[Harp-L] Franz Chmel



Hi All,

I wanted to second Elizabeth's mention of Franz Chmel as being astonishing indeed. He is a calssical player who has both a uniqe technical facility and vibrato production that aids him in adapting music written originaly for violin and other instruments to the harmonica repertoire from the classical repertoire with astonishing results. He plays Paganini with such ease that it is a little freakish. Much like Paganini himself - who wrote his pieces to perform himself - one begins to wonder whether or not Franz Chmel has sold his soul to the devil in trade for his amazing technique ;-).

I have Franz Chmel's "Classic Harmonica Volume 1" in my collection and I enjoy it very much. It includes music from Bach to Vaughan Williams (the only cut written for harmonica) and the album is a great testimony to the capabilities of the harmonica in main-stream classical music. A lot has to be said for Chmel's adaptations of many favorites from the "pops" repertoire to harmonica.

Franz Chmel maintains a website at: http://www.chmel.at where you can find information about him and his recordings (hard to get in the US). An aside note . . . He sent me an e-mail asking if everything got there OK when I bought his album with the help of Danny Wilson - which I thought was very sweet.

I definitely rate Franz Chmel's "Classic Harmonica Volume 1" as a must have to any classical fans out there. I don't know how easy it is to get, but it is worth the effort!

Michael





This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and MHonArc 2.6.8.