Music is often described as a “universal language,” and the Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin used it with consummate skill and fluency. Chopin himself once described music as “the indefinite language,” “the manifestation of our feelings through sounds,” and “the expression of our perceptions through sounds.” His companion, the novelist George Sand, wrote that Chopin “made a single instrument speak a language of infinity. He could often sum up, in ten lines that a child could play, poems of a boundless exaltation, dramas of unequalled power.”
The paradox is that a composer whose voice was so distinctive and original managed to produce music that has the capacity to speak to each and every person in their own voice, their own language. Few other composers, if any, have managed to do so. That is one reason why Chopin’s music has held such a central position in the canon for over 200 years.
John Rink’s talk will probe Chopin’s enduring legacy, illuminating the composer’s unique approach to the piano and demonstrating how we might “translate” his music and hear its inner meaning as if Chopin was speaking directly to us.
Chopin’s Music and the Language of Infinity,
Lecture by Prof. John Rink
Johns Creek United Methodist Church -
Sunday, June 30, 5 PM
John Rink is a prize-winning author and expert on many facets of Chopin’s oeuvre, including the manuscript and printed sources, editorial practices, critical reception, performance style (both historical and modern), and analysis. He holds the post of Professor of Musical Performance Studies at the University of Cambridge in the UK, a position created for him in 2009 when he became Director of the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice, which was based at Cambridge. He is also Fellow and Director of Studies in Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, in addition to holding Visiting Professorships in London, Singapore and China.
John Rink has published widely on Chopin, musical performance, and other topics. He has
produced
volumes on musical performance released by Oxford University Press in 2017–18. He has directed major online projects focused on Chopin and has brought out acclaimed editions of Chopin’s piano concertos. He also served as a member of the jury of the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition held in Warsaw in October 2015, and he will return as a jury member for the 18th Competition in 2020.
John Rink studied at Princeton University, King’s College London, and the University of Cambridge, and he holds the Concert Recital Diploma and Premier Prix in piano from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Much of his recent work as a performer focuses on historic instruments: he is an expert on playing techniques relevant to the Pleyel pianos that Chopin himself favoured when composing, performing, and teaching. He regularly speaks, performs and teaches throughout the world, with recent masterclasses in Japan, Australia, China, and several European countries.
John Rink's Biography >