Chapter 233

Akshar was well on his way and was listening to his favorite channel, 96.3 FM where they play classical pieces from various performers. It was always a delight for him to listen to such music, so soothing and artistic and he also gets to hear about who is playing where and sometimes even the history behind some of the pieces composer. He loved listening to all of them and always wondered why most of the musicians from Russia play the violin and it was always difficult to remember their names, too many alphabets, especially consonants without the vowels next to each other and to top it all too many Y’s and Z’s. In spite of it they were some of the best musicians and he owned quiet a collection himself.

With Chopin we leave the world of the eighteenth century piano completely and enter a new realm of idiomatic writing that grows directly out of the technique of the instrument and its development that brought it close to our modern instrument in sonority. Chopin's heroes were Bach and Mozart. This sense of classical proportion and elegance combined with a love of bel canto operatic singing and his Polish heritage form Chopin's basic aesthetic. The Polish expatriate who spent most of his creative life in Paris is the first nationalist composer. Chopin, who wrote some of the most difficult piano music out there, managed to produce this music of tremendous depth without needing to make it tremendously difficult. Now lets listen to this score on Chopin’s E minor prelude rendered by Matthew Smith echoed his speakers and he was all tuned in to enjoy the melody.

The music had started playing and for some reason the broadcast was interrupted and the channel was picking up another frequency and the melody turned into an intolerable noise. With great disappointment he quickly lowered the volume and decided to wait for a few more minutes to see if it comes back up. It was his bad luck it seemed to get worse rather than getting better and he ended up changing another channel on his pre selected list and it was not too bad. He hardly listens to anything on the radio at this hour so he was not familiar with the broadcast and he was a little surprised to find out that it was some Indian program that was on. He was about to change the channel but the announcer’s remark and comments made him change his mind.