used Polish religious church songs in his works. I called him up and talked to him on the phone. He confirmed that - and I quote - "Chopin arranges old Polish church songs." But this has never been mentioned before! Never, in no books! Of course, we know about his use of the Christmas carol, "Lulajże Jezuniu," but this is just the beginning. I have never seen anything like it and I have seen a lot of research on Chopin; I have a lot of books. Nobody mentions it. But if this is true, and it has to be true, because Węcowski is a serious fellow and knows what he's doing - then we have a true Chopin revolution.

Węcowski told me: "Do you know what a tragic character Chopin really was?" Of course, we know all the cliches, all the banalities about the revolutionary etude, the struggle, the uprising, the bayonets. . . This is a 90 percent martial matter. We have attached this image of a revolutionary patriot to Chopin. At the same time we have this image of Chopin as a "ladies' man" who sits at his instrument and reflects about the lost Poland and does nothing really. All these obertas, kujawiaks, are nice, but nothing more than nice. But if you could prove that he actually used church songs, that have texts that mean something, not only the folk mazurkas, but also the expressions of folk spirituality, then we see how Chopin returned to the foundations, to the roots from which all the music grows.

Similarly you have Szymanowski using the material from Skierkowski's collection.[3] You know, if it weren't for Skierkowski, if it weren't for the Kurpian music, this Szymanowski would be very poor. In the end he found the material that he had been searching for. And Skierkowski helped him a lot with that. He went beyond górale music which is somewhat one-dimensional. It is rich, do not misunderstand me, but it is one-dimensional. One or two melodies suffice to give the whole technical image of this music. In contrast, Kurpian music is built from melodies, melo-structures based on intervals. It is much more complicated and it is certainly not accidental that Szymanowski turned his ear, so to speak, towards this region.

But we have to know that church songs are 90 percent folk songs. These are folk songs that were created over centuries: at first there were old plainchant melodies, already adjusted to the needs of the people. The pastor sang his music and the people listening to him transformed the music in their way. They wrote new texts, etc. It is also interesting that Węcowski is going to publish a Dictionary of Polish Church Songs simultaneously with his study on Chopin. Most probably a lot of these songs were already forgotten. Therefore, for me it is completely different. Or, not completely different. It is the Chopin revolution.

MT: How so? Why is it so important?

HMG: It is a revolution because the whole mystery of Chopin's craftmanship, of Chopin's music - of this amazing genius is - now explained. You know that geniuses do not fall from the sky. The fact that you have hearing, that you have memory is good, but it is not enough. . . Something else is needed for me to be "myself."

MT: Personality?

HMG: Yes, Chopin - who learned how to move his fingers quickly over the keyboard - had a good memory: he knew almost all music, he was sensitive, attentive, erudite, but that was not all, that was not enough. He knew all the piano literature, but in order to be "Chopin" he had to do something special within himself, inside himself. These sounds were in his mind; one person would say that they were in his heart, someone else that they were in his head. Composers are like that. Somewhere within us the music sounds, we are surrounded by these sounds. But what would one do with all that music? This is an incredible truth, an incredible discovery. It is clear that it was filtered through his education, his knowledge but that there was the source for his melodies. There is no other melody like Chopin's.

MT: It is often said that Chopin's melody is derived from the opera, especially from Bellini.

HMG: But it has nothing to do with Bellini! Look: Chopin's harmony naturally develops from his melodies. Just look how different he is from his contemporaries: Hummel, Spohr, Field. There are lots of them, but he is different. But he did not fall down from heaven here, he did not come out of nowhere. He knew the music literature. He had to know it. He collected all these new things and distilled them into his harmonic language. Bach also collected and distilled the religious music of his time. Chopin alone collected Polish songs. After Chopin it was all over. After Chopin one could not go further along the same path, because he did it with such genius. There were many other composers in his time: Kalkbrenner, Field... Hummel will remain Hummel, Bellini will remain Bellini. . .

But Chopin's music was not about Bellini! This is a half-truth that someone heard somewhere and which keeps recurring. But they do not repeat that Chopin played and remembered Bach's fugues and preludes until the end of his life. Nobody talks about the fact that once, after a concert he gave his favorite student the score of Beethoven's Fidelio, not Bellini. He bought this score for his student, so, he knew what Fidelio was. He also knew what Bach's fugues were.

Now, consider this: Bach's head was also filled with his Protestant chorales and with his own church songs. You can see it everywhere, every note of Bach's music stems from this source, not from the music of other composers that surrounded him. And now let us look at Chopin: It is truly amazing to discovered that he did the same thing as Bach, that he turned to his own religious folk songs for sources of material, for inspiration. I am very grateful to Jan Węcowski for his work on Chopin's use of Polish church songs. I regard musicological studies of this kind highly, studies that I can take and use, studies that teach me something.

_______________________

NOTES TO THE INTERVIEW:

[1]. The interview recorded on two 90-minute cassette tapes in late April 1998 in Gorecki's studio in Katowice, Poland. It was transcribed by Adrianna Lis and Blanka Sobuś, translated by Maja Trochimczyk and published online as "Composing is a Terribly Personal Matter:" Henryk Mikołaj Górecki in Conversation with Maja Trochimczyk (Katowice, April 1998) in the last issue of the Polish Music Journal, vol. 6 no. 2.

[2]. Jan Węcowski's article, "Religious Folklore in Chopin's Music," was published in Polish Music Journal vol. 2, nos. 1-2 (1999), online.

[3]. Władysław Skierkowski, Puszcza Kurpiowska w pieśni [Songs from the Kurpie Forest], 2 vols. (Płock: Wyd. Tow. Naukowego Płockiego, 1928-1934).

_______________________________

In the light of a recent fashion to bring Chopin's music entirely to the level of its relationship to the Italian opera of the early 19th century, Górecki's comments are fascinating. The interview continues, moving on to ancient religious anthems (Bogurodzica), the golden section, and the topic of motherhood and mothers, prominent in the Third Symphony. Since I dedicated to this topic a whole article, Mater Dolorosa and Maternal Love in Górecki's Music, I see no reason to further discuss it here.

In the interview, Gorecki described his own approach to composing. He spent hours and years crafting pieces with deep connections to the history and spiritual roots of Polish music. When Kronos commissioned the Third String Quartet, the work materialized 12 years later. He could have written 20 quartets in this time, but he worked on one, the right one - a piece of music in which every note is in its place, every chord belongs. There are no random fillers, materials "just so" - everything has its meaning and its function in the overall design. It may be deceptively simple, but being crafted so well, it will survive centuries.

The news of Górecki's death on November 12, 2010 was announced at the Chopin & Paderewski 2010 conference at Loyola University Chicago. It interrupted our proceedings (see event photographs onPicasa Web Albums). It made us pause and reflect on greatness. In an impromptu commemoration, I spoke about being his guide and translator on his tour of Los Angeles, of the visit to my small home, to the San Gabriel Mountains. I mentioned his lesson for students: "do everything right, one think at a time, if you eat, eat, if you make music, do so with a passion..." Górecki hated multitasking, he said: "do not do two things at once. It is better not to do it at all, because when your attention is divided you are doing both things badly..." This is a Zen maxim, almost, I thought later: "eat, when hungry, sleep, when tired..."

_________________________________

I thought of no better way of honoring the great composer after his death than by writing him an elegy. After posting it on Facebook, I read it at a workshop of Westside Women Writers. Millicent Borges Accardi, Jean Paik Schoenberg, Kathi Stafford, Susan Rogers, and Georgia Jones-Davis mostly liked it. Susan said, "A very beautiful poem. You have honored your teacher well. Your poetry is the fruit of your harvest, the glimpses of grace and the light which glimmers on the horizon and follows us out." She talked about waves of crescendo, the musical flow of ideas. Others focused on the turning point, one line announcing his greatness: "How do I know? He taught me..."

Millicent brought her recording of the Third Symphony; the rich harmonies filled the air, brightened by golden afternoon sunlight, while we read our poems. Moved by the beauty of the moment, I realized I needed to change the poem a bit. My friends' reactions showed that they simply do not know as much about Górecki or his music as I do. So I added some details. Here it is. The original version appears in the December issue of "The Voice of the Village" - a local newspaper in Sunland. As Poet Laureate of my community, I shared the news of Górecki's passing in our Californian foothills.

_______________________________________

Mountains of Grief

"Euntes ibant et flebant..."
(Psalm 126:6, The Vulgate), for Henryk Mikołaj Górecki in memoriam

“Mom, don’t cry – Mamo, nie płacz –“
the soprano soars above
lush chords of the orchestra

Sorrow, endless sorrow

He grew up bitter,
alone at the keyboard,
waves of sound crashing all around him

His Mama, smothered with a pillow
on her hospital bed,
an orphaned child, sickly

With a leg damaged by illness,
limping gait – a great man comes,
truly great

How do I know? He taught me –

To do everything well,
with my whole heart, whole being,
dance despair into frenzy,
relish that last plate of barszcz

Laugh loudly, play the second fiddle
in góralska muzyka,
find Chopin's mazurka under my fingers

Look beyond the edge of grief,
toward the mountains,
shrouded by the clouds of unknowing

Sing lullabies of consolation,
weave music from strands of pain,
sudden glimpses of grace

Seek safety
in the cocoon of timelessness,
under gold stars on the blue cloak
of Mother Mary –
sixteen portraits on one wall
of his studio in Katowice

Give of myself fully –
an offering of daily bread,
beg for crumbs of mercy,
morsels of blessings

Carry the cross, my cross

Walk towards the glimmer of light
on the horizon,
bearing the fruit of my harvest

(C) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

____________________________

NOTES TO THE POEM:

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010), Polish composer of: Piano Sonata op. 1 (1956), Euntes Ibant et Flebant op. 32 (1972), Third Symphony “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” op. 36 (1976), and Kleines Requiem für Eine Polka, op. 66 (1993).

“Euntes ibant et flebant portantes semina sua – venientes autem venientes in exultatione…” “He went off, went off weeping, carrying the seed. He comes back, comes back singing.” Psalm 126: 6

“Mamo, nie płacz” – the first words of an inscription on the wall of a Gestapo prison in Zakopane by young Helena Błażusiak, used as text of the second movement of the Third Symphony.

“Barszcz” – traditional beet soup we shared in Katowice in 1998.

“Góralska muzyka” – folk ensemble of four strings playing music from the Tatra Mountains, Górecki’s chosen home. His last name means “of the mountains” and he settled in the village of Ząb in the Foothills area (Podhale) after spending most of his life in his native Silesia, in Katowice.

___________________________

Photographs of Górecki and his parents' portraits in his studio in Katowice; photo of San Gabriel Mountains from the road to Lake Arrowhead (December 1996) by Maja Trochimczyk. Photograph of Maja Trochimczyk and Górecki by Jadwiga, his wife.

Chopin Songs by Marta Wryk and Adam Kosmieja

2010-11-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

The month of October in the Chopin Year "belongs" to Chopin. His death anniversary is on October 17. On October 10, 2010, the Modjeska Club (modjeskaclub@blogspot.com) hosted two wonderful young musicians from New York, students from the Manhattan School of Music, already engaged in a variety of professional activities. Mezzosoprano Marta Wryk and pianist Adam Kosmieja gave a Concert of Romantic Music celebrating the 200th birth anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin at the South Pasadena Library Community Room. The engaging and well-presented program included songs and piano works by Chopin and songs by Antonin Dvorak.

Adam Kosmieja set the tone for the evening with a dramatic interpretation of Chopin's Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12, "Revolutionary." The fluid waves of arpeggios and anguished drama of internal voices evoked the feelings of turmoil and helplessness recorded in Chopin's famous Stuttgart Diary. The emotional intensity of the music came to life under the pianist's fingers with youthful zeal and freshness.

