October 17, 2023 - Good Morning! It's Tuesday, October 17.
My favorite pianist is a man that I never heard play. Fredric Chopin died on this day in 1849. That was about 30 years before a man named Edison invented the phonograph. But Chopin was also a composer, and when you listen to others play his piano pieces, you get a glimpse of what it was like to hear the Maestro play.
Today, Chopin is considered, by many, to be the musician who most epitomizes the Romantic Period of the early 1800's. My favorite composer, Mozart, was a leader of the earlier Classical Era, and was a hero to Chopin. The two men shared many things. They were both child prodigies. They both struggled financially. And they both died young.
Four thousand people attended Chopin's funeral, and thousands more were turned away. The service began with Mozart's Requiem and ended with Chopin's Prelude in E Minor. It's a relatively easy piece to play - so I can play it! And it requires the technique that pianists call "a singing tone". Chopin, it is said, could make the piano sound as beautiful and expressive as the most beautiful and expressive voice. A music critic described his playing as "the voice of an angel".
We often imagine the angels singing, but the Bible never expressly says that they do. There are, however, countless verses that command us to sing, to give voice to our worship, to give voice to our praise.
Psalm 104:33 - "I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live."
Meet you back here tomorrow,
Bro. David
dmathis@fbccenter.org
