FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1991
-THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR-
D-7
This Weekend
Continued from Page 6
Indianapolis Raceway Park. Oldest, largest and most
prestigious drag racing event features more than 1,000
competitors.
GTE North Classic — Broadmoor Country Club: 8 a.m.
today, Saturday and Sunday, championship rounds.
Indianapolis Indians — 6 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and
Monday, Indians vs. Nashville. Bush Stadium.
Indianapolis Speedrome — Today: gates open, 5:30 p.m.;
hot laps for USAC midgets, 6 p.m.; race, 8 p.m. Saturday:
Stock, Pro Stock, Figure 8 practice, 6:45 p.m.; race, 8 p.m.
Indiana/Kentucky State Championships — 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Major Taylor Velodrome. Best cyclists from
Indiana and Kentucky compete for state championship.
Adults, $3; children 12 and younger, $2.
Outside Indianapolis Area
Morristown — A.W.F. Championship Wrestling — 7:30
p.m. Saturday; Morristown High School. Fund-raiser for
Morristown Voluntary Fire Department. Superstar T.J.
Powers, Calypso Jim, Dallas James, Diamond Dan; Adults,
$4, children 6 to 12, $2.
Putnamville — Lincoln Park Speedway — Saturday:
gates open, 5 p.m.; qualifying, 6:30 p.m.: racing, 8 p.m.
Sprints, Modifieds and Thunder Cars. Last day.
Paragon — Paragon Speedway — Today: gates open, 5
p.m.; racing, 8 p.m. Winged Sprints and Pro Stock car
racing; Monday: gates open, 1 p.m.; racing, 3 p.m. Pro Stock
Championship. Powder Puff, Quads.
FITNESS AND FUN
Volksmarch — 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; German
Park, 8600 South Meridian Street. 10K and 6.2-mile walks.
Paul Mullen; (317) 545-9061.
Hoosier Canoe Club — Saturday, Sunday and Monday;
New River. Whitewater trip, not for beginners. Shirley: (317)
852-9809.
Bird Walk — 8 a.m. Sunday; Nature Center, Eagle Creek
Park.
Central Indiana Biking Association — 9 a.m. Saturday
and Sunday; Marsh Super Market. Wobar Day Wanamaker
Ride II: 10-, 20-, 30- and 50-mile rides. Don Meyers: 786-
9126 and Jim Strahl: 784-6878.
Indianapolis Hiking Club — 10 a.m. Saturday; Hemlock
Cliffs, Grantsburg; 16-mile hike. South on Ind. 37 past
Grantsburg to the Blue River. Meet in parking lot (old picnic
area). Leader: (317) 359-4174; 1 p.m. Sunday; Brown
County State Park. 7- to 9-mile hike. Meet at nature center.
Leader: (317) 852-2439.
The deadline for items for the Weekend calendar is the Friday
before publication. Send name of event, date, time, place,
admission price, along with a daytime telephone number, to
Weekend, The Indianapolis Star, P.O. Box 145, Indianapolis,
Ind. 46206-0145.
MUSIC
Transcribing music gets new respect
Pianist is fascinated by the variety offered in the process of
adapting music.
By JAY HARVEY
STAR STAFF WRITER
#f imitation is the sincerest form of "flattery,
transcription may be the most respectable. It
wasn't always thus with the art of transferring a musical composition from one medium to another, pianist Frederic Chiu observed
recently in a phone conversation from his parents'
home in Cincinnati.
"It's an area of music that's been denigrated a
bit," the 26-year-old ex-Indianapolis resident
said. "Only now is transcription coming back
into fashion."
Chiu will include three transcriptions in a
benefit recital he is giving tonight at Meridian
Music Co., 9401 North Meridian Street.
The performance will help support activities of
the American Pianists Association, which (as the
Beethoven Foundation) awarded Chiu one of
three Beethoven Fellowships given through audition in 1985.
That was toward the end of his study at
Indiana University with Karen Shaw, from which
he went to the Juilliard School to study with
Abbey Simon, Shaw's teacher and one of the
jurors at the auditions that year.
Paris is new home base
Since then, he has decided against trying to
mount a major concert career from New York
City. The stress of life there made him look
elsewhere for a home base, which he has found
in that longtime magnet for Americans of artistic
bent — Paris, France.
The congeniality of French life and art will
also be reflected in tonight's recital, with the
inclusion of Images, Book II by Debussy and
Ravel's Oiseaux tristes and Une barque surl'o-
cean.
As for those transcriptions, Chiu is fascinated
by the variety the process of adapting music
offers.
"There are so many different ways that one
composer can use another composer's work," he
said.
The two major directions are literal and fanciful, according to the pianist. Some incorporate
Frederic Chiu to give recital tonight.
the personality of the transcriber, while others
nearly leave it out.
A new acceptability
Whatever course is taken, Chiu has discovered
a new acceptability for transcriptions, which he
traces to our removal in time from the last period
in which transcriptions flourished — the early
part of this century.
"We don't really feel that it's like a blow
against the authenticity of the (original) piece.
The transcription has actually become a classic
of its own."
Besides Liszt's transcriptions of a song by
Schubert [Der Lindenbaum) and a climactic section of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (Llebestod),
Chiu has programmed an adaptation Sergei Prokofiev made for a dance company of some waltzes
by Schubert.
"There's not very much Prokofiev in it. I think
he did it for the check. I'm presenting it as a
musical curiosity, a document."
A more respectable side of the Soviet compos
er will make up the third facet of Chiu's program
— the thorny Sonata No. 6.
Inclusion of that piece relates to a recording
project Chiu will plunge into in October — putting on compact disc all nine solo piano sonatas
by Prokofiev for the Harmonia Mundi label.
Chiu has a five-year, five-release contract with
the company, the first fruit of which is next
month's release of — guess what? — virtuoso
piano transcriptions.
"They were a bit hesitant about releasing yet
another piano recording," Chiu recalled of his
first contacts with the label, "so we're trying to
focus on repertoire that's a bit different." The
Mendelssohn sonatas, for instance, lie among the
untrodden ways the pianist plans to explore with
Harmonia Mundi.
Though he is appreciative of the opportunity
his Beethoven Fellowship gave him, Chiu is
against more conventionally structured musical
competitions.
He even wrote a series of articles on the
subject for a national music magazine. They were
accepted for publication only to be turned down
by a publisher who felt his participation on
contest juries would be jeopardized if he printed
them.
Grateful for fellowship
"The preparation for a competition and recitals or concerts is entirely different. I wouldn't
have had these last three or four years to work on
this Prokofiev recording project if I had been
working on contests, too."
Yet he's grateful that the Beethoven Fellowship enabled him to enter contests in Europe,
where he met his present teacher Marian Ry-
bicki. It was Rybicki who helped get Chiu established in Paris, helping him locate an apartment
and finding him an assistarttship at l'Ecole Nor-
male de Musique.
Chiu, who grew up in Indianapolis, likes life in
France.
"The pace is more agreeable; I feel very comfortable there. It's helped my playing in terms of
letting me present myself without background,
without a context. Playing here in the United
States, I'm always tied down by what I did when I
was a kid."
He also likes the way the French will loyally
champion a foreigner they believe in, being more
receptive in this regard than the Germans or the
English, Chiu said.
