Louis Lortie - Louis Lortie Plays Chopin 4This is the fourth volume of Louis Lortie's highly successful series devoted to Chopin. The recording perfectly illustrates how Chopin elevated the waltz to a genre of musical art, from danses de salon evocative of a genial milieu to 'works' with proper opus numbers. Growing up in the 1820's, the composer at first viewed the waltz purely pragmatically, as a means to a social end in the dance salon. But after spending time in Vienna and Paris in the

with existing and new repertoire involving the double bass by composers who have all at some point lived and worked in the city

Ben Vaughn shuts his mouth

tales of Roman history and pastoral-erotic tropes for their subjects

We remember them with utter gratitude

he promised that someday he would marry her

Els Biesemans specialized in the varied keyboard styles of the 18th and 19th centuries at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

I can only say he came away with fans in any situation he found himself in

whose exhausting work schedule-mounting a Broadway production by day and editing his latest movie at night-and routine of amphetamines

Walking in her tracks

those toothy hooligans avid for novelty in the years following the flu epidemic and the First World War - they seem to be playing some of the same games as the comedians: inventing characters

described the composer improvising at his legendary clavichord

1984 at the age of 48