Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Chopin

Sunday evening we went to a benefit concert for the Sanz Medical Center-Laniado Hospital in Netanya at a private home on the sea-front given by pianist Ronald Jacobowitz. Since the hostess is herself a concert pianist she has a grand piano in her living room, the piano is black and the room is all white, quite a contrast.
Ronald Jacobowitz was a child prodigy, playing the piano from a very early age at his home in the Bronx, New York. He studied mathematics and music at Princeton and became a Professor of Mathematics at MIT. But, his real love was musicology and he is now retired and living in Phoenix, Arizona. He comes to Israel regularly to visit his family living in Jerusalem.
His topic was "Sources of Chopin's style." Jacobowitz illustrated his talk with examples of the work of Chopin (1810-1849) and several other composers. It was a stirring performance, especially with the sea breeze coming through the wide open balcony and the sun setting over the Mediterranean in the backgound, a wonderful experience.
The Mazurka was a folk dance of central Poland that Chopin started writing variations on when he was a child. During his short career he wrote more than 50 of them. He then graduated to a more dignified form, the Polonaise. Contrary to common perception, the Poloniase was not exclusively used by Chopin, but was a well known dance form, used by both Bach and Schubert. Chopin also wrote many nocturnes, meant for evening performance, a form that was invented by John Field (1781-1837) an Irish composer, whose nocturne no. 1 sounded just like Chopin. Also, a composer named Hummel (1778-1837) who had been a pupil of Mozart, was a significant influence on Chopin's style.
The Sanz Medical Center was started in the 1950s by the Sanz Klausenberger Rebbe, who survived the Holocaust, barely. His family was killed around him, his 11 brothers and sisters and his parents. He had a knife wound to the arm, but covered it with leaves in order to staunch the bleeding. But, he could not go to a hospital, and he made an oath that if he survived he would found a hospital that would cater to people like himself. He did survive and emigrated to Israel and founded the Sanz Medical Center in Netanya, that developed into the Laniado Hospital, the largest private hospital in Israel. It prides itself on its compassionate staff, and caters to all comers. Because it is a religious Jewish institution, it employs many local Arabs (doctors and nurses) to work on Shabbat, as well as at other times.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home