Miriam Sagan and Chopin

This evening I would like to welcome Miriam Sagan, author of Miriam's Well, to The Song Is...  She is enabling us to branch out into classical music with her poem inspired by Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki and his interpretation of Chopin's 12 Etudes, Opus 10.  In fact, as Miriam recalled, she had been scribbling this poem in the dark while the young man above played.  (Actually, the picture above is from 2008.  Lisiecki is now 20.  For more information about him, see his website: http://janlisiecki.com/Jan_Lisiecki.html.)



Etudes

1.
frozen waterfall=silence
cascade/otherwise

2.
cumulus moon
white keys' notes
fall like snow

3.
reflected in the opened
piano lid
a city of windows
and caged canaries

4.
just tell
me what I want
to know
or leave me alone

5.
maybe I'd always
secretly
been happy

6.
the Pleiades
setting
over your side of the bed

7.
crows scolded me for my neglect
as did a rainy wind
out of the west

8.
old woman in the pool
and the shadow
of something

9.
on the train platform
breath hung
escaping

10.
beneath
a dream of jetties
whirlwind
of dead leaves

11.
you might as well
come with me
after all

12
so many years ago
I took your
arm
wearing this very same
pink coat

To listen to the piece that Lisiecki performed, click on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B2MtrY51co

Here he plays Nocturne in C sharp minor (1830) as an encore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxibkvfXWIo

This is his version of Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise 2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POW-nMaKAp4

So that you may compare, here is Claudio Arrau's version of 12 Etudes, Opus 10 from 1953:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7JE8nEyoYI

I am going to finish with Roy Eaton's performance of Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il55wBoBPy4