Chopin Nocturne Op 62 No1 in B Ax

January seems to have been Emanuel Ax month. Having heard the pianist’s Soka Performance Arts Center recital in Orange County earlier that month, Thursday I attended his performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at Disney Hall here in Los Angeles. The LA Philharmonic was conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya. In his review, Mark Swed, music critic of the LA Times, seemed miffed that excerpts from Prokofiev’s Cinderella ballet, which ended the program, received less applause than the Chopin. You see, Swed has decreed that the Chopin concertos are unfit for performance by major orchestras because of the orchestration. This is an old 1950’s legend taught in Music 101 by a PHD. I remember during my college years in the early 1950’s my 18th century counter point professor saying, after hearing a performance of this concerto, “Chopin just tosses bones to the orchestra.” Emanuel Ax and Krystian Zimmerman disagree. And for what it is worth, so do I. After several recalls from the audience, Ax played Schumann’s “D