The Majorca winter vacation of
Frédéric Chopin and Aurore Dupin-Dudevant, known by her pen name of George Sand, in 1838 and 1839 is something of a classical music legend, and this disc is intended to bring it alive. Sand wrote about the trip at length in her memoir, written after
Chopin's death, some years after the fact. Excerpts from her descriptions here alternate with familiar
Chopin pieces, performed by rising German pianist
Sebastian Knauer; the reader is actress
Hannelore Elsner. The readings are given in German translation only, even though the booklet notes are in German and English, and there are no translations of Sand's texts. Thus the recording will be of the most interest to German speakers. These may find
Elsner's readings a bit dry, but the recording is novel in its conception. It's not clear to what degree Sand's recollections of her winter vacation with
Chopin changed over 16 years, but they refer not only to their surroundings and to
Chopin's worsening illness but to music, specifically or generally described. The pieces included on the program were all written around this period, and they seem to spring directly out of Sand's prose passages. You might not pick this as a
Chopin recital per se;
Knauer is not a
Chopin specialist, and his readings, too, are rather sober. This recording may find uses even beyond the German-speaking world; it could be helpful, for example, in German language classes.