Ms. Wryk divided the songs by Chopin into two sets, framing those of Dvorak and interspersed with Chopin's piano pieces. Chopin composed songs all his life; he wrote for his friends, family, and for salon entertainment. He gave them as special, personal gifts and souvenirs written into albums of his admirers, friends, and family members. He did not think these songs were good enough to be published and left instructions to destroy them along with all unpublished works after he died. Had these wishes been followed, the world would have suffered a tremendous loss. Despite Chopin's insistence, these musical gems were gathered and published after his death by his friend and confidante, Julian Fontana, who found and annotated 17 songs from Opus 74 (two more songs were added later).

The first song on the program, Zyczenie (A Wish, or A Maiden's Wish), remains the best known and the most beloved among Chopin's songs, reaching the level of popularity that would have transformed it into a folk song, had it been easier to sing.

Its delightful interpretation by Ms. Wryk was enhanced with her lovely gestures, as if catching the sunlight, spreading arms widely in exuberance, turning around... She was, in turn, coy, bashful, and joyous - and a joy to behold. A classic, Slavic beauty, in an elegant, purple, satin evening gown, she transported us to a romantic salon of Chopin's time. The engaging presentation of the music served to amplify the main asset of Ms. Wryk as a singer: her fantastic voice. Rich and flexible, her "instrument" easily filled the large hall, reaching out to each individual listener. Her intonation and phrasing were impeccable.

Her emotional range was further revealed in the poignant interpretation of Smutna Rzeka (Sorrowful River), Gdzie lubi (Where he likes), Śliczny chłopiec (A Beautiful Lad), Hulanka (A Wild Party), and Wojak (A Soldier). Ms. Wryk also gave a beguiling interpretation of a set of energetic, amusing, and melancholy Gypsy Songs by Antonin Dvorak. She sang the Czech songs quite differently than the pieces by Chopin, revealing a flexibility of a true artist. The fluid melodies and seductive rhythms of Gypsy music were amplified by Adam Kosmieja's lively accompaniment, sparkling with wit and expression.

Mr. Kosmieja's interpretative talents were apparent in two sets of Chopin's piano pieces: three Mazurkas from Op. 56 (written in 1843 and published in 1844) and the Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53. More sophisticated and complex musically than Chopin's early works of this type, the Mazurkas Op. 56 showcased the pianist's virtuosity and expressive scope. Kosmieja skillfully highlighted the strong echoes of folklore in the second piece from the set, Mazurka in C Major. The melancholy final piece called for an ability to structure a larger form which was also apparent in the noble, "Heroic" Polonaise, truly inspired and inspirational. The Polonaise provided a rousing finale to the recital, and was followed by another rendition of Zyczenie as an encore welcomed by a standing ovation. The full program of the concert is listed below.

On Monday, October 11, 2010, Ms. Wryk and Mr. Kosmieja attended a meeting of the American Jewish Committee, held in Beverly Hills. The guests were treated to a special mini-recital, consisting of just three pieces: two Chopin songs, Zyczenie (A Wish) and Melodia (A Melody), and the Revolutionary Etude.

Having heard the first song, a setting of a love poem by Stefan Witwicki, many times, I was again delighted by its youthful sweetness. The mature, haunting rendition of Melodia impressed the listeners with its profundity of emotion. Zygmunt Krasinski's poem was amplified in Chopin's setting by an emphasis on the desolate loneliness of the "forgotten" heroes, whose struggles were in vain. This interpretation of Melodia proved beyond any doubt that Ms. Wryk is a great artist, destined for international success.

PROGRAM

Fryderyk Chopin - Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12, "Revolutionary"
Adam Kośmieja - Piano

Fryderyk Chopin - Selected Songs, Op. 74
Marta Wryk – Mezzosoprano
Adam Kośmieja – Piano

o A Wish / Życzenie
o Lithuanian Song / Piosnka litewska
o Sorrowful River / Smutna rzeka

Antonin Dvorak - Gypsy Songs, Op. 55
Marta Wryk – Mezzosoprano, Adam Kośmieja – Piano

o My Song of Love Rings Through the Dusk /
Má píseň zas mi láskou zní

o Hey, Ring Out, My Triangle /
Aj! Kterak trojhranec můj přerozkošně zvoní

o All Round About the Woods are Still /
A les je tichý kolem kol

o Songs My Mother Taught Me /
Když mne stará matka zpívat, zpívat učívala

o Come and Join the Danci /
Struna naladěna, hochu, toč se v kole

o The Gypsy Songman /
Široké rukávy a široké gatě

o Give a Hawk a Fine Cage /
Dejte klec jestřábu ze zlata ryzého

Fryderyk Chopin - Three Mazurkas, Op. 56
Adam Kośmieja – Piano

o Mazurka in B Major, Op. 56 No. 1
o Mazurka in C Major, Op. 56 No. 2
o Mazurka in C minor Op. 56 No. 3

Fryderyk Chopin - Selected Songs, Op. 74
Marta Wryk – Mezzosoprano
Adam Kośmieja – Piano

o Where he likes / Gdzie lubi
o A Lovely Boy / Śliczny chłopiec
o A Wild Party / Hulanka
o A Soldier / Wojak

Fryderyk Chopin - Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 ("Heroic")
Adam Kośmieja – Piano

PERFORMERS

Born in Poznań, Polish mezzo-soprano Marta Wryk has been active as a recitalist and opera singer performing in Europe and the United States since 2004. Recently Ms Wryk won the first prize in the 15th International Voice Competition in Gorizia, Italy, where she was the youngest participant. Last year the young artist had her debut at the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater where she performed Prince Orlowsky in Die Fledermaus. This year she appeared as Mirtillo in Handel`s Il Pastor Fido, also at the Manhattan School of Music, and she was praised for her clear sound and assured presence. This summer Ms. Wryk was covering Gondi in Maria di Rohan in prestigious Bel Canto at Caramoor Festival.

While attending voice classes at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music In Warsaw, Ms Wryk appeared in many operas and operatic ensembles, in roles including Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte, 3rd Lady in Der Zauberflöte, Idamante in Idomeneo Re Di Creta, and Ms. Quickly in Falstaff.

Ms Wryk performed at the Caramoor Music Festival in New York, International Festival Art-Connection in Rotterdam, First International Baroque Festival in Warsaw and IVth Forum of Baroque Music in Warsaw. She also sung for Henryk Wieniawski Music Society in Poznan, Kammeropere Schloss Rheinsberg in Germany, Kosciuszko Foundation and De Lamar Mansion in New York. This spring brought Ms. Wryk to Albuquerque where she performed a recital with great American instrumentalists Kevin Kenner and William De Rosa and to Toronto where she performed arias from Carmen with Toronto Sinfonietta. Her future concert engagements include recitals in Symphony Space in New York,Chopin Foundation in Miami and in Teatro Comunale in Ferrara, Italy. In her still young career, she has been selected for master classes by such artists as: Franc Corsaro, Ileana Cotrubas, Tom Krause, Helena Łazarska, Alison Pearce, Simon Standage, Wiesław Ochmann and Jerzy Marchwiński.

Ms. Wryk graduated with distinction from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music In Warsaw. In 2004-2007 she was studying in the College of The Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities at Warsaw University. She majored in musicology and was under the tutorial of legendary Polish musicologist Michał Bristiger. Currently she is studying Voice at the Manhattan School of Music under Maitland Peters.

In addition to her musical performances, Ms. Wryk is also active as a musicologist, poet and writer. She has won numerous competitions for young poets and writers. Her poems and essays were printed in important Polish literature journals and magazines such as Zeszyty Literackie, Gazeta Wyborcza and Arkusz. Currently she is publishing her music reviews and articles in Przegląd Polski of Nowy Dziennik.

During summers she also serves as a tutor for Polish Children’s Fund, teaching class about opera. In appreciation of her numerous achievements in both music and humanities, Ms. Wryk has been awarded scholarships from Polish Children’s Fund, the Ministry of Education, the Prime Minister of Poland, Business and Professional Women`s Club, Leszek Czarnecki Foundation and Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union. Ms. Wryk is a also a recipient of the Manhattan School of Music Scholarship.

Adam Kośmieja was born in Bydgoszcz, Poland, started playing piano at the age of six, and first performed with orchestra at the age of eleven. For 13 years, he studied with Dr.Ludmiła Kasyanenko, at The Arthur Rubinstein High School of Music in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He currently studies with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music, New York. At the same time he is a student at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz, Poland in Jerzy Sulikowski's class. A first-prize winner at the Chopin Piano Competition at Columbia University, New York (2010) he also received First Prize at Mieczysław Munz Piano Competition, New York (2009). He performed in the U.S., Poland, France, & Sweden.

_____________________________

PHOTO CREDITS:

Vintage Chopin Postcard from Maja Trochimczyk Collection. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved.

Photographs by Anna Harley-Trochimczyk and Wieslaw Zuchowski. A complete album is found on Picasa Web Albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/Maja.Trochimczyk/ChopinSongsByWrykAndKosmieja#

Photo 4: Maja Trochimczyk, Marta Wryk, Wanda Presburger, Adam Kosmieja.

Chopin's Death, Mortality and Halloween

2010-10-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

October in America is filled with the excitement of Halloween. Now, that’s a strange celebration! People dress up as zombies. They scatter eyeballs, skeletons, and torn, bloody limbs around their houses. They convert their gardens into makeshift graveyards… All to scare death away. The spiritual roots of Halloween are in Druidic rituals of the Winter Solstice, a holiday of darkness, marking the shortest day and longest night of the year. What if the night won and the sun never came back?

Monsters, ghouls, and horrible, terrifying, dangerous creatures of the dark are supposed to be roaming the world that night, saying “trick or treat” – “bribe me, or I’ll kill you.” In a highly commercialized current version of this celebration, a wild party-season culminating on October 31, we conquer our fear of death by dressing up like the dead and dressing our children like cute little ghouls and monsters, to cheat and trick death, pretending we are already dead. There is more to it, of course, beyond the candy giveaway and all-night, carnival parties. To me, this is a day dedicated to fear and rejection of death. We want to live forever. We mock and deny the power of death, by ridiculing it in the most atrocious way possible. People love Halloween. I’m deeply conflicted about it. As a mother, though, I made my share of costumes…

I remember going to a cemetery on October 31, during my first year in Canada, two months after coming from Poland. It was a culture shock. There was nobody there, the place was abandoned. In the city, stores and yards were full of make-believe tomb-stones, with sculls scattered around and zombies’ hands sticking out of the ground, but nobody went to bring candles and flowers to real graves. In Poland, at this time of the year, we used to visit the grave-sites of our grandparents, great grandparents, or soldiers, or victims of the war. We used to bring candles to these gravesites and monuments. In the rain, in quickly falling darkness of a late autumn evening, cemeteries and war memorial sites were shrouded by the warm glow of thousands of candles. People wanted to remember their dead, their fore-bearers. They wanted to reflect on the past, think about their own mortality.

The All Souls’ Day, October 31, is a melancholy, yet comforting remembrance of our ancestors and a time for reflection on our own place in the dance of generations. In Warsaw, where we had no family graves to visit, we went to the monuments of the fallen: the Unknown Soldier, the heroes of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. (A handful of underground Home Army soldiers held out for 63 days before being defeated by the Germans, while the Allies waited for the city to bleed to death). We walked through the alleys of Powazki, the oldest cemetery in town, visited the graves of famous Poles. We brought lots of candles; children ran around and made sure all the candles were burning. They had fun: played with fire, skipped over puddles, collected dry, colorful leaves. Adults walked with their umbrellas, and said “shh, shhh… be quiet, this is a cemetery, a place of peace and eternal rest.”

