Liszt & Chopin In Paris
The music of Chopin is the song of the Earth. Chopin
is our planet’s greatest son and his music is the song of the Earth. In "Liszt & Chopin In Paris" film we pay homage not only to Franz Liszt, the greatest
virtuoso of all time, but to Chopin, his friend and nemesis bringing our
thanks, love and reverence to the greatest composer of the piano of all time
recollecting with joy and gratitude how over the years our lives were enriched
and beautified through his music.
Ignacy J. Paderewski’s who was one of the greatest icons of classical piano referred to Chopin's music as "The Song of The Earth" in a speech delivered at the Centenary of Chopin’s birth in 1910 in Lemberg (Poland) today Lviv (Ukraine).
How timely his statements are today in view of
the recent crisis in this ancient land, how
timely now is to speak of Chopin’s music that strengthens and heals our spirit
and re-inspires our hearts in peace which most human beings desire when awake
from a night of dreadful dreams, poisoned air and self-inflicted misery hoping
to kindle the flame of universal justice that too many times have been fouled
by dark, blackening smoke of present times.
Remembering
that we were taught to respect all of humanity and to live in contempt of our
selfish wishes, and to give and forgive and not yield to hate, as these are the
values that our fathers, forefathers and brothers have thrust upon us through
the heritage of our generations and our civilization that brought us to the
present into the clutches of today and the chaotic future that looms over us
every day in the infinite abyss of time. So
what is the Song of the Earth?
The
answer is in "Liszt & Chopin In Paris" feature film now being developed for production, a historic masterpiece soon to be
presented on thousands of movie screens around the world with breathtaking
costumes, cinematography and a magnificent soundtrack featuring the radiant
spirit of Chopin’s music whose valor, strength and energy screams so loudly and
yet so subtly in the midst of human suffering troubled by affliction,
heartache, creative pain, hardship and the pangs of existence while at all time
screaming loudly - long live humanity!
Art
and all that springs from the depths of the human soul is the outcome of a
union between reason and emotion, and if music is the most accessible of all
arts to us, it is because of its vibrations that are cosmic by nature. It is
the only art that actually lives with all its elements and vibrations with its
rhythm, tone, harmony and pulse with all the elements of life inside us even
though often stealthy and fragile, yet always mysterious and mighty.
Mingled
with the flow of rushing waters, the breath of the wind, the murmur of the forests,
music lives in Earth's seismic thrusts, in the mighty motion of the planets,
in the hidden conflicts of infinite atoms, in all the lights and spheres and in
the colors and shapes that dazzle and soothe our nerves and, in our eyes. It
lives in the blood of our arteries, in every pain we endure, in our passion and
ecstasy that moves our hearts and bodies. Music is everywhere, soaring beyond
and above the range of human speech into the unearthly spheres of divine
emotions.
The
energy of the Universe knows no respite as it resounds unceasingly through Time
and Space, its manifestation, rhythm and origin by the law of physics keeping
order in all worlds known and unknown, maintaining perfect cosmic harmony with
its melodies constantly flowing in the unbroken chain of starry spaces along
the Milky Way, amid worlds beyond worlds, and worlds within worlds, inside and
outside through spheres of human and superhuman realities thus creating a
wondrous and eternal unity in us in the harmony of universal being.
People
and nations rise, new worlds begin and crumble, stars and suns are born and die
so that they may give forth tone and sound and substance, and when silence
falls upon them then Life ceases, but everything utters in music.
The
Universe sings to us, it speaks to us, subtly or loudly in infinite variety of
tones, yet it always has its own voice, using its own gestures, as if according
to its own particular score, and the soul of a nation too, speaks, sings and
utters music - but how?
Human
music is but a fragment of eternal music, its form created by the mind and by
the hands of man being subject to endless transformations. Music could not
exist without silence, for it is from silence that we carve our existence and Chopin’s
music can express this best of all.
Times
change, people change and every generation has its hour of dawn, as our
thoughts and feeling take new shapes and new people put on new clothes and
garments while the youth, the next generation bow their heads unwillingly to
that which previously moved and enraptured their fathers and forefathers with
thoughts filled with new dreams of the future, their thirsts, intoxications and
enthusiasms are called on to impel humanity towards new, unmeasured heights and
beliefs that every generation searches and desires looking for new beauty, but
for beauty on its own.
In
this spirit we have began our film ”Liszt & Chopin In Paris” with works of
art that come to life to serve the needs of the moment, but even though for
that moment they take a shorter space of time these works endure longer than
their creators and sometimes as it is the case of both Franz Liszt and Frederic
Chopin they endure forever.
