Yundi Li; poetry in motion

Deutsche Grammophon has a spiffy new web log for pianist, Yundi Li. Currently it features an interview between Seiji Ozawa and Yundi, "Poetry and Technique in a Rare State of Harmony." The blog attempts to communicate a sense of the poetic beauty of Yundi's playing and misses. Fortunately, this doesn't matter and the web log does have some graces; visually attractive and with some great music clips on it.

Princess Haiku has heard the music of Chopin as played by the gifted young pianist, in her dreams. In fact said Princess Haiku, I stopped by Pere Lachaise the other day for a tete a tete with Baudelaire and Keats, and who was sitting on the stone angel pointing towards heaven? Why it was Chopin himself, claiming he was still being pursued by the notorious George Sand and that he needed to rest. And then he told me that he was working on a new piece, "The Chrysanthemum Sonata" for Yundi and if he were still alive, he would this and that....

And on and on. Some ghosts don't know when they are done said Princess Haiku, as she disappeared over the edge of the moon, with her pet whippet, Nimble of Thrace, but I do.

Van Cliburn; Angel of Detente

In 1962 the great pianist, Van Cliburn played the magnificent Brahms Piano Concert No.2 in Russia and brought the entire USSR to its feet. In so doing he displayed an artistic brilliance more capable of inspiring detente than any political arena. The power of great art has no limitations and the world in its current state of political unrest needs art more than ever. Great art is able to rise above dogma, fanaticism, hatred, intolerance and fear. Thank you Mr. Cliburn for your music; for your enduring gift to planet earth.

Yundi-Li Fantasie on a Theme of Purple Nikes

This is a very amusing commercial featuring Yundi-Li and Nike. Enjoy. It started my day with a smile.

Helene and now Yundi-Li are representing corporate sponsors. I think that if they want or need to this than why not? I would hope they would donate a portion of their earnings to support music for children in schools. But than I am an idealist...

This commercial has my imagination twirling. I wish musicians would sign CDs and fling them into the audience like baseball players do their baseballs. Can you imagine? Lang Lang flings his latest Ravel CD into the "Soon to Exist Green Music Center." It flies high and soars, up, up and up into the balcony where Princess Haiku and her entourage of blog friends sit. Princess Haiku jumps into the air and catches the CD. This becomes Lang Lang's Legendary Ravel Performance.

Does she
1) bring the CD to her magenta lips and vow to never part with it. She creates a shrine for it next to her pet palm tree, Hortense who grows taller every passing day.
2) she sells it on EBAY for the best price.
3) she immortalizes Lang Lang by writing a haiku about it.


The most amusing response wins a link of the day.

The Latest Buzz on La Belle Helene

Here is a lovely video of La Belle Helene Grimaud playing a Schumann piano concerto on YouTube. For some reason they won't let people embed, so follow the link.

The newest buzz is that La Belle, at the height of her musical career
is the New Brand Ambassador for Montblanc.

"NEW YORK, May 23, 2007 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Helene Grimaud is acknowledged as one of the best pianists of her generation. The public loves her and musicians respect her. In 2007, Helene Grimaud was named one of the international brand ambassadors for Montblanc and the new face of an extensive advertising campaign.

I expect that her wild wolf refuge may benefit from this, although of course I'm only guessing. As a poet I like fancy pens, although I don't have one. I guess it's the same thing as artists drooling over lofts and having to work in box cars and chicken coops while lawyers live in their lofts and play hip hop music. The world, I am told- isn't supposed to make sense.

At any rate, Viva la Montblanc and may you feed a lot of wild wolves this year. BTW the Mont Blanc homepage has one very hot picture of La Belle. Here is more info via their homepage and apparently they have a classical music award program as well as fine products so I underestimated La Belle's role.


"Montblanc has appointed the world-class Pianist Hélène Grimaud as new Brand Ambassador of Montblanc’s arts & culture projects like the “Prix Montblanc”. The Prix Montblanc is another celebration of an award given by Montblanc to award and encourage young classical music talents who have shown tremendous efforts and contributions to the development of arts and culture."

Lang Langs developing artistry

I heard a new artistry in this YouTube clip of Lang Lang playing the Hungarian Rapsody No. 2. I first heard Lang Lang perform at Cal Performance in Berkeley a few years ago and felt that his brilliant technique overshadowed his artistry. Not any more... It is a wonderful thing to hear and watch artists grow and blossom.

