Chopin's Death, Mortality and Halloween (Vol. 1, No. 12)

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 (Vol. 1, No. 11)

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.

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

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 (Vol. 1 No. 8)

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 (Vol. 1, No. 7)

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 (Vol. 1, No. 6)

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.