Programming.
“Whether you’re looking for a beautifully unique classical music performance or a romantic candlelit experience, this Chopin’s Best Works performance is for you. You don’t need to know all things Chopin to enjoy the evening—simply sit back and savor the stunning atmosphere and pieces you’ll hear. ”
This is an excerpt from a theatre program – on the Fever website – for a Chopin concert.
It’s almost good – in fact, it’s the best presentation text I’ve found for a concert of Chopin’s works – please, notice that I’m not doing my French fancy – I admit that in Dallas they were so much better than us on this point –
But seriously?
Are you going to see this?
I can take youg people to see it?
What saves the program a bit is the idea of presenting the concert “by candlelight” and it must have been a very nice concert.
But where is the heart? Where is the soul? What are these cold, lifeless, fleshless texts, without the slightest bit of humanity?
You’re talking about Chopin. Please.
You want people to come and find out about him and you write that?
Chopin! That’s not music.
Chopin is the sharp sword that pierces our hearts.
It is our blood that will spurt out on the immense snow of the Polish plains, when our eyes will be scorched by the sun on the ice.
Have you seen Alexander Nevsky? Do you remember the charge of the Teutonic Knights, crossing the immense frozen lake? Chopin’s spirit is not in the flames of epic and greatness – no, it happens when the ice breaks – when there is no more chance and your death is there, just a few steps away from you – and your heart knows this impending death – watching the ice break.
Don’t listen to Chopin if you are too sad – don’t go alone.
You would end up on your knees, broken-hearted.
Chopin is a blade that pierces our tusks.
But if you can hear this music
If, after you have been brought to your knees, your heart praying to your God for your end
If you then raise your head
You’ll see yes a little bit of your blood on the snow – and you’ll see how beautiful it is.
You will see the icy trees shine in an infinite crackling sound.
You will see the one you love and you will not forget to love, anymore
You won’t put it off any longer
You won’t pass a crying heart without stopping.
Chopin’s music confronts us with our sadness – and then we have two choices: death, or life to love.
Come out of Chopin, love life, he tells us that it is short and that it is so easy to lose it.
This is how I would talk about Chopin if I had to –
A theatre, they are artists who speak to the hearts of men.
It doesn’t sell peas, corks or nails.
So if we want men to come and listen to artists, it’s their hearts that we have to talk to.
That’s why the text from the Dallas theatre was the best one: it cared a little bit about the hearts of its audience.
To buy a place in a theatre is to go listen, admire, cry, laugh, despair.
So tell us stories: make us dream – when do I dream when I read worn-out, over-used words? ‘extraordinary’ ‘incredible’ ‘breathtaking’? It’s on every movie cover.
Tell us where our hearts will be taken.
Tell us if we shouldn’t come: for Chopin, you shouldn’t come when it hurts too much. It’s a music to die for.
Tell us, I don’t know, Poland, Show me the plain as far as the eye can see, the wind without obstacles, tell me about the magician of Krakow who flies over the city on his huge improbable cock, tell me about Chopin’s broken heart, those hearts that only understand yes or no, and there is no middle or lukewarmness, the Slavic soul, the love with broken wings that dies from not being able to fly anymore.
Tell us why you chose to introduce us to Chopin.
I know, for example, why today I’m talking about Chopin. It’s because today a very strange little adventure happened to me. This morning one of my best friends flew into my arms: she was so relieved to see me. I asked her what was going on. Nothing – well – only a ghost: the night before she had dreamt of me in a state … that I won’t tell you – but she was very happy to find me stupidly alive and grumpy as usual. This friend is not a literary person: she is a biology teacher and she never dreams – she says – and especially not of me. So this was the first time she dreamt about me – she saw me not far from my death – I had one breath left, she said, but surrounded by an incredible power of love (these are her words) and she ended by telling me: You are so Polish. I’m not sure what she meant by that. But Chopin’s spirit is very much in what her dream told.
I don’t know how to take this – I feel very well, I’m not sick, I had taken care to dress as cheerfully as possible – since the day was bad, it was a matter of “make against bad luck, valiant heart” – and now she, her dream of me and her “polonaise”. But she made me want to listen – without letting my heart break – to these strange pieces of music that are so much more than just music.
“His body was buried at Père Lachaise cemetery, but his heart was interred at a church in Warsaw, near the place of his birth.”
Featured Image : Frederic Chopin
ALTAIR - Concepts 