Chopin and my father

Depending on whether you believe the birth certificate or the man himself, either 22 February or today, 1 March, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin. Read more (and listen) at The Collaborative Piano Blog, and at the Washington Post here:

Chopin's piano pieces -- all of his pieces involve the piano: no symphonies or operas here -- are lyrical and lovely, poetic and, therefore, seen as accessible. Yet they can also be harmonically intricate, technically challenging. <...> Chopin's pieces represent a towering hurdle, the benchmark against which a classical pianist is measured -- in part because of the difficulty of finding a way to plumb the music's depths while sounding simple.

Today, I also honor the birthday of Albert C. Cizauskas. Were my father alive today, he would have been 90 years young. He introduced European Classical music to me, a gift that yet thrills my soul.