The Chopin tombstone at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris and the memorial tablet at the column in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, where his heart is enshrined are surrounded by fresh bouquets of flowers year-round. The gifts of flowers, pictures, or piano keys are especially profuse on his death anniversary, October 17, 2010. Admirers of his music post photographs on various Facebook groups. There is a wonderful sequence with interviews carrying gifts to the shrine of their beloved composer in Ophra Yerushalmi's documentary, Chopin's Afterlife.

A life cut short in his 39th year, a creative talent destroyed by an incurable illness, the most romantic “consumption”—all these elements featured prominently in the poetic and artistic responses to his music. Liszt’s narrative of the last days and hours of the dying pianist established this literary trope of mortality/morbidity. Many other essayists and writers, including Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868-1927), sought to identify the spiritual quality of art created at the threshold of death. Przybyszewski and Polish composer Zygmunt Nowskowski (1846-1909) elaborated on the topic of the “typically Slavic” feeling of the unspecific, yet overwhelming, “sorrow” (“żal” or “żałość”) and nostalgia permeating Chopin’s music.

In Chopin iconography, angels of death appeared quite often. I found a couple of vintage postcards of the most famous theme from this thread, Chopin's last hour, without a crowd of well-wishers and mourners surrounding the dying musician, but with angels waiting to snatch the soul of the consumptive virtuoso. There's a white angel and a dark one, bringing to mind a line from Rilke...

I have not written any poems about Chopin's death, nor about Halloween, but I have written about remembering the dead and angels, entitling a section of my book Miriam's Iris, or Angels in the Garden "Thanatos" - the angel of death. my father, Aleksy Trochimczyk (b. 25 September 1927, d. 11 May 2001). After my parents were shot by robbers in their own home in April 2000, he was in the hospital for the first five months and on blood transfusions and dialysis for the next eight. Then, he died. His last words to me were a joke about his predicament: due to the severity of his injuries, his bone marrow stopped producing blood cells and he lived on transfusions, received every two weeks. He said: “I have become a vampire, I live off other people’s blood.” We laughed, sharing a silly joke. A week later he was dead. My wreath for his funeral was made of white roses and lilies, the color of fresh snow that blankets the earth in winter’s rest:

Thanatos 5

white sun and white clouds
over white valley

white lilies and roses
in a wreath
on my father’s tomb

white yucca flames
burn the hills like candles
of the funeral
in sparse, white air

brides are shrouded
in the white fog of nothing
they dissolve
into the holiness

of their vows

widows’ black
is a solid protection
from the whiteness

of death
that kills colors
of life’s rainbow
slowly fading into the white
skeleton of pain

© 2001 by Maja Trochimczyk

This poem, published in Miriam's Iris, or Angels in the Garden, (Moonrise Press, 2008) came to me on the plane, when I was looking out the window over the vast expanse of whiteness below, suspended in the timelessness of the sky. Clouds look like snow; they are both made of water.

“Thanatos” of the title is the angel of death from ancient Greek mythology. (He is a twin of “Eros” – the angel of desire.) He came quietly to help people fall asleep and go to their rest. In the ancient Greek tradition, their spirits went to Elysian Fields for an eternity of melancholy serenity, gradually forgetting the world of the living. It was not quite the blazing light of glorious Christian Heaven, but a sweet and welcoming place of eternal tranquility. First, they had to pay Charon to be ferried across the dark River Styx, then they drank the water of forgetfulness from the River Lethe, also called “Ameles Potamos” (River of Unmindfulness). That’s why they were buried with coins. Even in 1987, my Eastern-Orthodox, Belorussian (not Greek) grandmother, was buried with coins on her eyelids. This ancient ritual survived the change of religions, the fall of empires.

Ameles Potamos

~ to Taoli-Ambika Talwar

Your sky is from another planet
a parallel universe of dangerous beauty
seducing us with pink’n’orange sweetness
before it, too, dissolves in the infinity
of Elysian fields on the other side of the river
we have to cross after drinking from Lethe,
waters of forgetfulness and freedom

The sky darkens into crimson,
blood clouds thicken, illuminated
by flickering light points and clusters
of a thousand candles in cemeteries
remembering death on All Souls’ Day

- (C) 2009 by Maja Trochimczyk

This poem belongs in a string of Facebook poetic conversations. Taoli-Ambika posted a great photo and a poem about invisible Octobers, Lois P. Jones responded with a poem, Susan Rogers wrote "Longing for October" and J. Michael Walker responded with a poem. This is my response – with allusions to Greek mythology and Catholic rituals. I abhor chain letters threatening me with doom, if I don't forward some weird blessing or prayer (25 years of bad luck? I gave in to pressure on that one.) Yet, this chain of poetry was certainly worthwhile. I felt so grateful for having such talented, inspiring friends.

I'm also grateful for having been raised listening to Chopin. Internalizing the beauty and passion of this music shaped me as a poet and a person. I too, bring him a gift of flowers for his twin tombstones. Many poets in Chopin with Cherries have written about his illness and death. I'll revisit this topic later.

_____________________________________________

Illustrations: Vintage postcards from my personal collection.

1. Postcard of a model of Chopin’s hand by Augusto Clepenger, France, ca. 1910.

2. Postcard Chopin’s Last Chords, based on a painting by A. Setkowicz, Ostatnie akordy Chopina / Chopinovy Dozvuky / Chopin’s Letzte Akkorde .Kraków, ca. 1900.

3. Postcard with a caption in Polish: “Portrait of Chopin on his death bed, according to a watercolor by T. Kwiatkowski.” Published in Lwów: Nakł. Spółki Wydawniczej “Postęp,” n.d., ca. 1910.

4. Postcard The Last Chords of Chopin, based on a painting by Fr. Klimes, Les derniers accords de Chopin. Published by BKWI (Bruder Kohn) in Vienna, Austria, c. 1900-1910.

5. Photograph of flowering yucca (also known as God's candle) in June, Tujunga Canyon, California. By Maja Trochimczyk

Mark Tardi about Chopin

2010-10-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

One of the poets published in the anthology, Chopin with Cherries, Mark Tardi, sent me his answers to a set of four questions I intended to ask of all the poets who wrote about Chopin. The questions and answers are below.

1. What is your earliest or most intense memory associated with Chopin's music?

Both my earliest and most intense memory of Chopin stems from an episode of Woody Woodpecker I watched when I was 7 years old. It was the early version of Woody, where he was scarier and far less cute than the later version, and Woody basically terrorized Andy Panda during a piano recital. Andy was heroically determined to play Chopin's famous polonaise while Woody tried everything he could to derail his efforts: jump on his hands; pull the piano away from him; hack up the piano with an ax, and eventually set it on fire. I remember that Andy struck the final chords of the polonaise just as the flaming piano collapsed into cinders.

I loved everything about the cartoon: the passion, determination, music, chaos. Years later as a high school student I was working at a supermarket and a friend gave me a compilation of somebody named Chopin. I went home and played the CD and when I heard the polonaise I said out loud "That's the guy from Woody Woodpecker!" Of course it turns out he had something of a career long before then.

2. Why do you like Chopin's music and what does it mean to you?

The short answer would be that I connect with his emotional register. There are no giveaway silences in Chopin. And his unparalleled commitment to coax out every hum of possibility in the piano, the singular vulnerability, is one of the most beautiful and intimate gestures in the history of music.

3. What is your favorite piece by Chopin and what do you like about it?

Though it's difficult to single out, his nocturnes are deeply important to me -- and so many of them are incredible. But if pressed, probably I'd say Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 1. The relentless desolation, breathless insistence, the tragic advance and recede envelopes me to the core. The variable emotional texture of the piece, so much nuance and turn, and the little nods to Schubert . . . it all leaves me devastated and grateful.

4. Do you like cherries, if not what is your favorite fruit?

I do like cherries, but I'm not sure I'd call them my favorite fruit. My favorite fruit would either be white peaches or blood oranges.

_____________________

Mark Tardi is the author of Euclid Shudders, a finalist for the 2002 National Poetry Series that was published by Litmus Press. He also wrote two chapbooks Airport music (Bronze Skull, 2005) and Part First-----Chopin’s Feet (g o n g, 2005). Recent work of his can be found in Chicago Review, Van Gogh’s Ear, and the anthology The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Millennium. He is on the editorial board of Aufgabe, an international literary journal, where he is coordinating a project devoted to the work and influence of Polish poet Miron Białoszewski on contemporary poetry. He was the 2008/2009 Senior Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature & Culture at the University of Łódź, and his Airport Music is forthcoming from Burning Deck Press.

His contribution to our collection was prefaced with a quote from Witold Gombrowicz's Diary: "I much prefer the Chopin that reaches me in the street from an open window to the Chopin served in great style from the concert stage."

________________________________

NOTE: Illustrations from vintage 19th-century postcards. Maja Trochimczyk Collection.

Chopin Songs in South Pasadena, 10/10/10 at 6 p.m.

2010-10-01T00:09:00.000-07:00

The wonderful and colorful Polish Festival Los Angeles (September 25-26, 2010) had its share of Chopin's music and poetry, thanks to Karolina Naziemiec who invited us, poets Mira Mataric, Susan Rogers, and Lois P. Jones, and over 10 amazing pianists, from age four, to professionals with the highest academic credits. We will post some photos and comments here soon. Time to look ahead, though, at an event that's scheduled for next weekend.

Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club in Los Angeles invites all music lovers to a free Concert of Romantic Music by Polish musicians based in New York, mezzosoprano Marta Wryk and pianist Adam Kośmieja. They will perform a recital of romantic songs, celebrating the 200th birth anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin, including songs and piano works by Chopin and songs by Antonin Dvorak. The concert will take place at the elegant South Pasadena Library Community Room (1115 El Centro St. South Pasadena, CA 91030) at 6:00 p.m., on Sunday, October 10, 2010.

PROGRAM

Antonin Dvorak - Gypsy Songs, Op.55

My Song of Love Rings Through the Dusk / Má píseň zas mi láskou zní

Hey, Ring Out, My Triangle / Aj! Kterak trojhranec můj přerozkošně zvoní

All Round About the Woods are Still / A les je tichý kolem kol

Songs My Mother Taught Me / Když mne stará matka zpívat, zpívat učívala

Come and Join the Danci / Struna naladěna, hochu, toč se v kole

The Gypsy Songman / Široké rukávy a široké gatě

Give a Hawk a Fine Cage / Dejte klec jestřábu ze zlata ryzého

Fryderyk Chopin - Music for Piano

Mazurka in B Major, Op. 56 No. 1

Mazurka in C Major, Op. 56 no. 2

Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12, "Revolutionary"

Fryderyk Chopin - Selected Songs, Op. 74

A Wish / Życzenie

Where he likes / Gdzie lubi

A Lithuanian Song / Piosnka litewska

A Lovely Boy / Śliczny chłopiec

A Sorrowful River / Smutna rzeka

A Soldier / Wojak

A Wild Party / Hulanka

My Darling / Moja Pieszczotka

Melody / Melodia

PERFORMERS

Born in Poznań, Polish mezzo-soprano Marta Wryk has been active as a recitalist and opera singer performing in Europe and the United States since 2004. Recently Ms Wryk won the first prize in the 15th International Voice Competition in Gorizia, Italy, where she was the youngest participant. Last year the young artist had her debut at the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater where she performed Prince Orlowsky in Die Fledermaus. This year she appeared as Mirtillo in Handel`s Il Pastor Fido, also at the Manhattan School of Music, and she was praised for her clear sound and assured presence. This summer Ms. Wryk was covering Gondi in Maria di Rohan in prestigious Bel Canto at Caramoor Festival.

