CAN WE AUDIOPHILES DO OUR PART?


So we're all tired of hearing about nothing but Covid-19 (or, as I term it, the C-Plague). What can we do, as audiophiles, to help with all this.
I was amazed, and delighted, when I went to the Cardas website to see that they are doing their part. Go to their website and you'll see their director, Angela Cardas, wearing a mask. If you click on the Cardas Nautilus logo in the upper left corner, you'll see pictures of people there in the factory making masks with sewing machines. I called the company to congratulate them, and spoke with a woman named Darla, who said it was their way, during this economic slump, to keep their employees working and also their way of trying to "do our part."
I'm not writing all this to advertise Cardas products. They are a very good company, but trust your ears, not anything I write, when it comes to buying their products. They do get credit, however, for helping me come to a realization that pushed me in the right direction. I called a woman I am friends with, who is 85 years old and is a good seamstress, to suggest she start making masks. She already was--and is. By phone she has organized several other women to do the same, and right now they are needing more material and elastic. I managed to gather about 50 pounds of material and am starting to gather elastic while also getting more material. But I don't sew. I can't help out with that. Any ideas as to what we--all of us who are good with our ears and focused with our budgets--can do to help out in other ways?

I realize this is an odd topic to bring to an audio forum, but it was a very socially responsible audio company that got me to thinking about it, and frankly I believe I should be socially responsible enough to do what I can to get other people to thinking about it. While also being open to other people's ideas about ways someone like me who is "just an audiophile" can help.

Thank you, in advance, for any and all ideas on this.



baumli
Chopin is my favorite composer
The most important works of piano for Chopin are the Mazurkas....Very difficult to play rythmically....He wrote them all his life...He wrote 59 for 24 years till his deathbed... The mazurkas were the heart of chopin

My best player is Antonio Guedes Barbosa, one of the greatest unknown pianist in Occident.... His sense of rythm and humble simplicity makes miracles here...He play them effortlessly without never breaking the rythmical comlexity contrary to most other interpreters.....

This is the best kept secret of the discography says one time an English critic.... I approve him....Like Moravec he play Chopin with Bach in the back of the head, not romantically, but this times more with his sense of the rythmical unity, he does not break the rythm or accentuate it in a romantic manner.. Each mazurkas being a Polish dance with a duality of rythms in each one is very difficult to play, we must feel it in our body...He also has a great color sense, a bit less than Moravec tough, but his rythmical sense is unsurpassed....

Chopin is a poet....Liszt is a romantic magician.... Scriabin is godlike .... For Liszt the ONLY divine interpreter is Ervin Nyiregyházi, for me the greatest pianist i ever listen to....For Scriabin the greatest is the russian giant, Vladimir Sofronitsky.... He plays like a volcano erupting under a rain of orchids...His playings in Scriabin touch the divine and is akin to Nyiregyhazi...That speak volumes....


Bach is the ancester of them all....

After Scriabin because it was impossible to surpass his genius of the abyss between each chord,(Scriabin create and use atonality without a vulgar formula like Schoenberg) we need a new road.... Sorabji create it....

And Sorabji is the disciple also of Bach like Chopin, and unlike Liszt and Scriabin who never were....Sorabji has so much genius that his works are the mix of a madman and of an angel in equal quantity....His Transcendental Studies for example, numbering 100 opus on 6 cd, are sheer marvels....His other works are so enormous that all others composers look like pygmys...Except Scriabin and Bach for the sheer perfection of their creations that cannot and will never be diminished... Even by Sorabji...

In one word his works is a jungle of notes, perfectly harmonized, a chaos mimicking a crystal and a crystal mimicking chaos....


His angelic genius is clearly evident in his Trancendental Studies (6 cd) with Michael Habermann... His madman like genius is for all of us to see in the Opus clavicembalisticum with John Ogdon, a madman and an angel himself, the best version there is (4 hours and 30 minutes )....

If you are a beginner try the cd "le jardin parfumé ", a more "normal" work and a short one, truly beautiful and obsessively contemplative...A marvel....

Dont try any other works first, otherwise you can die... When someone go fishing for the first time he dont try to catch a whale first :)
@mahgister & @devilboy 

I was going to ask you about Liszt. I have a recording of Earl Wilde called "The Demonic Liszt". Liszt definitely had a dark side. I also have Scriabin's "Prometheus". I listen to music in total darkness. When I first heard Prometheus I couldn't help but imagine the forming of Earth, with fires everywhere and volcanic explosions. It's very dark. Since you are both Chopin fans, I have a very good book for you. It's appropriately titled: Chopin's Piano. I can't think of the author's name but it's about the search for the piano Chopin wrote the Preludes on, and his relationship with George Sand. Interesting story to "Raindrops"; when Sand heard Prelude #15 she said it sounded like the rain they often heard outside their cottage. Chopin took offense at Sand thinking he could be influenced by something as mundane as raindrops. Good book and exhaustively researched.
mahgister,

Where would you put Claudio Arrau's interpretations of Chopin (I just listened to Nocturne #2)? Good? Bad? Average? I mean, compared to others you mentioned. I do like Claudio Arrau in general, but have no idea where his Chopin stands in the world of Chopin.
Earl Wild is a truly great pianist till his deathbed...

He can play anything....

The only moment in his life when he was envious of someone with rage, was when he listen to  Ervin Nyiregyházi....He call his playing"baloney"....:)

Imagine a man who was truly a great artist encountering a god that reduce him to almost nothing.... Like Salieri in the Amadeus film, envious of Mozert ....

I think Earl Wild is one of the great world pianist, all his cd are refined pure artistry...

It is just that the Hungarian reincarnation of Liszt dont play the notes, he does not even play well at times, he play his demonic soul only....He is out of comparison with others simply....