In celebration of Chopin
Pianist travelled to Poland to ‘connect’ with composer
Pianist Eric Guo did everything but travel through time to commune with Chopin.
On March 1, the day celebrated as Frederic Chopin’s birthday, the 21-year-old Canadian played one concert at the birthplace of the Romantic-era pianist and composer, on a piano built during his lifetime. Then he went into town for a second performance, during which he used a piano that once belonged to Chopin.
“You cannot get more connected to Chopin than being in his birth place,” said Guo.
A student at the The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Guo was invited to give the special performances to mark Chopin’s 214th birthday after winning the second Frederic Chopin Competition on Period Instruments. He gave a pair of recitals on the day, one at the manor house in Zelazowa Wola where Chopin was born in 1810, now a museum, and the other at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw.
“It’s probably exactly the same room he was born in, so, it’s, you know, spiritual connection,” Guo said. “I really feel one with Chopin.”
Poland’s Fryderyk Chopin Institute — which uses the Polish spelling of the composer’s name — began the period instrument competition in 2018 to promote historically informed performances of Chopin’s music that use 19th century pianos or modern reproductions. It’s held every five years.
It’s part of a wider trend toward period instruments, as experts and audiences try to figure out what the music pieces sounded like to their own composers. Some claim that changes in how instruments are designed and played nowadays have erased subtleties in the music; others just enjoy a new spin on familiar classics.
Pianos made in the 18th and 19th century were simpler, lighter and smaller than modern instruments, with narrower keys and lighter strings. The result is they play more softly than modern pianos.
“These period pianos, they all have the ability to play as soft as possible and I think still there’s something there, there is still a core inside,” Guo said.
Guo enjoys playing both period pianos and contemporary ones. “It works both ways: the period helps the modern and vice versa,” Guo said.
In Warsaw, Guo performed a solo version of Chopin’s Concerto in F Minor on a contemporary replica of an 1830 Pleyel piano made by Paul Mcnulty, and the Preludes on Chopin’s last piano, an 1848 Pleyel. Chopin’s own piano, Guo said, has a “velvet” sound and makes it possible to get the “kind of touch that Chopin would have really sought.”
Chopin was born in Poland and eventually settled in Paris, giving concerts, teaching the piano and composing music. He died on Oct. 17, 1849, and was buried at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. His heart is at the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.