LadyDot Review: Ballade No. 1

Electro Swing interpretation of classical music. Wolfgang Lohr and DanyloM “Ballade No. 1”

Frédéric Chopin is Poland’s national pride. This artist brought classical music to a global level and made my country famous. Despite the fact that he died over 170 years ago, the music he composed is eternally alive. And now, thanks to Wolfgang Lohr and DanyloM, it has taken on a completely different, electro swing dimension. Let me invite you into a time machine with “Ballade No. 1”. First we go to the first half of the 19th century, then we visit the 1920s for a while and then we land on a great club party in modern times.

DanyloM is fresh blood in Electro Swing. He’s an incredibly talented pianist from Ukraine. And we know very well that Wolfgang Lohr has a great sense not only in composing music and perfectly matching sounds, but also in finding and promoting talents. This was also the case this time. The cooperation of these two artists resulted in a truly brilliant composition, created directly for dance, and I am sure that many electro swing dancers will be happy to use “Ballade No. 1” as background music for their choreography.

Listening to “Ballade No. 1” I have the impression that it is a song from a cartoon. It reminds me a bit of “Friend Like Me” from the fairy tale “Aladdin” – maybe it’s because of the great inserts of the brass section, which are so subtle that they perfectly harmonize with the brilliant piano. The melody is so graceful and pleasant that we soon start to regret that this fantastic track is only two minutes long. I was already able to hum the whole theme after the first listen!

Do you know what I appreciate most about Wolfgang Lohr? First of all, his music is very timeless. I’m sure that if people from the 1920s heard Wolfgang’s interpretation of “Ballade No. 1”, which he created with DanyloM, they would be very intrigued by this piece. And this is what Electro Swing is all about – it is supposed to present us with other musical genres in a light and incredibly pleasant way, which in the original version might not be so interesting for us. :)

Written & reviewed by  LadyDot (Ja, Wizeruk) Date: 2021-05-17

Bio – LadyDot

Anna (LadyDot) was born in ’94, but always felt she came from the Golden Twenties. “Polka” in Polish means “girl from Poland”, so she’s “Polka in polka dots”. She loves vintage style and spontaneous travels around Europe. But her greatest love (apart from her husband) is of course music, especially Electro Swing.

On her own Blog www.jawizeruk.pl she writes about various music genres. She is a copywriter, so writing is her strong point. Anna likes singing (not only in the shower!) and cooking (especially Italian and Hungarian cuisine).