Chopin in the morning

the Second Movement from Chopin's Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor is what i woke up to this morning. here's the thing about Chopin: his pieces are, i've found, infuriatingly difficult to play, especially when you're a 10-year old me being forced to practice at least an hour every day because "I'm not spending all that money on piano lessons for nothing!" my point is, you can't play Chopin unless you really want to; unless you really feel it. i don't know; maybe the same applies to pieces by Beethoven, or Bach. but then again, most of Beethoven is about angst - strong, powerful, forceful, excrutiating. and when you're forced to sit at the piano for at least an hour, Beethoven's the one to let out all frustration on. all you need to play Bach properly is for your fingers to have perfect memory and a mind of its own - Bach is about repetition and running patterns. an animated bunch of bananas could play Bach on the piano. but Chopin - he's all about the feeling. if you don't feel Chopin, all you'll sound like is a piece of wood clacketing across the piano keys. this morning's Second Movement, titled Romance and played legato, is a piece i'd require to be on the repertoire of every piano virtuoso-wannabe (if, that is, i was in any position to determine virtuoso eligibility), plainly because it is sublimely beautiful. listen to it, and you'll see what i mean. if you don't get to, then imagine this: fingers skimming across the keys like butterflies' wings - touching down just enough, pressing ever so gently - producing this lilting, lulling, almost hypnotic melody that suspends you, raises you about two feet off the ground and keeps you there, building up slowly, tantalisingly, towards a climax that never comes. suspension. makes your heart soar right up to a height with no ends. that's what he's all about: the feeling. see, if romance were like that - an infinite suspension of reality - i'd want to be in Lovey Land forevermore.

so this morning, when i woke up with this tightening in my chest and a bitter taste in the back of my throat, Chopin floated the anxiety away. the man's all about the feeling, so i knew he'd understand. i turned to the CD player and asked ol' Frederic, "What do I do, Chopin?" and in between the sounds of the ebony and ivory, and the sheep gut and metal, an idea - which i deem to have been divine intervention from beyond the grave - came upon me: postpone the meeting. and another one: storyboard idea. and then another storyboard idea. and then another. see, Chopin's an artist. but even more than that: he's a designer of pieces. writing for orchestras? no easy feat, i bet. co-ordinating which sections get what parts, what the circulation of the piece will be, it's defining structures, foundation key, intervals, chord changes, articulations - kind of like the design of space, no?

Chopin: soundtrack of the day.