Andras Schiff Plays Chopin

The celebrated Hungarian pianist, András Schiff, plays the Chopin Preludes on an 1860 Pleyel Grand Piano, filmed in the beautiful, meticulously-restored Concert Hall of the Ancien Conservatoire in Paris, where Chopin himself frequently gave concerts. Chopin played Bach most days and more often than not he played the preludes and the fugues from the ‘Well-Tempered Klavier’. Chopin’s own cycle of preludes are an homage to Bach and, like the ‘48’, the 24 Preludes are in each of the 24 keys. Otherwise they have little in common. They are not actually preludes to anything each one is followed only by another prelude. The 24 Preludes were partly written in Majorca in the monastery of Valldemosa in the winter of 1838 and 1839, where Chopin went with writer George Sand and her children in an attempt to mend his deteriorating health. Chopin’s moods during his stay in Majorca fluctuated wildly from great happiness to profound depression and these moods are reflected in the condensed poetic miniatures of the Preludes, which constantly change colour, chameleon-like, from the simple and joyful to the bleak, tormented and desperate. Bonus documentary: Schiff on Chopin. 60 mins