I tried reading this - but the website sent me through an endless loop of signing up for the free newsletter to unlock the article (which I tried various times).
That said, this line certainly raised an eyebrow for being pretty sensational:
>Of the well-known composers of the 19th century, Fryderyk Chopin (as his name is spelled in Polish, his native tongue) is the only one whose complete works continue to be played regularly—indeed, without cease.
When was the last time you heard his piano trio performed outside of a music school, for instance...?
Yeah, it's hard to take anything in this article seriously when you're one line into it and the premise:
"Of the well-known composers of the 19th century, Fryderyk Chopin is the only one whose complete works continue to be played regularly"
...is incorrect. There's not a single composer whose "complete works" get regularly played, and even given Chopin's fairly small catalog (for a major 19th century composer) there are plenty of marginal works that rarely get performed. Considering his long and respected career as a music critic and author, I'm kind of surprised to see Terry Teachout's byline on this.
I mean amongst the list of composers publishing in the 19th Century are Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Liszt, Schumann, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Ravel to name a few(!)
It's a bit hard to take a critic seriously when they're capable of forgetting facts like this...
That said, this line certainly raised an eyebrow for being pretty sensational:
>Of the well-known composers of the 19th century, Fryderyk Chopin (as his name is spelled in Polish, his native tongue) is the only one whose complete works continue to be played regularly—indeed, without cease.
When was the last time you heard his piano trio performed outside of a music school, for instance...?