Opening Doors

www.200chopin.com

One central conceptual challenge that we are addressing with this site is how to make the world of Chopin attractive to those willing to take some time to explore. We believe there will be many who would like to do this. While many will agree that Chopin was only equalled by Mozart in his output of beautiful melodies, so many of Chopin's works are uninspiringly titled in the dry language of archival categorisation.

Where does one begin? “Etude in E major op.10, no.3” – not only is such a title impossible for most people to use as a way of remembering the famous tune that lies behind it, it is also wholely uninviting to the above mentioned explorers looking for a door to enter into the world of Chopin.

Humans are herd animals and we are interested in other people’s opinions. This site will gather all sorts of different people’s opinions of Chopin’s works in general and our artists’ recordings of them too. At the level of an individual piece, we will open up all recordings by our artists to users to rate, creating a ranked and continually changeing catalogue of users’ choices. At a broader level, we will welcome users to make multiple playlists, gathering personal favourites and ordering them under themes. If many users take advantage of this feature, diversity will be assured.

Should the titling of other users’ playlists not be enough to entice a user to try out some of those tracks, the “Celebrity Playlist” section will be another option. Here we are inviting our own artists as well as some well-known public figures, most likely from the music world, to list some of their favourite Chopin works and above all to explain why.

Today we received a few thoughts from Yuja Wang, Deutsche Grammophon’s recently signed pianist. Amongst other choices she drew attention to the Mazurkas, since this genre in particular provides an intimate glimpse of the polish roots of the composer’s soul. Many would agree with that statement and yet the fact that the mazurkas do not belong to the more approachable of Chopin’s works on first listen means that it requires an insight from a person of such obvious credibility as Yuja Wang to entice the explorer to try one out and to give the work a chance to grow on him with repeated listening.

In our site, we will give users the time to let works grow on them. There will be no pressure to make snap decisions on purchases but the opportunity to build up a basket of recordings to buy over several weeks.


Our next post will take a look at another central concept of the site – how we are handling the presentation of so many recordings by our artists of the same works.


your Web Team
Deutsche Grammophon . Decca
www.deutschegrammophon.com . www.deccaclassics.com