545 Optimism in Armenia; Finding Chopin's Piano
Travel with Rick Steves
Rick Steves
4.5 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2018
⏱️ 51 minutes
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Summary
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Peter Balakian describes the new positive spirit he encountered during his recent travels in Armenia, whose citizens have earned good reason to feel upbeat about their future. And composer Paul Kildea explains how Frederic Chopin's sublime 24 Preludes — written on a clunky mini-piano in an abandoned monastery in the middle of the Mediterranean — changed how the world hears music.
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| 0:00.0 | Where in the world can you find a little optimism for a change? |
| 0:04.0 | Peter Balakian reports that the people in Armenia are feeling good |
| 0:08.0 | about a recent overhaul of their ruling party. |
| 0:11.0 | It's certainly a hopeful time, a moment in which at least one can feel or look on and |
| 0:16.8 | see some of the processes of democracy working and that's always exciting. |
| 0:22.2 | And it's a bargain to visit with a lively capital city celebrating its |
| 0:25.7 | 2,800 anniversary. Well Yerban is such a beautiful city. It's a great |
| 0:31.3 | surprise to any outsider who's never been there. |
| 0:35.0 | Coming up, we'll also learn about the remarkable history Paul Kilday puts together in his book |
| 0:39.5 | Showpan's piano. |
| 0:41.3 | The composer who made the piano sing with emotional depth had to overcome a lot the winter he went to Myyorka to work |
| 0:48.0 | Chopin is composing on this local piano which causes him more vexation than pleasure. |
| 0:53.0 | Searching for Chopin's piano and feeling the optimism in Armenia. |
| 0:57.0 | It's just ahead on Travel with Rick Steeves. |
| 1:00.0 | It's his bohemian lover, entrepreneurial piano makers, |
| 1:14.0 | and even a plucky Polish harpsichordis, |
| 1:16.0 | out running Nazi looters in France. |
| 1:18.0 | It's also a topic dear to my heart |
| 1:20.0 | since I started out of college as a piano teacher. |
| 1:23.2 | Hi, I'm Rick Steves. Stay with us as we explore the search for Chopin's piano from |
| 1:28.5 | Poland to Paris, New York, and England a little later in the hour ahead on today's travel with Rick |
| 1:33.7 | Steve's. Let's start with some good news out of a part of the world that sees more |
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