La Belle Helene Plays on Clara Schumann Piano

I found a video on Youtube of la Belle Helene playing on the Clara Schumann Piano. What Helene didn't know was that the ghost of Clara was rustling around in the shadows of the room. How could Clara resist the beauty of La Belle's touch?

She couldn't said, Princess Haiku. -And believe me if I could repeat what other ghosts say I would never stop writing stories. But of course, there is a ghost code of ethics. We aren't like certain therapists who betray the confidences of dead poets and musicians etc.

What Clara said about Helene...... My lips are sealed.

lovely Helene in red via pariroma.com I found an interesting new blog, Some Classical Music and Peace which deserves a visit.

Princess Haiku Listens to the Top 30 Young Phenoms Under the Age of 30 on KDFC

Yundi Li

KDFC Radio in San Francisco is known for its support of emerging and established young musicians. You can get more information on the top 30 gifted young musicians at the KDFC website.


October 27, 1982
Yundi Li turns 25 in October. Li is most well known for being the youngest pianist to win the prestigious International Chopin Piano Competition at the age of 18. Li is now living in Hannover, Germany.

The Tempest of Helene Grimaud

For Helene Grimaud Enthusiasts:

I found an interesting review of her concert in Washington D.C. on July 11, 06, written by Charles T. Downey in Ionarts.

"The effect of star power was on display Sunday night when pianist Hélène Grimaud gave a recital at Shriver Hall. The crowd was the largest and youngest in my experience of the venue, with all tickets sold out in advance and an overflow crowd, largely students, filling in the unused seats and some even allowed to sit on the stage."

The full article VIA Ionarts...

La Belle Helene

What is she thinking?

"Playing the Piano is a Reconciliation of Opposites" says Helene Grimaud

This link will take you to French-born pianist, Helen Grimaud's interview with Robert Siegle on NPR.

Helene Grimaud describes playing the piano as a "reconciliation of opposites" in a provocative interview with Robert Siegle. She describes her desire for absolute isolation and oneness with nature versus a desire for universal communication (in this instance) via the musical dialectic of the German Romanticists.

Helene Grimaud has a particular and unique psychological complexity derived from this juxtaposition of contradictory impulses. This is a key issue with Grimaud; the necessity for personal integration and simultaneous individuation. In her piano music, Grimaud expresses who she is, and also whom she will become.

I have a strong intuition that Helene may also have a gift for musical composition. Many of the great composers were also poets at heart and Grimaud has poetic capacity; as evidenced in her piano playing and in her writings expressive of myths and Jungian archetypes. The future will reveal itself in this regards, thinks Princess Haiku.

This link also takes one to other interviews with Grimaud and Siegle at NPR and wonderful phrases of music, described in Grimaud's own words as "touched by the heart." Music doesn't become more expressive of basic humanity than it does in the piano of Helene Grimaud.

I wish her all the best and have read online that she has recently been unwell. This is wishing her renewed health and continued musical success.


Grimaud plays Schumann via YouTube

Early Landscapes of Helene Grimaud: Aix en Provence

The early landscapes of Helene Grimaud are filled with the beauty and mystery of Aix en Provence; a city most artists would leap at the opportunity to experience. Why is it that not only Helene, but most creatives feel the need to strike out for themselves in foreign and isolated terrains to discover themselves? Those born with the beauty of ancient history seek avant-garde landscapes and vis versa. Perhaps being connected to the far past is a form of bondage. Princess Haiku doesn't know as she is a California ghost and adapts to edgy and new, as easily as the dream world. We will have to ask Helene won't we? If Princess Haiku listens carefully to the hidden subtext in her new CDs she will learn more.

A Spill of Moonlight From a Piano Can Only Mean the Keyboard of Yundi Li, said Princess Haiku

MAY YOU SLEEP IN THE ARMS OF ANGELS, FREDERIC.

Helen Grimaud on New York Public Radio with Leonard Lopate

Helene Grimaud seeks higher levels of consciousness and awareness through musical expression and brings others along on her journey. In this live interview on New York Public Radio with Leonard Lopate, Helene Grimaud discusses a myriad of topics: the emergence of musical interest in childhood at Aix en Provence, establishment of a wolf reserve in New York, an autobiography- Wild Variations and the CD Reflections; a musical discourse between Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms.

