Oskar Merikanto | Waltz In Chopin Style

Oskar Merikanto (1868– 1924) was a Finnish composer, music critic, pianist, and organist.

As a composer, Merikanto was primarily a miniaturist, and his extensive œuvre includes songs and piano pieces (he wrote over 100 of each).

Of the latter, he is best remembered for: Summer Evening Waltz (Kesäillan valssi, Op. 1), Romance (Romanssi, Op. 12), Summer Evening Idyll (Kesäillan idylli, Op. 16/2), Valse lente (Op. 33), and Idyll (Idylli, Op. 73/1).  Merikanto also wrote three operas: The Maiden of the North (Pohjan neiti, 1898), which retains a degree of historical significance as the first opera composed to a Finnish libretto; The Death of Elina (Elinan surma, 1910); and Regina von Emmeritz (1920). However, Merikanto's operas have entered neither the domestic nor the international repertoires. 

As a music critic, Merikanto was associated with the Finnish-language, liberal, nationalist newspaper Päivälehti.

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Thanks for listening :-)

[ClassicMusicVidsUSA]

Merikanto brilliantly puts his own stamp on this piece by writing it in G Minor, a key in which Chopin never wrote a waltz, all while perfectly emulating Chopin's style best seen in the waltzes from Op. 64 and those published posthumously.

[AndyRubio]

His Improvisation, Op. 76: No. 3 is one of my favourite pieces by any composer.

[archie]

Not to my taste personally. For sure it has the scent of 'Chopin', but there's some choices that are a bit off, like 3 bars before the 'veloce', those oscillating quavers were a strange decision. Great performance though, really full of character!

[ItalianMappingBestMapper]

The romantic style is there but hmm idk in my opinion it feels a little bit too "blocky", not organic enough to really feel like Chopin

[johnsarkissian]

It’s a nice waltz but it’s definitely not Chopin! It’s written in a much later style. Also the pianism is not Chopin’s. When I was a composition student at UCLA, we had to write a bunch of pieces in earlier composers’ styles. After analyzing quite a few Chopin pieces to death, we were asked to write a Mazurka and a prelude in his style. I did a fairly decent job. The professor liked them. But, frankly, no cigar!😂

[anhducduong]

Can you play some piano works from Icelandic composers? I believe there are many undiscovered gems there 😉