While attending voice classes at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music In Warsaw, Ms Wryk appeared in many operas and operatic ensembles, in roles including Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte, 3rd Lady in Der Zauberflöte, Idamante in Idomeneo Re Di Creta, and Ms. Quickly in Falstaff.

Ms Wryk performed at the Caramoor Music Festival in New York, International Festival Art-Connection in Rotterdam, First International Baroque Festival in Warsaw and IVth Forum of Baroque Music in Warsaw. She also sung for Henryk Wieniawski Music Society in Poznan, Kammeropere Schloss Rheinsberg in Germany, Kosciuszko Foundation and De Lamar Mansion in New York. This spring brought Ms. Wryk to Albuquerque where she performed a recital with great American instrumentalists Kevin Kenner and William De Rosa and to Toronto where she performed arias from Carmen with Toronto Sinfonietta. Her future concert engagements include recitals in Symphony Space in New York,Chopin Foundation in Miami and in Teatro Comunale in Ferrara, Italy. In her still young career, she has been selected for master classes by such artists as: Franc Corsaro, Ileana Cotrubas, Tom Krause, Helena Łazarska, Alison Pearce, Simon Standage, Wiesław Ochmann and Jerzy Marchwiński.

Ms. Wryk graduated with distinction from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music In Warsaw. In 2004-2007 she was studying in the College of The Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities at Warsaw University. She majored in musicology and was under the tutorial of legendary Polish musicologist Michał Bristiger. Currently she is studying Voice at the Manhattan School of Music under Maitland Peters.

In addition to her musical performances, Ms. Wryk is also active as a musicologist, poet and writer. She has won numerous competitions for young poets and writers. Her poems and essays were printed in important Polish literature journals and magazines such as Zeszyty Literackie, Gazeta Wyborcza and Arkusz. Currently she is publishing her music reviews and articles in Przegląd Polski of Nowy Dziennik.

During summers she also serves as a tutor for Polish Children’s Fund, teaching class about opera. In appreciation of her numerous achievements in both music and humanities, Ms. Wryk has been awarded scholarships from Polish Children’s Fund, the Ministry of Education, the Prime Minister of Poland, Business and Professional Women`s Club, Leszek Czarnecki Foundation and Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union. Ms. Wryk is a also a recipient of the Manhattan School of Music Scholarship.

Adam Kośmieja was born in Bydgoszcz, Poland, started playing piano at the age of six, and first performed with orchestra at the age of eleven. For 13 years, he studied with Dr.Ludmiła Kasyanenko, at The Arthur Rubinstein High School of Music in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He currently studies with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music, New York. At the same time he is a student at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz, Poland in Jerzy Sulikowski's class. A first-prize winner at the Chopin Piano Competition at Columbia University, New York (2010) he also received First Prize at Mieczysław Munz Piano Competition, New York (2009). He performed in the U.S., Poland, France, & Sweden.

I hope that all poets and lovers of Chopin's music will join us for this wonderful celebration of his 200th Birth Anniversary in South Pasadena. For more information about the organizers, Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club in Los Angeles, visit the organization's Website or my ModjeskaClub Blog.

OTHER EVENTS

October 14-21, 2010: The 11&1/2 Polish Film Festival Los Angeles is around the corner, and the festival organizers look forward to celebrating with you the achievements of Polish filmmakers from October 14 to 21, 2010. The exact program will be posted on the Festival's website, Polish Film Festival 11 1/2.

Chopin in Venice and at the Polish Fest LA

2010-09-20T20:59:00.000-07:00

The third installment in the ongoing series of events dedicated to poetry inspired by Chopin's music took place on September 12, 2010, at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California. It was yet another version of poetry and music, changed by the presence of different poetic voices and an entirely new selection of music: transcriptions for flute of Chopin music and his rarely played Variations on Rossini.

The next Chopin with Cherries event is scheduled for September 25, 2010 at 1 p.m., at the Polish Fest LA, at Our Lady of the Bright Mount Catholic Church on Adams St. Los Angeles. There will be a brief Chopin lecture, followed by a concert by two pianists, with four poets reciting their work: Lois P. Jones, Mira N. Mataric, Susan Rogers, and Maja Trochimczyk. For more information about Polish Fest LA visit its website.

At Beyond Baroque, the music was provided by Rick Wilson, who played two antique flutes as well as improvised music for poets who wished to recite their work with flute accompaniment. Rick performed on a crystal glass flute by Claude Laurent (Paris, 1834, in the photo) and on an ivory flute by J. & W. Wainwright (London, ca. 1830). Both instruments are from his collection of over 130 antique flutes: www.oldflutes.com.

PROGRAM

The "Minute Waltz" - Waltz, Op. 64, No. 1 (transposed from D-flat to D) – Rick Wilson
Marilyn Robertson – We speak Chopin
Lois P. Jones – This Waltz is not for Dancing
(Chopin’s Waltz in A Minor, Posthumous)
Russell Salamon – Waltz in A Minor
Russell Salamon – Eternal Nocturne
Rick Lupert – Chopin in an Old Church
Maja Trochimczyk – A Study with Cherries
Variations on a Theme by Rossini ("Non piu mesta"
– La Cenerentola) in E Major, Op. B.9 (1824) – Rick Wilson
Maja Trochimczyk – Harvesting Chopin
Kathi Stafford – Mazurka, Formed of Rain
Kathi Stafford – Second Movement
Georgia Jones-Davis – Chopin’s Sorrow
Radomir Vojtech Luza – Frozen Flowers
Radomir Vojtech Luza – Beyond Utopia
Waltz in B Minor, Op.69, No. 2 (flute transcription) – Rick Wilson
Fantaisie on a Melody of Chopin, Op. 29 by Jules Demersseman, Theme and Variation – Rick Wilson
Erika Wilk – Winter in Majorca
Erika Wilk – Everlasting Love
Maja Trochimczyk – How to Make a Mazurka
Ruth Nolan – Concerto No. 1, in E Minor, on Highway 111, in Palm Springs
Mira N. Mataric – Chopin and I
Mira N. Mataric – Dance with Me
Kath Abela Wilson – How I Fell in Love with Chopin
Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 2 (flute transcription) – Rick Wilson
R. Romea Luminarias – There Is No Other Love
Lia Brooks – During Nocturne (read by Lois P. Jones)
Susan Rogers – Alicia Plays Chopin
Życzenie/The Wish Op. 74, No. 1 (song in flute transcription) – Rick Wilson

A photographic report from the event by Kathabela Wilson may be found on Picasa Web Albums. She commented about "a fantastic concept realized again. Each Chopin with Cherries performance is different, and a wonderful realization...I love these programs that present such poetic and musical strengths and beauties."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

LIA BROOKS has great difficulty thinking about anything else but poetry. When she isn’t writing you’ll usually find her with a nose in a book or somewhere outside walking, either in the woods or by the sea. Her work has been published in Penumbra, South, Shadow Train, First Time, California Quarterly, Loch Raven Review and various other print and online magazines and anthologies in the U.K. and the U.S. She was short-listed for the New Leaf Short Poetry Prize in 2007 and her work has been part of two ekphrastic events in collaboration with painters in California and Indiana. She is also a painter and resides in Southampton, England.

LOIS P. JONES has been published in American Poetry Journal, Rose & Thorn, Tiferet, Quill & Parchment, The California Quarterly, Kyoto Journal, and other print and on-line journals in the U.S. and abroad. She is co-founder of Word Walker Press and a documentarist of Argentina’s wine industry. She has featured in London, Prague, Los Angeles, Seattle as well as Tacoma Washington’s Distinguished Writers Series. You can hear her as host on 90.7 KPFK’s Poet’s Cafe (Pacifica Radio) and see her as co-producer of Moonday’s monthly poetry reading in Pacific Palisades, California. She is the Associate Poetry Editor of Kyoto Journal and a 2009 Pushcart Nominee. In 2010 her poem “Ouija” won Poem of the Year for IBPC judged by Dana Goodyear.

GEORGIA JONES-DAVIS wakes up in the morning thinking about poetry as much as breakfast. That she began, whilst a student, to compose poetry at the same time that she started to listen to the music of Chopin is no coincidence, she insists. She spent over twenty years rough-housing it in journalism, working as a reporter, book review editor and literary reviewer for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, New York Newsday and The Chicago Tribune, etc. Georgia is squarely focused on poetry now and still listening to Chopin. Her work has appeared in West Wind, The Bicycle Review, Brevities, Voices From the Valley, The Los Angeles Times and the California Quarterly. She is a co-director of Valley Contemporary Poets (VCP) and at work on her first book of poems.

R. ROMEA LUMINARIAS (Rey Luminarias) studied architecture and poetry in Manila, Hong Kong, China, Seattle and Los Angeles, California. His works have appeared in various publications, including issues of the Caracoa Literay Journal and the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly. His poems have been included in an anthology, Philippine Protest Poetry. A member of Poets West, Rey Luminarias is also a painter and paper sculptor. He teaches architecture, painting, marimba music, and creative writing. Rey’s collection of large-print meditative writings and an illustrated book of poems and riddles are forthcoming this year.

RICK LUPERT has been involved with poetry in Los Angeles since 1990. He served for two years as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets, a 30-year San Fernando Valley based literary organization. His poetry has appeared in places such as The Los Angeles Times, Chiron Review, Stirring, The Blue Jew Yorker, PoeticDiversity.org, Caffeine Magazine, Blue Satellite and others. He edited A Poet’s Haggadah: Passover through the Eyes of Poets anthology and is the author of 12 poetry collections. He has hosted the weekly Cobalt Café reading series in Canoga Park since 1994 and is regularly featured at venues throughout Southern California. Rick created and maintains the Poetry Super Highway, an online resource and publication for poets. (www.PoetrySuperHighway.com).

RADOMIR VOJTECH LUZA is a friend to peasants and poets, senators and saints. His poetry is breaking ground at warp speed and possessing enough images and details to stand in museums for hundreds of years and millions of minutes. Radomir has published poetry in literary journals, anthologies and websites; he hosted po-rap (his own music form) readings all over the country. He has fifteen poetry and prose books to his credit, including Damaged Goods, as well as two chapbooks, Personal Goods and More Personal Goods, published by Poets on Site. His poetry recently appeared in Phantom Seed, Sage Trail, The Bicycle Review and poeticdiversity. His featured poetry gigs took place in New York City, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, St. Louis, among other cities.

MIRA (MIRJANA) N. MATARIC is a Californian poet and writer from Serbia. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in languages and world literature at the University of Belgrade and, after immigrating to the U.S. in 1981, pursued a Master’s in Special Education from Emporia University, KS. Her poetry, short stories, translations (Serbian/ English), essays and travelogues have appeared in literary magazines and journals for decades. Mira has published 30 books in English and Serbian, including her own poetry and prose, as well as many translations. Her writings offer a vibrant, picturesque, true depiction of life and people in times of strife and joy, always filled with wisdom, beauty and love of life. She received numerous awards for poetry in the U.S. and Serbia, as well as three Presidential Citations for her volunteer work in advancing literature and teaching creative writing. www.miramataric.net

RUTH NOLAN, M.A., is founder of Phantom Seed, a California desert literary magazine. She was born in San Bernardino, grew up in the high desert town of Apple Valley, and worked as a helicopter hotshot firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management during her college years. She currently lives in Palm Desert, where she is Associate Professor of English at College of the Desert. She is editor of a new anthology, No Place for a Puritan: the literature of California’s Deserts, forthcoming from Heyday Books in fall, 2009. She is recipient of a 2008-09 Joshua Tree National Park affiliate writer’s residency, and has published several collections of poetry, including Wild Wash Road, and Dry Waterfall l. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including, recently, Pacific Review. She serves on the advisory committee for the Inlandia Institute, based in Riverside, CA.

