![]() At other points, he’s content to let a piece speak for itself by playing it straight through. Like a lively college professor, Felder-as-Chopin breaks down his interpretation of some of these works while performing them on the piano. According to him, it was the untimely death of Chopin’s beloved sister Emilia that eventually inspired the famous funeral march in his Second Piano Sonata, while his Grande valse brillante expresses some of the scorn he felt about the upper-class folk for which he performed in salons. ![]() From his birth in a small village near Warsaw to his earliest compositions and public concerts at age 7, and from the discovery of his distaste for public concerts in Paris to his tempestuous romance with French writer George Sand, Felder covers the major biographical high (and low) points.įelder’s not just interested in Chopin’s life, but in how it informed the music he composed. ![]() Barry bathing Felder’s own spare scenic design in reflective chiaroscuro shades to add to the twilight context. Also like those shows, it tends to be stronger as a work of education than theater.Įven the setup for Monsieur Chopin is clumsy: What exactly are we in the audience students of, if none of us are actually learning to either play the piano or write compositions? No, it’s merely a pretext for Chopin (played by Felder himself) to recount his short but trailblazing life, with lighting designer Erik S. As with those other shows, Monsieur Chopin is as much lecture and concert as it is a play. Felder has created a cottage industry of sorts with this kind of biographical show about composers, with previous subjects including George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Leonard Bernstein. That’s the setup for Monsieur Chopin, the latest solo show from Hershey Felder to get a theatrical run in New York. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, into the salon of Fryderyk Chopin, where you will all be students to the great 19th-century Polish composer, giving what will be one of the last lessons he’ll give before his death in 1849. Hershey Felder wrote and stars in Monsieur Chopin, directed by Joel Zwick, at 59E59 Theaters. ![]()
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