Today’s recording brings In the Hands over the one hour mark: since I started this blog at the end of August, it’s brought over 65 minutes of free piano music to the web. Yay!
This recording also marks a more dubious milestone: for the first time I’m late with the post (it just turned Wednesday in Minnesota as I type this). I’m not sure anyone cares, or even notices, but I do try to keep myself honest with this Tuesday/Saturday plan.
Chopin can get very complex, virtuosic, or just generally full of big piano sounds. But always, in everything he writes, there’s something pure and elemental at the heart of his music. In this waltz, that elemental core is bare. In a piece like this, it’s hard for me not to look at the score and wonder: It’s so simple! How can there be so much in so few notes? Where is the magic hiding?
This Chopin waltz is doubly special to me — not only because it’s a great piece, but also because, like this nocturne from a few entries back, my mom plays it too. (Her glasses have changed since that photo was taken, but not her smile!)