MARILYN N. ROBERTSON lives in Northeast Los Angeles. She has studied with Suzanne Lummis and been a featured reader at the “Viva Poetry” series leading up to Lummis Day in NELA, at the Light the Sky poetry series at the Eagle Rock Plaza, and at the Pat Pincus Memorial Poetry Readings in Brentwood. Her poetry appears in the forthcoming book, The Poetry Mystique published by Duende Books. She is a graduate of Occidental College in English Literature, with Masters’ and doctoral degrees in education from USC. She was a president of the California School Library Association. During her 34 years with the Los Angeles Unified School District, she served students as one of the district librarians specializing in storytelling and children’s literature.

SUSAN ROGERS considers poetry a vehicle for light and a tool for the exchange of positive energy. She is a practitioner of Sukyo Mahikari—a spiritual practice that promotes positive thoughts, words and action. Her poems are a part of the 2010 Valentine Peace Project and were part of the 2009 event “Celebrating Women: Body, Mind and Spirit.” They have also been performed at several museums and art galleries in Southern California. Her work can be found in the 2009 haiku anthology, Shell Gathering, numerous chapbooks from Poets on Site and can be heard online as part of the audio tour for the Pacific Asia Museum. www.sukyomahikari.org.

RUSSELL SALAMON has been writing poetry since 1963 when at Fenn College in Cleveland, Ohio he discovered his purpose to create art in words. He has written a poetic novel about the Sixties, Descent into Cleveland, (Words and Pictures Press, 1994). Two books of poems Woodsmoke and Green Tea (deepclevelandpress 2006) and Ascent from Cleveland: Wild Heart Steel Phoenix, (Bottom Dog Press with Fredonia Press 2008) are still in print. Breeze Hunting, a chapbook (Inevitable Press 2001) exists. Author of many poems, most recently the Black Axioms Series of love poems. He is one of the editors of California Quarterly, having just selected for Volume 36, Number 1.

KATHI STAFFORD’s poetry has appeared in various literary journals such as Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Offerings, and Hard Row to Hoe. She is poetry editor for Southern California Review. Additionally, she is a Pushcart Prize nominee for 2009. She is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing program at USC.

MAJA TROCHIMCZYK is a poet, music historian, photographer, translator and non-profit director, born in Poland, educated in Warsaw and at McGill University in Canada (Ph.D., 1994), and living in California (www.trochimczyk.net). She published four books of music studies (After Chopin; The Music of Louis Andriessen; Polish Dance in Southern California, and A Romantic Century in Polish Music), two books of poetry illustrated with her photographs (Rose Always and Miriam’s Iris, 2008), and hundreds of articles on music and culture. Over 70 poems appeared in such journals as Loch Raven Review, Magnapoets, poeticdiversity, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, Quill & Parchment, Ekprasis, poeticdiversity, as well as anthologies by Poets on Site and others. Dr. Trochimczyk currently serves as Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga and President of Modjeska Club (2010-2012).

ERIKA WILK is a poet, born in Bavaria, raised in Salzburg, Austria, and for the past fifty years a California girl. She is a member of two poetry groups based in Pasadena, Emerging Urban Poets and Poets on Site. Her poetry has been published in the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly and several chapbooks by Poets on Site, written to paintings by Milford Zornes, Henry Fukuhara, etc.

KATH ABELA WILSON is the creator and leader of Poets on Site, a poetry performance group where poets collaborate with dancers, musicians, and artists to perform on site of their inspirations, including museums and galleries. She edited 16 chapbooks of Poets of Site including hundreds of poems. Her poetry appeared in The California Quarterly, Prism, Tinywords, Asahi, Astro Poetica, Haiku News, Ribbons, Red Lights, Shakespeare's Monkey Revue, Pirate Pig Press, Star*Line, astarte, lunarosity, Totem, Phantom Seed, and in various anthologies. She sings in the alto section in the Caltech Glee Club and fell in love with Chopin as a young girl. Without a piano, she learned to play some of his pieces on a paper keyboard, for her weekly lessons. She often travels the world with her Caltech math professor husband Rick Wilson and they collect musical instruments, flutes and percussion.

RICK WILSON bought his first flute in an antique shop in Amsterdam in 1977 and has since become a serious player, student, and collector of historical flutes. Twelve instruments from his collection of over 130 antique flutes were on display at the Fiske Museum of Musical Instruments in Claremont, CA in 1993. He studied the one-keyed Baroque flute with Stephen Preston in London in 1978--79 and has participated a number of times in the Baroque Performance Institute of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he worked with Christopher Krueger. He continued studies of 19th century multi-keyed flutes with Stephen Preston and Jan Boland at the Wildacres Flute Retreat in the 1990s, and has worked on traditional flute techniques with Chris Norman at the Boxwood Festival. He played in Los Angeles since 1981 with the Huntington Ensemble, was part of the Hollywood Early Music Players, and has also performed with the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, Con Gioia, and numerous other local groups. Rick Wilson is a Professor of Mathematics at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Poetic Chopin at Beyond Baroque, 9/12/10

2010-08-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Time to hear Chopin and poetry again! The next reading from Chopin with Cherries is scheduled for Sunday, September 12, 2010, 3 p.m. at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291-4805. Admission, benefiting Beyond Baroque, is $7.00 for general public and $5.00 for Beyond Baroque members. For driving directions and more information about BB, visit the website: www.beyondbaroque.org.

The following poets are scheduled to read their contributions to the anthology:

Marlene Hitt,
Georgia Jones-Davis,
Lois P. Jones,
Marie Lecrivain,
R. Romea Luminarias,
Radomir Vojtech Luza,
Rick Lupert,
Mira Mataric,
Ruth Nolan,
Marilyn Robertson,
Susan Rogers,
Kathi Stafford,
Taoli Ambika Talwar,
Kathabela Wilson, and
Erika Wilk.

Everyone knows that Chopin wrote almost exclusively for the piano, but our event will feature another instrument that was favored by his father, Nicolas Chopin: the flute. Moreover, we will hear actual 19th century flutes, a French one, made of crystal glass, and an English one, made of ivory. These rare instruments belong to a private flute collection of Rick Wilson.

He will use a seven-key crystal glass flute by Claude Laurent (Paris, 1834) to play the following two sets of variations:

1. Variations on a Theme of Rossini ("Non piu mesta" from La Cenerentola)
Op. B.9, by Fryderyk Chopin (1824)

2. Fantaisie on a Melody of Chopin, Op. 29 by Jules Demersseman (1833-1866); Theme (Un poco lento andante) - Variation (Piu lente)

Rick Wilson wrote the following about Jules Demersseman:

"The composer of the Fantaisie, Jules Demersseman (1833-1866), was born in The Netherlands but began study at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 12. He was considered the best flutist in Paris and actually was appointed as the flute professor at the Conservatoire briefly ca.1860 before being forced out because he would not adopt or teach the new Boehm-system flutes."

Another group of Chopin's pieces consists of 19th century transcriptions of his piano compositions for the flute:

3. The "Minute Waltz" - Waltz, Op.64 no. 1 (transposed from D-flat to D)
4. Waltz, Op.69 no. 2
5. Nocturne, Op.9 no. 2
6. Zyczenie (A Wish), song by Chopin arranged for flute solo

Rick Wilson will use an eight-key ivory flute by J. & W. Wainwright, London,
ca. 1830, for these pieces (the flute is the third from the top in the photograph, from www.oldflutes.com).

These rare instruments, crystal glass and ivory, will add to the unique character of our history-making event. Dr. Wilson, a noted expert on historical flutes, explains:

"In the first half of the 19th century, the vast majority of flutes were made of wood. But ivory flutes, though expensive and made in far fewer numbers, were not rare. Glass flutes were only made between 1806 and 1857, by Claude Laurent and his successor, in Paris. These were not mere novelties, but state-of-the-art flutes of their time. Laurent flutes were owned e.g. by Napoleon and his brothers, James Madison (4th president), and Franz I of Austria. Over 100 are known to survive today, but perhaps 75% are in museums and cannot be heard."

Those who will spend the afternoon of September 12 at Beyond Baroque, Venice, will be able to hear these flutes and enjoy the romantic music and contemporary poetry inspired by the timeless oeuvre of Fryderyk Chopin.

____________________

Photo from "Chopin with Cherries: Poetry and Music at the Ruskin" held on May 8, 2010, at the Ruskin Art Club in Los Angeles. Left to Right, standing: Millicent Borges Accardi, Georgia Jones-Davis, Donna Emerson, Wojciech Kocyan, Erika Wilk, Laura Mays Hoopes, Mira Mataric, Maja Trochimczyk. Seated: Kath Abela Wilson, Kathi Stafford, Marian Kaplun Shapiro, Beata Pozniak Daniels with her son, Ryland Daniels, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, and Susan Rogers. More photos from this event may be found on Picasa Web Albums, at
Chopin with Cherries II Photo Album.

Chopin in Transcription at Disney Hall

2010-08-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

On July 24, IPalpiti Orchestra, conducted by Eduard Schmieder, gave the gala concert of the 13th Festival of International Laureates at Disney Hall in Los Angeles. I have attended their galas practically since the group's inception and consider their annual festivals to be the most enjoyable musical events of our summers. Under the skillful guidance of Young Musicians International's Executive Director, Laura Schmieder, and with the support of a faithful, dedicated and generous Board of Directors, the Festival grew from its humble beginnings to the present stature, bringing music to many venues throughout the region, including, besides the Disney Hall, Beverly Hills Library, Mount St. Mary College, Greystone Mansion, LACMA (and KUSC radio broadcasts), and elegant mansions in Rolling Hills Estates or Beverly Hills.

The ensemble consists of young winners of music competitions from around the world. Their different nationalities are recognized by the flags of their countries hanging above the stage; this year I counted 19 flags. Many post-Soviet republics are represented, along with various European and Asian nations. One could say that the orchestra is really international, it is also truly young at heart, in the best meaning of this term. The zeal and youthful intensity of their interpretations is coupled with impeccable technique and musicality. These characteristics also apply to Maestro Schmieder, whose dignified demeanor and sober countenance (my friend observed: "Is he angry at them?") hide his playful wit, considerable musical intelligence, and profound romanticism.

The program of the evening was as follows:

W. A. Mozart - Adagio and Fuge, KV 546
Frédéric Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11, with Romanian pianist, Luiza Borac, soloist
Ronald Royer (b.1970) - In Memoriam Frédéric Chopin For Clarinet,Cello & String Orchestra (a world premiere of a memorial piece based on the Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 1), with Tibi Cziger, Clarinet & Yves Dharamraj, Cello
Robert Schumann - Cello Concerto, with Julius Berger, soloist
Benjamin Britten - Simple Symphony
and two encores, showing the versatility and virtuosity of the orchestra.

It is always a joy to hear the wealth of detail, impeccably rendered under Mr. Schmieder's baton by the skillful virtuosi, all of them first-rate soloists and chamber musicians. This year, while celebrating the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth, we heard two Chopin treats: an original transcription of his Piano Concerto in E minor for string orchestra without winds, based on parts found in Warsaw, and presenting the work as it might have been hears during Chopin's life, and a memorial work by a young composer, Ronald Royer, who wrote a contemplative reflection on Chopin's last nocturne.

