‘Why are you there and I'm here?’ Homo creativus had asked on the other side of the gate, and felt a heartbreaking longing.”

Dedicated to Someone

J. S. Bach: Præambulum (Prelude) in G Minor BWV 930 (1720 or before)

Jasmin Fors, piano / Recorded in October 2024; Video edited by Lauri Toivio

Video sheet music: Original manuscript by Bach, from “Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach” (“Little Clavier Book for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach”), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, USA

J. S. Bach: Præambulum (Prelude) in G Major BWV 902a (before ca. 1726–29)

Jasmin Fors, piano / Live recording, September 2024; Video edited by Lauri Toivio

who knows how the world can be

happy in his wilderness

if someone him can see

Drawing after plaster statue of Chopin (Pencil on paper, 22 x 29 cm)

Art Gallery

1) Start the pulse of life that produces warmth and energy, by paying attention to the direction that gives meaning and the gestures that produce joy;

2) Feel and accept the charm of life given as a birth gift and the energizing impulses that flow from it;

3) Spurred on by energy impulses and undeterred, move towards essential milestones and destinations – with full justification;

4) Allow your life spirit flow forward with its own natural swirl by keeping the human core molten and solving possible uncertainties, contradictions and fears that freeze the movement and Alberti bass of life!

Happy Easter wishes!

Jasmin

J. S. Bach (1685–1750): Præambulum (Prelude) in F Major BWV 927 (1722/23)

Jasmin Fors, piano / Live recording, March 2024; Video edited by Lauri Toivio

Video sheet music: Original manuscript by Bach, from “Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach” (“Little Clavier Book for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach”), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, USA

Music: An excerpt from ‘Stellar Nursery’ piano collection by Lauri Toivio; Jasmin Fors, piano (live)

“Chopin@Home” – Recording Series by Villajasmin

Jasmin Fors, piano / Recorded in February 2024

Video sheet music: The first French edition by J. Meissonnier (1855), edited to match Henle’s Urtext Edition (1975)

My recently written story “Lectio Musicum: Sing until your instrument takes over” is closely related to this performance and interpretation of Chopin’s Mazurka op. 68 no 4. The composition is rumored to be his last, and would also have been left unfinished due to the composer’s impending death.

In the story, Chopin’s voice suddenly starts to speak to an artist sitting at the piano, practicing the mazurka in question. Chopin expresses his ironic opinion about the interpretation: as dead as its composer. He begins to open up about the common features of art and human life, the pulse and its rubato, the emotions and colors of music, also a bit of philosophy, and finally gives a piano lesson; the result is this interpretation. I apologize for the ‘singing’, but I hope the story could explain and forgive it all...

Unfortunately only the Finnish version exists so far on my website (Lectio Musicum). Hopefully, the English translation will soon be available!

New addition to the Portrait Gallery: Self Portrait in a Tyrolean Blouse 

(2006, first self portrait), oil on canvas, 46 x 55 cm

”Drawn With Autobiographite” – The Album existing soon

Jasmin Fors, piano

Franz Liszt (1811–1886): Sonata in B Minor (1853)

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849):

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor Op. 23 (1835)

Ballade No. 4 in F Minor Op. 52 (1843)

Trois nouvelles études (1839)

Produced by Jasmin Fors

Audio & video editing by Lauri Toivio

Instrument: Steinway & Sons, Model D (Concert Grand)

Recorded 2017–2020

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849): Étude Op. 25 No. 5 in E Minor

Jasmin Fors, piano

The “Chopin@Home” recording series continues:

Chopin’s Étude Op. 25, No. 5 in E Minor begins with what seems like an amiable tomfoolery on what is allowed and what is not, with undertones that never lose their elegance or brilliance. A dissonant theme builds into a texture of rich, vivid and delicate variations.

After the first theme, the listener is invited to enter a new world of sincere beauty: the midpassage, which flows on, striving for – before eventually taking wing – towards a musical and emotional freedom.

The return to the initial dissonant theme – with the agile alternating intervals turned into a series of triads – recreates the atmosphere, which is now more melancholic and resigned.

The fantastically creative climax for the musical tension built up through the entire étude includes a series of crotchets or quarter notes, accompanied by three fortes, stepping up along the keyboard without the constraints of time signatures, in a frantic search for an eventual freedom!

–JF

English translation by Päivi Tikkanen

‘The Pearl of the Mind’ is an artist’s literary and empirical dive into the ocean of the human mind, in the form of a dialogue. We ta

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