The
stamp of novelty is not merely of one generation, but of a whole new world and
new generations in a whole new period whose lights and ideas they still reveal
after long years, and there new works in order, timeless and strong with
undying youth, luminous and powerful in which truth and beauty speaks loudly
with the voice of every new generation, and with the new voice of the whole
race, the voice of the whole world and of the very earth which brought them
forth.
Change
follows change in us almost without transition as we pass from blissful rapture
to sobbing woe where more than often a single step divides our sublimest
ecstasies from the darkest depths of spiritual despondency, and we see the
proof of this in every aspect of our daily lives; we see it in our personal and
political framework of experiences, in our personal and professional development;
in our creative work and in daily troubles and challenges of our existence, as
well as in our social discourse and our internal and personal affairs. This
change is palpable everywhere.
Maybe
this inherent characteristic of human spirit comes forward best when we compare
ourselves with other happier, more satisfied faces whoever they may be and this
often strikes us as a pathological condition that artists throughout the ages
have tried to express and cried out loud, but being poets they are hampered by
the limiting precision of thought and the strictness of the words they could
not endure that no written language can express entirely, even ours with all
its wealth and beauty.
But
Chopin was a musician and his music alone, perhaps alone his music can
reveal it all - the fluidity of our feelings and our frequent yearnings for
beauty and infinity, our heroic concentrations and frenzied ecstasies that
tightly face the shattering of rocks and impotent despairs in our minds where
occasionally our thought darkens and the desire for action perishes, and as
Chopin’s hands strung the harp of our race with chords so tender, so mysterious,
so mighty and so compelling we realize that his music expresses all the above
to us best of all, the yearning of maidenhood, the grave manhood, the tragic
old age, the lighthearted and joyful youth, true love's enfolding softness,
the valiant and chivalrous strength of our dreams, wishes, actions and desires
- all these are ours in the music of Chopin.
His
music, tender and tempestuous, tranquil and passionate, heart-reaching,
heart-breaking, potent and overwhelming eludes the metrical discipline.
Chopin’s
music rejects the fetters of rhythmic rules and refuses submission to the
metronome as if it were the yoke of some hated ruler. His music bids us near,
draws us closer to hear pure beauty and perfection, and to know and realize that our whole humanity, our whole
world and the whole planet Earth lives, feels, and moves in tempo rubato.
So
why should the spirit of our Earth be so clearly expressed from Space in
Chopin’s music above all others? Why should the voice of our planet be
gushed forth suddenly from his heart as if from a fountain, from depths
unknown, so vital, cleansing and fertilizing? We must ask this of him – the
great Chopin alone who can open the secret womb of truth to us, but who has
never yet told us all, and who perhaps will never tell us.
The
average listener, unfamiliar with the art of music hears the masterpieces of
Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven with indifference, at times even with impatience.
Polyphonic
ingenuities and the enormous wealth and variety of harmonic intricacies, lucid
enough to the trained and understanding ear are inaccessible to the average
listener as the mind loses its way in the mystery of figures and attention
wanders and strays amid the marble forms of a beautiful, but German sonata, and
as the listener confronts the amazing structures of a classic symphony he or
she often feels chilled and ill at ease as if in a foreign church and often
cannot feel the Promethean pangs of the world's greatest musician performing
the piece.
But
let Chopin's voice speak and the listener changes immediately. His or her
hearing becomes keen, the attention concentrated; the eyes glisten, the blood
flows more quickly, the heart rejoices
and tears as if on a signal flow down the cheeks, be it the dancing lilt of native
Mazurka, the Nocturne's melancholy, the crisp swing of the Krakowiak, the
mystery of a Prelude, the majestic stride of a Polonaise, or an Etude, the
vivid but surprising Ballade, always epic and tumultuous, or the Sonata, noble
and heroic, and the listeners understand it all, feels it all, because it is
all theirs and alive as it is the very song of the Earth.
Once
more on hearing Chopin’s music the air enfolds our being and spreads before us
as the landscape of our home. Under the sad sky's vague blue the listener sees
the wide plains upon which he was born, the dark edges of distant forests,
plowed and fallow lands, the fruitful fields and the sterile sandy
stretches.
A
gentle hill has risen at whose feet the twilight mist hovers mysteriously above
the green hollow of the meadows, the gurgling of the brook reaching our ears,
the scant leaves of the birch rustle tearfully touching our ears, as the wind
plays in the fall poplars and strokes the green waves of yielding wheat, and a
perfumed breath blows from the ancient pine forest, wholesome, resinous and
magnificent.