The soloist, Luiza Borac, delighted the audience as she "provided Chopin’s concerto with refinement, eloquence and no over-indulgence of display" - to cite the Los Angeles Times's music critic Mark Swed(from his July 25 review, "iPalpiti crosses L.A.'s cultural divide at Disney"). However, the small size of the orchestra and the notable absence of winds in the slow movement, Romance (where they provide some of the most touching melodies), have resulted in a polished, yet reserved interpretation, something for the mind, not for the heart. I was thinking of the crystalline facets of a well-cut emerald or ruby: brilliant, sparkling and cold.

The elegance of Borac's playing left me longing for something more rough and emotional especially in the last movement. The expressive range of the Rondo Vivace should have had something of the Polish folklore that inspired Chopin, some harshness, impetuousness, and strength of accents. Chopin's orchestration in this concerto includes also pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, tenor trombone, and timpani. Maestro Schmieder's decision to remove the winds and percussion as a stylistic experiment in going to the historical roots, while laudable for its boldness and his expertise, trimmed feathers off the music's wings. I thought of a photograph or a painting of a three-dimensional sculpture: while still giving an idea of what it was, the image flattens the original into a new, two-dimensional medium. And so it was with Chopin. While the composer's use of the orchestra had been criticized in the past, scholars have reached a consensus that he knew what he was doing when featuring individual instruments sparingly, for special interpretative effects.

Nonetheless, over the last two centuries there have been numerous transcriptions of this work, including versions for string quintet or a chamber orchestra with an assortment of winds; Schmieder's interpretation returns to the early performances with a string quintet of solo instruments (not a small orchestra) in Warsaw salons. Scholars Halina Golberg in the U.S. and Barbara Literska in Poland focused on the analysis of these transcriptions in their respective cultural contexts. Prof. Goldberg's book on Music in Chopin's Warsaw (Oxford University Press, 2008), and her earlier article on "Chopin in Warsaw's Salons" (1999, Polish Music Journal online) highlight aspects of Chopin's performance practice that have since been forgotten. When played in Warsaw's salons, the concerto would not feature a full orchestra for obvious logistical reasons.

While ambivalent about the transcription itself, I admired the nuanced and polished interpretation that resulted. I also shared Mark Swed's fascination with Borac's interpretation of Chopin. However, my opinion of the second soloist of the evening, cellist Julius Berger, was radically different. Schumann's Cello Concerto is heaving with romantic passion and Julius Berger was able to fully capture and express the soaring lyricism and fluid emotionalism of the score. His rich, golden tone suffused the hall with a glow of such beauty that the audience was spellbound; you could not hear a sound from the listeners, often willing and willful contributors of various rustling noises, coughs, and whispers...

Maybe it was the 1566 Amati cello, an antique instrument of incredible saturation and sweetness of tone. Maybe it was Berger's ability to bring out the treasures hidden in the music that others have forgotten. The music was luminous, transcendent. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" they say, or "in the ear and mind of the listener" we should add. Swed noticed only that the cellist "lost himself in the music" and that he "went in for interpretive extremes. When fast, he was very fast and displayed a tight tone. When slow, he was very slow, soaking in liquid, vibrato-laden expression." At times, when people discuss what they heard, it may seem they attended two different concerts. It was crucial, though, to listen with eyes closed. Expressivity aside, I much prefer a reserved stage presentation to Berger's vivid persona.

In any case, hearing Chopin's concerto in an elegant and nuanced strings-only version and Schumann's concerto luxuriating with the aural delights of romanticism at its best, reminded me of Ruth Nolan's masterly poem Concerto No. 1, in E minor on Highway 111, Palm Springs. Nolan heard the Chopin concerto on the car stereo while driving through the desert and an abundance of youthful memories ensued:

"Caressed, by the windy desert mid-night,
tickling your hair as you lean
your head against the open window
tantalizes your imagination, you are 12 again
and your hands, together, devour the major
and minor keys until you are one
with the dark void, foot pressing down,
long chords that will linger into dawn"

The final image of Nolan's poem (published in the anthology Chopin with Cherries) remains with the readers, resonating in their memories:

"Styled by elegance of motion, staccato, fortissimo
cresting on the car stereo as you leapfrog
between the lines on the highway
between the spaces of darkness and sound,
blown across the sand dunes into magnificence"

Chopin's music - heard, played, experienced - echoes in the memory with an untold magnificence, withstanding the test of time.

______________________

Photos of the orchestra at Disney Hall by Dana Ross, www.ipalpiti.org/music/festival-2010/. In the audience: Elena Secota, Maja Trochimczyk and Krystyna Kaszubowska (L to R). Below, Maja Trochimczyk with Krystyna Kaszubowska.

Cherry Summer and Fall

2010-07-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

Cherries are different here, than in Poland. What we call "cherries" in America, are "czeresnie" in Poland, huge, sweet and juicy, overflowing. Their flavor is not good for baking, though: too bland, boring. The other cherries, "wisnie," are smaller and much more tart, so you can never find them in American stores. But this is the only kind used to make the exquisite "konfitury" that could be used as filling in the best kind of donuts, or to sweeten your tea, Russian-style, or to eat with bread and butter, and with fresh white cottage cheese. Ah, yes, there are also the early "szklanki" ("glass cherries" - if there could be such a thing), a failed compromise, not flavorful enough for konfitury, and not sweet enough to entice children up the tree.

Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" is "Wisniowy Sad" in Polish: "czeresniowy" would have been just too sweet for this wistful drama, pregnant with silences and disappointments. Chopin's music, in its gentle melancholy, tastes of the "sour cherries" too, one could say. Not being able to find the right kind of cherries in America, I used ripe Bing cherries as illustrations. I put three cherries in a motive of sorts, a single one followed by twins with a joined stem. Placed on a page, they looked like a "long-short-short" rhythmic pattern to me, or the first motive of the polonaise.

This noble dance, walked in a long line of couples, with grace and pride, is THE national dance of Poland, I think, the "Dabrowski Mazurka" of the national anthem notwithstanding. In a study dedicated to Polish Dance in California (Columbia University Press, 2007), I discussed the conflict of perception, with the polka being seen as the main Polish dance in America, while the polonaise triumphs in this role in Poland.

Poets danced the polonaise at our second reading from Chopin with Cherries, in May 2010 at the Ruskin Art Club in Los Angeles.

Edward Hoffman, the Artistic Director and choreographer of the Polish Folk Dance Ensemble Krakusy in Los Angeles, graciously led the poets and guests in a dance around the hall to Chopin's music. Dressed in a Polish nobleman's festive outfit, a velvet "kontusz" with slit sleeves, a feathered hat and carrying a sabre ("szabla"), Mr. Hoffman transformed Chopin's Polonaise into a dance it rarely was, a noble and uplifting motion around the hall. Here's Mr. Hoffman showing
the proper bow at the end of the dance, with Halina Wojcik. For more pictures, visit our Picasa Web Album.

I am beginning to think that it would be appropriate, and very enjoyable, to dance a Chopin's polonaise at an every reading from the Chopin with Cherries anthology. What about every concert? Would the patrons of Chopin recitals mind asking famous and revered pianists to now, please, play a useful encore, something to stretch our old bones to?

We do not know whether we'll be able to dance the polonaise at Beyond Baroque, Venice, on September 12, 2010 (3 p.m.): the exact program of the next group reading from Chopin with Cherries is not set yet. The list of poets is as follows: Marlene Hitt, Georgia Jones-Davis, Lois P. Jones, Leonard Kress, Radomir Voytech Luza, Marie Lecrivain, R. Romea Luminarias, Rick Lupert, Ruth Nolan, Kathi Stafford, Marilyn Robertson, Maja Trochimczyk, Kathabela Wilson, and Erika Wilk.

Let's come back to cherries, then. Or, rather, fruit. Many poets included in Chopin with Cherries associate the beauty of sound with other beauties and pleasures. The poets’ synaesthesic approach couples the music with a multitude of colors, images, tastes, and textures (Kerrie Buckley, Emily Fragos, Lola Haskins, and Leonore Wilson, among others). I think of cherries, Lois P. Jones of Mirabelle plums ("This Waltz is not for Dancing"):

I release
what storms I’ve gathered—my travels through them,
the journey of stairs climbed to catch the drop

of a single note. And you, oblivious of the rain
in your fingers, the gilt of dusk on the rue,
silky as a Mirabelle plum. Unconscious of my dream
of summer, a country dance and this song born of roses.

Lois's poems are sensuous and spiritual, inspired in every sense of this word. For Emily Fragos ("19 Waltzes"), Chopin music contains it all: "The feathered flesh of a fish, the juice of a peach,/the silver rivers before we named them with color." Diane Shipley DeCillis also recalls a peach, eaten while listening to Chopin ("Postcard of Home and Homesick"):

The peach smells like a nocturne.
I hold the pit, plant a peach tree
in my palm, imagining the soil
where roots travel and tendrils clench.

His music, filled with marches,
the sound of footsteps heading
home. Ballades and preludes,
written in a thousand shades of gray.

Margaret C. Szumowski thinks of the purple hands of children eating blueberries ("Concert at Chopin's House"). Mira N. Mataric recalls the flavor of berries and apples ("Dance with Me"); the latter may also be seen “rolling over cobbles” in Sharon Chmielarz’s fascinating take on impermanence ("Chopin: Apples"):

And when haven’t his glissandos
spilled over history, the colossus

that upsets lives like apple carts?
Apples rolling over cobbles.

God-fall we think,
finding among the bruised,

a handful of sweet apples.

Finding a great recording of Chopin is like finding a sweet apple among the bruised. Here's one, classic version by Arthur Rubinstein: Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53. Here's another one, Polonaise in A Major, Op. 40, by Philippe Entremont. And do not forget to eat the cherries!

Photo from Chopin with Cherries II: Chopin at the Ruskin: Wojciech Kocyan, Maja Trochimczyk, and Edward Hoffman, May 8, 2010, Ruskin Art Club, Los Angeles.

Making Mazurkas in Exile

2010-07-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

In a beautiful scene from Ophra Yerushalmi’s documentary film “Chopin’s Afterlife” – one of the pianists asked about Chopin reflects on the deceptive simplicity of the opening of Chopin’s Mazurka in A-minor, Op. 17, no. 4. As he says – and I paraphrase the words here, because I do not have a copy of the film - there is an infinity of grief and longing in that first empty octave.. .then, the music hesitantly, shyly emerges from silence, with twists and turns, stops and starts, hope and despair… until the dance starts flowing. This Mazurka is also the favorite piece of Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, the master of sorrow and transcendence, and of so many pianists I lost the count.

I dedicated a poem to this melancholy Mazurka: “How to Make a Mazurka” included in the Chopin with Cherries anthology. The two-part dedication also names my maternal grandparents, “Stanisław and Marianna Wajszczuk, who could play and bake their mazurkas like no one else.”

