How swiftly time slips away! I had intended to post a blog on yet another great experience at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in September of 2010, but never got that “round tuit.” Of course, being the piano lover, the recital was piano. The guest artist was Henri-Paul Sicsic, a Canadian pianist. My friend Beda, who shares with me a love of sports cars, and I went straight from work in the Medical Center (very near Rice), sashayed into the Lillian H. Duncan Recital Hall and took our seats.
I wish I could YouTube this performance for everyone to hear. The program was all-Chopin, beginning with the Mazurka in C-sharp Minor, Op. 41, no.1. When the pianist played Sonata No. 2, in B-flat Minor, Op. 35, Marche funebre: Lento, I learned something new. This is the traditional funeral march. It was so eerie, played first hand, on a concert stage that I actually shivered. This link will take you to a YouTube performance by the master pianist, Arthur Rubenstein playing the March funebre: The Funeral March.
Being a writer of dark paranormal fiction, this piece resonated with me. Though my vampires never died in the traditional sense, they were transformed from normal meat-and-potatoes kind of folk to eternal hunters by a blood-borne pathogen (another story). I could imagine my British lord, concert pianist and vampire playing Chopin’s Funeral March on a dark, lonely night when eternity weighed too heavily on his shoulders. If you’d like to meet Morgan, please visit my web site for a free read, called Vampyre Hunt. http://www.lindanightingale.com/
As I pen these words, I am listening to Mr. Rubenstein’s rendition, and even now, I shiver, thinking that the young Chopin, who died at 39, wrote his own funeral march. His grave monument in Clesinger is Euterpe (Greek muse of music) weeping over a broken lyre.
On a happier note, maybe in my next blog, I’ll write about the romance between the immortal Chopin and the novelist George Sand (Aurore Lucile Dupin, later Baroness of Dudevant, 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876).
There are several movies about this love affair, none of them historically accurate, but my favorites are Impromptu and Chopin: Desire for Love. Don’t expect a history lesson. These films are romantic fantasies, but both feature his music.