As
we listen, all this becomes peopled by strange, legendary shapes of long ago,
that our forfathers conjured to sight as their unearthly and half-forgotten
beings that come to life again in the spring of the night. A Scherzo that beholds with the wild
frolics of demi-gods and demi-goddesses, phantoms without numbers, haunted
fields and meadows holding us captured in the dense thicket where wolves
struggle and roguish imps are at their pranks, and their little hovering
love-sprites return to encircle their Queen of Love, and hear the deathless
song which long ago burst her bosom open and laid bare to all men's sight a
heart broken and loving, full of hope.
Now,
this immemorial raises its timeless voice and thunders gloomily, threateningly
and solemnly as the holy groves tremble and the scared elves vanish from the
surface of the lake while the lightning flashes burn the sky. A storm awakens
and has broken, sudden and terrific, driving, pursuing and shattering, as if caught
in the tempest's whirling blast, the proud fans of the Druids totter with the
fall of Summer's breath as the music of our ancestors blows softly in our
souls.
The
sea of golden wheat in wind tattered fields has dried away, the shocks and
sheaves standing still, the sickle at rest and the light quail and graver
partridge stretch their wings searching the rich stores of the stubble. Waves
of the harvest song are in the air, while from marsh and pasture comes the echo
of the herdsman's pipe, and not far away from our ears there is the hum and
bustle at the wayside inn where fiddlers play dexterously.
They
play by ear, thrusting in a frequent, augmented fourth so familiar to us when a
sudden, rude bass supplies a stubborn pedal, and than our folk dances briskly,
striding, singing slowly, musingly a healthy sway, wayward, merry, yet soaked
with eerie melancholy of favorite melody. In the little church across the road
an organ sounds, poor and humble, away, there in the stately Manor lights are
flaring in the halls; great nobles, county electors maybe have gathered there
in colorful, glistening throng. Music
sounds. That’s "Liszt & Chopin In Paris"....
In
London, with Lord Chamberlain or whoever is present and of most dignified rank at the time steps forth to lead the
Polonaise.There comes the clank of swords, the rustle of brocaded silks against
their wide sleeves, purple lined as with dashing step as the couples march on
proudly while soft smooth words that begin to flow towards fair cheeks and lovely
eyes - the glib words of old Polish tongue in the foreign land, softly interspersed
by many in English here and there, and perhaps with a timid touch of French.
Than
we are back in Paris, or Italy perhaps where the dance never ceases, but now
and than an old man, long-bearded, white-haired, silver-voiced tells us some
misty tale to the sound of a bag-pipe, lute and harp. He chants of lands beyond
the seas, speaking of Italian skies, the jousts of troubadours and sings of victorious
battles lost and won, vast immortal struggles, unended and unsolved where all
listen and understand.
Out
in the garden the air is sweet, warm with breath of roses with the sigh of
jasmine and lily while a lovely daughter of the house rests under the shielding
murmur of the limes caught in a starry Nocturne gently whispering words of love
to some sad youth in the tender sorrows of the summer night.
Summer
has passed now, and so have many summers. Gone are the armored knights and
their conquering marches, fallen are the wings of the intrepid hussars who once
victoriously plowed the Baltic waves, as the manhood of the Lancer's nobles
is no more and nothing remains, but a memory fast-held in the annals of our
glory.
Autumn
comes and here are the Preludes that almost seem to be Epilogues of our lives.
Is this Life's autumn, our own, or is this the Autumn of our life from where
Life itself begins? The days are shorter now, the light wanes, fair times and
merry are rarer now, yet when the sun shines forth in its glory, it is hard to
tear oneself away from so much wealth of the matchless color to face the
consciousness of dusk and outweighing shade. It’s the music of the Piano.
The
old timepiece that measured fairer days for our grandfathers and
great-grandfathers now solemnly strikes late at midnight hour while the gloomy
wind howls in the empty chimney and suddenly one hears the measured drops of
the autumn rain once again, but this time with the soft thud of withered leaves
falling to earth and the mournful rustle of orphaned branches.
The
old graveyard is full of ghosts amid the ancient mounds and hillocks full of
shadows whose ghost was there before and whose spirit came back from the past.
The music speaks as if it was part of immortality itself, as it harbors all,
great or little, strong or humble, famed or nameless, stripping us of the
errors and quilts of our earthly covering and bringing forth hope anew from the
cleansing depths of our soul, beautified, ennobled. That’s the music of Chopin
and the song of the Earth.