In Polish, the word “mazurka” – “mazurek” refers both to the dance form and to a type of cake, made for Easter with lots of dried fruit, or chocolate, or other fillings. The “baked” mazurkas are almost as diverse as the “played” ones. My favorites were and are the “chocolate mazurka” and the “royal mazurka.” The first one is made on a shortbread-type crust (“kruche ciasto”), with dark chocolate filling decorated with candied orange rind, walnuts and almonds. The second one, the “royal mazurka,” uses ground walnuts instead of flower in an “angel-cake” type of dough without any fat or shortening, but with lots of chopped dried fruit and nuts that must include figs, dates, prunes, raisins, almonds, and walnuts. It is definitely not the American fruitcake, in case you wanted to try… No artificial flavors, please…

The flavor that exiles live with is the taste of long-lost childhood spent in a dream-like paradise of the past that never existed, for it was remade by imagination and memory into a land of “golden fields” and perfect summer…

Take one cup of longing
for the distant home that never was,
one cup of happiness that danced
with your shadows on the walls

of Grandpa’s house, while he played
a rainbow of folk tunes
on his fiddle, still adorned
with last wedding’s ribbons

My summers were spent at my grandparents’ village houses where I hid in the attic to eat walnuts and rummage through old papers, or climbed trees to gather and eat fresh fruit, or watched Grandma cook her miraculous concoctions, including real rye bread, made from “zakwaska” always sitting in the wooden bread bowl, covered with an old linen cloth… The bowl was carved by my Grandpa, the linen was handmade and ancient. The bread was heavenly. I never learned to make it, nor did my Mother. But Grandma’s recipes for mazurkas and other cakes crossed the ocean and the results grace my table at Christmas and Easter. Remember – do not put too much sugar, nothing in Poland is too sweet…

stir in some golden buzz of the bees
in old linden tree, add the ascent
of skylark above spring rye fields,
singing praises to the vastness of blue

mix it – round and round to dizziness

(The whole poem is published in Chopin with Cherries and also in a set of three poems in Quill and Parchment, Vol. 100, October 2009; if you cannot find it, you can read "A Study with Cherries" in the Cosmopolitan Review 2 no. 1 (Spring 2010), with summer memories from the same house in the village of Trzebieszow.)

Back to Chopin, then. When getting together a PowerPoint for my guest appearance at Don Kingfisher Campbell’s “Upward Bound” class at Occidental College on June 30, 2010, I thought the kids should hear some Chopin. I picked a version by Wladyslaw Szpilman – the original pianist from Polanski's The Pianist, i.e. the Polish-Jewish musician who miraculously survived the war and only told his story at the end of his life – illustrated by his son, Andrzej Szpilman, with photos of ruined Warsaw and of life before the war. You can see this video on YouTube: Szpilman Plays Chopin's Mazurka.

Born and raised in Warsaw, I find pictures of its near annihilation to be particularly touching. I have an album published in the 1950s, about the rebuilding of Warsaw churches: they were all destroyed by German soldiers, on the western side of Vistula, after the Warsaw Uprising fell, all inhabitants were displaced to camps, and the city was systematically and methodically killed, to never rise up again.

But it did; Polish people refused to accept Hitler’s choice. Brick by brick, the rubble was cleared, house by house, the city was rebuilt. Paintings by Bernardo Bellotto Canaletto (1721-1780) served as the “canvas” for the new image of old Warsaw. The reconstruction of the Old Town, the churches, the lovely old streets, and even, 30 years after the war, the Royal Castle, was one of the triumphs of art and life over hatred and willful destruction.

Based on memoirs of Szpilman, The Pianist depicted a WWII survival story of a real pianist, a wonderful musician whose talent could be heard even in a very old recording. I have no idea how the teens at Occidental College’s “Upward Bound” class related to the slides with images of ruins and the music from an old recording – so far away from their daily experience. But they surely could relate to my story: just about everyone in the class raised their hand, when asked whether their parents were born outside of the U.S. Most of them were born here, but their parents were immigrants. First, second, third generation of immigrants, we all have our roots somewhere…

"Lost and Found - Immigrant Experience in Poetry" is a title of a set of poems and recollections by four poets, Linda Nemec Foster, Oriana, Lillian Vallee, and myself, talking about various aspects of exile, emigration, immigration, displacement, and longing, in The Cosmopolitan Review 2 no. 2(Spring 2010). I will end this little story with a fragment of "An Ode of the Lost" included in my set of three poems and originally written for Poets on Site’s “Tour of the World” reading and chapbook edited by Kath Abela Wilson:

Tired exiles in rainy Paris listen to Mickiewicz
reciting praises of woodsy hills, green meadows—
distant Lithuania, their home painted in Polish verse,
each word thickly spread with meaning,
like a slice of rye bread with buckwheat honey.

“Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie.
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie,
Kto cię stracił”—he says, and we, homeless Poles
without ground under our feet, concur,
sharing the blame for our departure.
There’s no return.

(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

_______________________

* Quotation from Adam Mickiewicz’s national epos, Pan Tadeusz: or the Last Foray in Lithuania: “Lithuania, My country! You are as good health: /How much one should prize you, he only can tell /
Who has lost you.”

** Photos (C) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk. The first photo includes a collage by Barbara Gawronski, Untitled, with photos of Polish fields seen from a train window. The collage is placed in California desert, Big Tujunga Wash of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Chopin and The Karate Kid

2010-06-29T23:42:00.000-07:00

“You have to play the pauses” – says the distraught American teacher to his scatterbrained Chinese student, after she rushed through a beautiful melody without paying attention to proper phrasing and expression. She played all the notes mechanically, like a music box. Her technique was spotless, immaculate, but there was no soul in the sounds she made. The adolescent performer, Mei Ying, a young girl played by Wen Wen, appears in the newest re-incarnation of The Karate Kid (2010), directed by Harald Zwart, with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan as the stars.

It is hard not to smile when hearing the melody Mei Ying plays, in the context of this film: the Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, Op. Posthumous, by Fryderyk Chopin, scored for violin and piano. Chopin composed this piece in 1830 and dedicated it to his sister, Ludwika, but did not publish it. The Nocturne first appeared in print 26 years after his death. However, it was not written for the violin.

Apart from an early Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 8, and using violins in his orchestral works, Chopin did not write for the violin. Even in the Trio, he thought after hearing it a year later, using a viola instead of the violin would have been much better, as it would have better blended with the cello. This he confided to his friend, Tytus Wojciechowski in a letter of August 31, 1830 (letter no. 63 in the new edition of Fryderyk Chopin’s Correspondence, edited by Zofia Helman, Zbigniew Skowron, and Hanna Wroblewska-Strauss, University of Warsaw, 2010).

What we hear in The Karate Kid is a transcription of a piano piece for violin and piano made by an experienced film composer and arranger, Craig Leone, who also penned film scores for Ghost River and Orbit: Journey to the Moon. The first time the soaring melody appears, marked “Lento, con gran espressione,” the girl is accompanied by her teacher playing the piano. Mei Ying is late to her practice and she still does not understand what she plays, her teacher complains. No “grand expression” here. The teacher certainly is not pleased – so much is at stake at her recital. She is set to win admission to a prestigious music school in Beijing, but she has to work hard, much harder, to have a chance.

The second time we hear Chopin and Mei Ying’s violin is at her "recital" (actually, a competition). Mei Ying runs in late, after spending a carefree day with Dre Parker (Jayden Smith) at a traditional festival instead of practicing. Everyone is anxiously waiting, then Mei Ying takes up her bow and the magic begins. The graceful, expressive melody captivates the audience. A string orchestra of Chinese youth plays the accompaniment of the “left-hand” chords and arpeggios expanded to symphonic proportions. (The violin part is actually performed by Alyssa Park, a skilled actress-musician who appeared in many films as violinist or violin teacher, or recorded soundtracks, including The Soloist, American Teen, and Inside Man.)

While running around the festival with her crush, Dre, Mei was having fun, but did not waste her time. She was learning from “the Karate Kid” himself what he was just taught by his master, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) about living in the present and letting go of anxiety and tension. The passed-on lesson worked: Mei Ying did “play the pauses” and the intense beauty of her tone and expression made all the difference when the timing was right. She won her scholarship, but Dre lost, being banned from any further contact with her by her ambitious, affluent parents. (The reversal of this ban is implied in the final sequences of the film, after the momentous tournament victory of the young kung-fu student.)

“Playing the pauses” means, in lay terms, “tempo rubato” – the flexible give-and-take of minuscule fluctuations in rhythm that make music “breathe” with life, instead of sounding stiff and rigid. The emotional impact of rhythmic fluidity in a continuous, arching melody was summarized by one anonymous YouTube user who said, “this song makes the soul weep.” A Nocturne is not a “song,” but Chopin was the king of “tempo rubato” and “stile cantabile” (the singing style). There’s more to learn about it in a book by Richard Hudson, Stolen Time: The History of Tempo Rubato (Clarendon Press, 1997).

Why score Chopin for the violin, though? Why transform a piano work into a violin concerto? Is there no other piece for violin and piano in the repertoire of thousands that could be used here? Why this particular Nocturne? I have not talked to the director, so I do not know for sure. But this is THE Chopin year. And this is THE Chopin piece for filmmakers, since it appeared in the opening of The Pianist by Roman Polanski (more about this later). Well, you may guess “why” use a transcription, when you hear the first competitor for the scholarship during the concert: a pianist playing Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Flight of the Bumblebee, originally composed for violin and piano, but transcribed for piano solo by Serge Rachmaninoff. Absurd as it sounds, this buzzing portrayal of an insect should be noisily flying under the violinist’s bow, but instead it is mired in trills on the keyboard. Why not something else for the piano? A piece originally written for this instrument, perhaps?

“Transcription” is the key here, what we are witnessing is a “remake,” or a series of “remakes.” I believe these transcriptions are all tongue-in-cheek references to the core existential fact about the film. Called The Karate Kid like the original Karate Kid on which it is based (1984), the film is set in China, not in Reseda, California, and the martial arts it depicts are Chinese “kung fu” not Japanese karate. Incidentally, the Asian releases have titles reflecting the actual content of the film, leaving behind the historical reference to the first version of this coming-of-age story: The Kung-Fu Kid in China and Best Kid in Japan and Korea.

From Japan to China, from karate to kung-fu, from a piano nocturne to a slow movement of a concerto for violin and orchestra… Remakes, all remakes. A new version is bigger, “better” than the old one. While the orchestral transcriptions of Chopin’s Nocturne were done by Craig Leone, the film was actually scored by James Horner (who got two Oscars for his music to Titanic, and scored over 100 films including Avatar, Braveheart, two Zorro movies, and Apollo 13). In a feature about the music for this film, the director, Harald Zwarts, said that he wanted to have an “emotional score” using “several significant Asian instruments” and that he selected Horner because his music could both depict this “big, epic, traditional China and have the tiny small emotional moments.”

Horner admitted that it would have been very easy to just have a lot of songs instead of an orchestral score. The songs are there, of course, including the official theme song, “Never Say Never” sung by the teen star-of-the-day, Justin Bieber with Jaden Smith, and a gaggle of other hits-in-the-making packaged together in the film’s soundtrack CDs by Sony Pictures – Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rain, Lady Gaga...

As far as I know, the violin transcription of Chopin's Nocturne is not included in those materials. The powerful presence of the well-known, romantic melody is felt in the moment it appears in the film. Its emotional impact stems, in part, from the meaning associated with this nocturne since its appearance in Roman Polanski’s Oskar-winning The Pianist (2002). Based on a true story of a Polish Radio pianist, Władysław Szpilman and starring Adrien Brody, The Pianist begins with a radio broadcast of the Nocturne in C-sharp Minor (played rather fast by Janusz Olejniczak) which is interrupted by German bombs falling on besieged Warsaw in September 1939. The pianist first refuses to stop playing and leaves the studio only after being thrown down onto the floor by the force of explosion. At the end, having miraculously survived unspeakable horrors, the Polish-Jewish musician returns to his instrument and plays the same melody that he rehearsed silently in his mind during the years in hiding while his family and friends were killed and his home destroyed. Beauty transcends it all…

_____________________

Since The Karate Kid does not use Chopin in marketing materials, here is the trailer to The Pianist with the Nocturne: www.youtube.com/watch?v=itR0-I9idXk.

Claudio Arrau’s 1960s version of this Nocturne is slow, imaginative and rich in rhythmic and expressive nuances.

Adam Harasiewicz recorded the Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor in 1968, and his version is slightly faster than Arrau’s. It is delicate and forward moving, effervescent and elegant.