The cool sophistication in Helene Grimaud's presentation of self contrasts the stormy music of the German Romanticists she loves. Her book, "Wild Variations" reflects the interweaving of motifs and interests of German Romanticism: emotions, dreams, travel, nature and mythology.

High Quality Video of Helene Grimaud live

I found an amazing video of Helene Grimaud in concert at http://totemvideos.bog.com/
Click on the title of this entry for an excellent musical experience.

Helene Grimaud: Astrologic Revelation

I wonder, mused Princess Haiku, how a ghost can order a birth chart on ASTROTHEME. Determining a date of birth could be a problem. For Helene Grimaud fans, here is a link (click on the bold) to her birth chart and analysis. The rest of you might want to see what the stars have in store for you too. ASTROTHEME looks like an interesting and fun place.

Helene Grimaud Plays Iceland

Here is a lovely photo of Helene Grimaud in blue, playing with the Iceland Symphony. I have never been to Iceland but appreciate its good taste in music in-so-far as they have invited Grimaud to perform with them. Iceland is known for its famous wildlife preserves and perhaps one of Helene's favorite wolves came along for the trip.

I found an interesting article about Helene Grimaud in Newsweek: Oct 13, 2006 "Playing With Wolves" that includes an interview about her relationship with music and wolves. To her the two are not so different in the demands they make of her attention. I would call this "Wild Wolves, Wild Animus." Fascinating isn't she?

Open Portal: Alexander Scriabin's Mystic Chord

Alexander Scriabin was deeply immersed in the theosophical teachings of Helena Petrovna Blavasky when he created his "mystic chord." Scriabin's composition, Vers La Flamme, was "considered to be influenced by Scriabin's theories of synesthesia; a condition wherein one experiences sensation in one sense in response to stimulus in another. It is doubted that Alexander Scriabin actually experienced this. His color system, unlike most, lines up with the circle of fifths: it was a thought-out system based on Sir Isaac Newton's Optics. Indeed, influenced also by his theosophical beliefs, he developed it towards what would have been a pioneering multimedia performance: his unrealized magnum opus Mysterium was to have been a grand week-long performance including music, scent, dance, and light in the foothills of the Himalayas that was to bring about the dissolution of the world in bliss."

Regardless of one's opinion of the psychic power of Vers La Flamme, it is an amazing, brilliant composition. The first time I heard it, I imagined "raspberry sherbert melting in the mind." Listen for yourself and decide what you think. Another pianist who has discussed synesthetic experience is Helene Grimaud and I am wondering if she has recorded, Scriabin's, Vers La Flamme and "opened the portal for listeners."

Daniel Barenboim

Quotation from Daniel Barenboim"

"Music is not a livelihood; it is a miracle."

Who next, at the altar of Deutsche Grammophon?

Can you predict who will be the next young phenom at the altar of Deutsche Grammophon Recordings?







Here is a list of gifted young musicians.
Visit, "From the Top" and let me know whom you think is the next.

Alchemy and Pathos "Helene Grimaud Plays Chopin Rachmaninov"

Pathos and Alchemy as twins are the leitmotif of the 2005 Deutschegrammophon recording "Helene Grimaud Chopin Rachmaninov." In this CD Helene Grimaud plays the Piano Sonata no. 2 of both composers and explores musical intertextuality within and between the composers. This beauty intermingled with the colors of pathos and alchemy is a lush, colorful, whirlpool of profound sound complemented by extreme virtuosity.

Grimaud's performance is as edgy as it is provocative in that her interpretation of the music is a fuse to light primal, human feelings. It's not surprising that musical conformists are threatened by her work; which is as intellectual and deliberate as it is emotionally rich. The use of leitmotif as a musical or literary strategy goes back to Greek mythology and dramas. Anyone who has read Helene Grimaud's book, "Wild Harmonies" will be aware that myth-speak is her opus.

The postmortem dialog of this recording between Chopin and Rachmaninov, delivers the listening audience to uncharted territories within. And there Helene Grimaud leaves them to find their own way out of the necropolis and to define their experience. As a poet I experience this recording as a text within texts and the point of transformation occurs by integration of the resulting cognitive dissonance. In short, this gorgeous music results in catharsis and deeper experience of self. And- this is what all great art or alchemy is about.

Most of the great composers have an amazing poetic capacity and I see that quality in Helene Grimaud and have an intuition that she may surprise us suddenly with compositions of her own. We can only dream....