Janusz Olejniczak who plays the Nocturne in The Pianist, has the least amount of tempo rubato and rhythmic irregularities. He also plays it much faster, with accelerated “flights of scales” at the end.

(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

____________________________

PHOTO CREDIT: Austrian postcard with a portrait of Chopin by Eichert. Vienna: BKWI (Bruder Kohn), c. 1900-1910. The series also includes a portrait of pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Maja Trochimczyk Collection.

Chopin Heard and Woven in South Pasadena

2010-06-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

On April 11, 2010, at South Pasadena Library's historic Community Room, poets and pianists gathered to celebrate Chopin's birthday and share the treasures of Chopin with Cherries. The terrible tragedy of a Presidential plane crash near Smolensk, Russia, with the death of 95 victims on the previous day, April 10, darkened the mood. The tragic accident was acknowledged with a minute of silence.

Fifteen poets read their works in person: Millicent Borges Accardi, Peggy Castro, Helen Graziano, Laura Mays Hoopes, Lois P. Jones, Rick Lupert, Radomir Luza, Mira Mataric, Susan Rogers, Marylin N. Robertson, Russell Salamon, Kathi Stafford, Maja Trochimczyk, Erika Wilk, and Kath Abela Wilson. In addition, we heard poetry by: Lia Brooks, Victor Contoski, Emily Fragos, John Z. Guzlowski, Lola Haskins, Elizabeth Hiscox, Marlene Hitt, R. Romea Luminarias, Ruth Nolan, Dean Pasch, and Nils Petersen.

Chopin’s music was played by special guest artist, pianist Dr. Neil Galanter in the first half and students of Prof. Roza Yoder from Pacific Azusa University: Kristi Chiou, Staci Chiou, Sue Zhou, and Anna Nizhegorodtseva. An additional treat during the intermission was the unveiling of a new Chopin tapestry by Monique Lehman, created for an exhibition in Poland.

One of the guests, writer Frank Zajaczkowski, author of Passage to England among other books, described this event in his blog, My So-Called Paradise (April 12, 2010). Frank divides his life between the Caribbean islands and Los Angeles and many of his notes are about his island adventures, sailing and fishing. This is how he describes his adventure with Chopin:

Sunday at twilight. South Pasadena. The Library. Set in the middle of a small, verdant park.

The skies are cloudy; wind churns the dense trees. It is perfect stagecraft for the early evening poetry reading and piano recital inside the community room of this graceful building.

It is, of course, the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth this year, and tonight poetry will be read from a collected edition of tribute poems, Chopin with Cherries, edited by Maja Trochimczyk.

Mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, études, impromptus and préludes fill the small chamber at the hands of students and master pianists alike, with poetical interludes that link the voice and timbre of human longing and laughter through the evening and the centuries.

When at last we leave, Netty and I, the rain begins in earnest, determined to play its part.

Rain on, dark clouds. Blow strong, you winds. Ring out the stars in their elegant appreciation.

Some of the musicians and poets (L-R): Kristi Chiou, Stacy Chiou, Anna Nizghorodtseva, Russell Salamon, Neil Galanter, Sue Zhou, Mira Mataric, Erika Wilk, Lois P. Jones, Kathabela Wilson, Marilyn N. Robertson, Rick Lupert, Radomir Luza. Seated: Maja Trochimczyk, Susan Rogers, Monique Lehman, and Peggy Castro.

More photos from the event are in its Picasa Web Album.

(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

Chopin by Emma Lazarus

2010-06-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Soon after Chopin’s death, his friend and rival, Franz Liszt established the topos of Chopin’s art as pure poetry in a biography published in 1852. In Liszt’s lofty language (co-authored by Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein), Chopin “moved among us like a spirit consecrated by all that Poland possesses of poetry.”

Via several English-language editions of Liszt’s biography and through the efforts of its American translator, Martha Walker Cook (1807-1874), the image of Chopin as a poet of sound entered American letters. A nearly forgotten writer and translator, Cook published essays in the Continental Monthly Magazine and served for a time as its editor. In addition to translating Chopin’s biography, she also translated works of Polish romantic literature including poetry by Zygmunt Krasiński. Her Liszt translation, dedicated to a forgotten Polish émigré pianist Jan N. Pychowski (1818-1900), was first published in 1863 and by 1880 reached its fourth edition.

American poet Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), knew this book and she loved Chopin’s music. Lazarus came from a prominent Jewish family and was educated at home in New York City where she was born. She knew many languages and had broad artistic interests; she wrote a novel, two plays, and translations of Jewish poetry. She also edited and translated works of Goethe and Heine for their first American publications. Her main title to fame is The New Colossus, a sonnet written in 1883 and partly engraved on the Statue of Liberty. All Americans know of her call to open the doors to freedom for all immigrants: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

Lazarus’s poem about Chopin established a conceptual sphere in which to view Chopin’s oeuvre: a world of exalted spirituality, rich symbolism, subtle elegance, angelic sensitivity, and aristocratic sophistication. For instance, musicologist Jeffrey Kallberg’s study of gender issues in Chopin reception, borrows Lazarus’s phrases to capture the “effeminate” image of the composer. The four-stanza poem about the great composer, known for his perfectionist polishing of his musical gems, consists of four sonnets, each with a different variant of the rhyme scheme:

I. a b a b c d c d e f e f g g
II. a b b a c d d c e e f e e f
III. a b a b c d c d e f e f g g
IV. a b a b c d c d e f f e g g

Stanzas I and II are in the form of the English sonnet; stanza IV is its variant and stanza II has elements from an Italian sonnet, with its characteristic avoidance of the final, rhymed couplet. The long, ten-syllable lines flow smoothly, with rich imagery. For Lazarus, in Chopin’s music,

… beneath the strain
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs
One fundamental chord of constant pain,
The pulse-beat of the poet’s heart that throbs.
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice,
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice.

It is hard not to cite the next sonnet-stanza in its entirety:

II
Who shall proclaim the golden fable false
Of Orpheus' miracles? This subtle strain
Above our prose-world's sordid loss and gain
Lightly uplifts us. With the rhythmic waltz,
The lyric prelude, the nocturnal song
Of love and languor, varied visions rise,
That melt and blend to our enchanted eyes.
The Polish poet who sleeps silenced long,
The seraph-souled musician, breathes again
Eternal eloquence, immortal pain.
Revived the exalted face we know so well,
The illuminated eyes, the fragile frame,
Slowly consuming with its inward flame,
We stir not, speak not, lest we break the spell.

The matter was set, then. Chopin was a poet of a very peculiar kind: “The poet who must sound earth, heaven, and hell!” (Lazarus). In attempting to thus define the poetic task of music, Lazarus had unknowingly followed in the footsteps of Polish romantic poet, Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821-1883), who, in his masterly poem about Chopin’s piano, Fortepian Szopena, articulated the timelessness of perfection found in Chopin’s works, contrasted with the violent destruction of his instrument by the Russian soldiers. But this is a topic for another day…

Emma Lazarus's "Chopin" is reprinted in the section on Chopin's "Name" in the poetry anthology Chopin with Cherries: A Tribute in Verse (Moonrise Press, 2010). Finding this sophisticated contribution to Chopin reception was one of my greatest joys as the volume's editor.

(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

_______________________________________

Image credit: Postcard “F. Chopin Music and Visions” with a fragment
of the Nocturne in F-sharp Major, Op. 15, No. 2 and a vision of
the Łazienki Palace in Warsaw. Published Nakładem Braci Rzepkowicz
in Warsaw, Poland, c. 1900s-1910s. Maja Trochimczyk Collection.

Why Chopin with Cherries?

2010-06-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

In 2010 the world of music celebrates the birthday of Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849), a pianist, composer, and "poet of tones" who inspired generations with the beauty of his music. I decided to add my little bit to this celebration and published an anthology, Chopin with Cherries: A Tribute in Verse which grew from a small chapbook into a volume of 123 poems by 92 poets in no time at all!

There are all sorts of poets and poems in the book and they share one important thing: love for Chopin's music which is heard, literally, everywhere, from the concert halls, to airplanes, and shopping malls (even without "gone Chopin, Bach soon"). Here, we'll trace the apparitions of Chopin's music in the strangest places around the world, like Japanese music boxes and computer games, as well as on concert stages of the world.

Chopin with Cherries brings together a variety of approaches and poetic forms, such as free verse, letter-poems, villanelle, sonnet, rhymed poems in couplets, prose poetry, and tanka. Some poets write about details from Chopin's life, women he loved, Wodzinska and Sand, as well as the circumstances of his illnesses and death. Others focus on his music - on its meaning as a symbol of fragile beauty in the modern world, or on the emotional impact of individual pieces.

The poets in Chopin with Cherries include: Millicent Borges Accardi, Austin Alexis, Lucy Anderton, Sheila Black, George Bodmer, Lia Brooks, Kerri Buckley, Allison Campbell, Peggy Castro, Sharon Chmielarz, Victor Contoski, Clark Crouch, Beata Pozniak Daniels, Jessica Day, Diane Shipley DeCillis, Lori Desrosiers, Charlie Durrant, T. S. Eliot, David Ellis, Donna L. Emerson, Charles Ades Fishman, Jennifer S. Flescher, Gretchen Fletcher, Linda Nemec Foster, Emily Fragos, Jarek Gajewski, Helen Graziano, John Z. Guzlowski, Lola Haskins, Shayla Hawkins, Elizabyth A. Hiscox, Marlene Hitt, Roxanne Hoffman, Laura L. Mays Hoopes, Ben Humphrey, Carol J. Jennings, Charlotte Jones, Lois P. Jones, Georgia Jones-Davis, Christine Klocek-Lim, Jean L. Kreiling, Leonard Kress, Emma Lazarus, Marie Lecrivain, Jeffrey Levine, Amy Lowell, R. Romea Luminarias, Rick Lupert, Radomir V. Luza, Mira N. Mataric, Ryan McLellan, Anna Maria Mickiewicz, Elisabeth Murawski, Ruth Nolan, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Rosemary O'Hara, Dean Pasch, Nils Peterson, Richard Pflum, William Pillin, Kenneth Pobo, Carrie A. Purcell, Marilyn N. Robertson, Susan Rogers, Alison Ross, Mary Rudge, Russell Salamon, Gabriel Shanks, Marian Kaplun Shapiro, Joseph Somoza, Lusia Slomkowska, Kathi Stafford, Maxine R. Syjuco, Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Margaret C. Szumowski, Katrin Talbot, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, Thom Tammaro, Mark Tardi, Cheryl M. Thatt, Tammy L. Tillotson, Maja Trochimczyk, Helen Vandepeer, Devi Walders, Erika Wilk, Martin Willitts, Jr., Kath Abela Wilson, Leonore Wilson, Meg Withers, Anne Harding Woodworth, and Marianne Worthington.

Why Chopin with Cherries, then? Instead of an answer, let me cite one of my own poems in the book:

A Study with Cherries

After Etude in C Major, Op. 10, No. 1 and the cherry orchard
of my grandparents, Stanisław and Marianna Wajszczuk

I want a cherry,
a rich, sweet cherry
to sprinkle its dark notes
on my skin, like rainy preludes
drizzling through the air.

Followed by the echoes
of the piano, I climb
a cherry tree to find rest
between fragile branches
and relish the red perfection –
morning cherry music.

Satiated, sleepy,
I hide in the dusty attic.
I crack open the shell
of a walnut to peel
the bitter skin off,
revealing white flesh –
a study in C Major.

Tasted in reverie,
the harmonies seep
through light-filled cracks
between weathered beams
in Grandma’s daily ritual
of Chopin at noon.

(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk