Chopin at 200 - SBC Talks Booklet

CHOPIN AT 200
AT SOUTHBANK CENTRE
As part of the International Piano Series 2009/10,
join the celebrations of the bicentenary of the birth
of Chopin with the following concerts:
MONDAY 23 NOVEMBER 2009
LOUIS LORTIE
Six pre-concert talks in the
International Piano Series 2009/10
by some of the world’s leading
experts on Chopin and Polish music
TUESDAY 19 JANUARY 2010
CÉDRIC TIBERGHIEN
SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2010
CHOPIN FORUM
A discussion of the man and his
music by leading Chopin scholars
Monday 22 February 2010
CHOPIN
KRYSTIAN ZIMERMAN
CELEBRATING A MUSICAL IMAGINATION
Chopin Birthday Concert 1
Saturday 27 February 2010
CHOPIN MASTERCLASS
PETER DONOHOE
Monday 1 March 2010
MAURIZIO POLLINI
Chopin Birthday Concert 2
Thursday 25 March 2010
YEVGENY SUDBIN
Wednesday 14 April 2010
NIKOLAI DEMIDENKO
Thursday 29 April 2010
PASCAL ROGÉ
Tickets 0844 847 9910
www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Talks booklet
Programme
23 November 2009
Revolutionary Studies
David Rowland
19 January 2010
Echoes of Poland
Adrian Thomas
22 February 2010
The Classical Romantic
John Rink
25 March 2010
The Spirit of Improvisation
Jim Samson
14 April 2010
Virtuosity Redefined
John Rink
29 April 2010
Music in Sound
Roy Howat
Speakers
Pianist Roy Howat is author of the recently
published book The Art of French Piano Music
(Yale University Press). He has also edited
Urtext volumes of Debussy and Fauré piano
and chamber music, much of which he has
recorded on CD. He is Keyboard Research
Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music.
John Rink is Professor of Musical
Performance Studies at the University of
Cambridge. Author of a Cambridge Music
Handbook on Chopin’s concertos, he directs
Chopin’s First Editions Online
(www.cfeo.org.uk) and the Online Chopin
Variorum Edition (www.ocve.org.uk). He is a
noted performer on period pianos.
David Rowland is Professor of Music and
Dean of Arts at the Open University, and
Director of Music at Christ’s College
Cambridge. He has written extensively on
the performance history of the early piano,
and his books include A History of
Pianoforte Pedalling, The Cambridge
Companion to the Piano and Early Keyboard
Instruments: A Practical Guide.
Jim Samson is Professor of Music at Royal
Holloway, University of London. He has
published extensively on the music of
Chopin and other topics, and in 1989 was
awarded the Order of Merit from the Polish
Ministry of Culture. Along with John Rink
and Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, he is a
Series Editor of The Complete Chopin –
A New Critical Edition, published by
Peters Edition.
Adrian Thomas is Professor of Music at
Cardiff University. He has broadcast and
published widely on Polish music, including
monographs on Bacewicz (1985), Górecki
(1997) and Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto
(forthcoming). He is the author of Polish
Music since Szymanowski (2005).
Chopin at 200
Six pre-concert talks on the theme Chopin at 200: Celebrating
a Musical Imagination accompany the Chopin recitals in the
International Piano Series 2009/10. Convened by John Rink
and presented by leading international experts on Chopin and
Polish music, the talks focus on Chopin’s musical innovations
as well as his creative use of past traditions.
Revolutionary Studies
David Rowland
again from the pedal. … Afterwards one
felt as though one had just seen a
beautiful image in a dream. (Schumann,
[1837] 1965)
[Op. 25] The etudes are all symbols of his
bold, inherent creative strength – true
poetic images. (Schumann, [1837] 1965)
Theme
The early nineteenth century saw a huge
increase of study literature for the piano in
which the etude occupied a central place.
This lecture charts the history of the genre
and assesses Chopin’s unique position
within it.
Chopin at 200
David Rowland
Quotations
I told him [Erard, in 1801] I had long
meditated on a collection of exercises to
form a complete pianoforte performer to
which I should give the title ‘Studio’, and
which we should publish at the same
time. Now, as Cramer and he were very
intimate, he divulged the secret to him;
and as I went out of England the year
after, Cramer took advantage of my
absence to be beforehand with me, and
published his ‘Studio’. (Clementi to the
publisher Härtel, 1818)
nowadays the worshipped Arcanum of so
many schools) does no good at all.
(Chopin’s pupil Mikuli, [1880])
I write unaware of what my pen is
scribbling since at this very moment Liszt
is playing my [Op. 10] Etudes, transferring
me beyond the range of sensible thoughts.
I would like to steal from him the manner
of performing my own compositions. (Liszt,
Chopin and Franchomme to Hiller, 1833)
[On playing five-finger exercises] I soon
resolved to try to read at the same time
that I gave my fingers their daily work…
since then, I have always read during
practice. (Kalkbrenner, [1831] 1858)
[Chopin] bade me practise it [Op. 10 No.
1] in the mornings very slowly. ‘This etude
will do you good’, he said, ‘if you study it
as I intended it, it widens the hand and
enables you to play runs of wide broken
chords, like bow strokes. But often,
unfortunately, instead of making people
learn all that, it makes people unlearn it’.
I am quite aware that it is a generally
prevalent error, even in our day, that one
can only play this study well when one
possesses a very large hand. But that is
not the case, only a supple hand is
required. (Chopin’s pupil Müller-Streicher,
reported in Niecks, [1888] 1902)
He feared above all … the abrutissement
[stupefaction by overwork] of the pupils.
One day he heard me say that I practised
six hours a day. He became quite angry,
and forbade me to practise more than
three hours. (Chopin’s pupil Dubois,
reported in Niecks, [1888] 1902)
Did [Clara] Wieck play my Etude [Op. 10
No. 5] well? How could she have chosen
precisely this Etude, the least interesting
for those who do not know that it is
intended for the black keys, instead of
something better! (Chopin to Fontana,
1839)
He never tired of inculcating that the
appropriate exercises are not merely
mechanical but claim the intelligence and
entire will of the pupil, so that a
twentyfold or fortyfold repetition (even
[Op. 25 No. 1] It would be a mistake,
however, to suppose that he played in
such a way that you could hear every note.
It was rather an undulation of the A-flat
major chord, propelled aloft every now and
Texts
You must appeal to the pupil’s intelligence
and reason, lead him to work more with
the mind than with the fingers, to think
and concentrate more. He must clearly
understand that the important thing is not
the quantity by the quality of his work, and
that purely mechanical work, with no
thought, is useless. Above all you must
show him how to work so as to achieve the
best results in the shortest time and so
that his virtuosity may equally become a
means of expression. (Philipp, 1927, 6;
trans. from Eigeldinger, 1986, 98)
Developments in didactic keyboard music
engendered three varieties of composition
which may be classified briefly as follows:
(i) exercises, in which a didactic objective
– the isolation and repetition of a specific
technical formula – is assigned primary
attention, any musical or characteristic
interest being incidental; (ii) etudes,
wherein musical and didactic functions
properly stand in a complementary and
indivisible association; and (iii) concert
studies, in which the didactic element is
mostly incidental to the primary
characteristic substance (though the
music will invariably involve some
particular exploitation and demonstration
of virtuoso technique). (Finlow, 1992, 53).
In all of them [Chopin’s Etudes] Chopin
addressed himself systematically to the
world of pianistic technique which had
spawned the virtuoso style. But the result
rises far above the dry exercises of a
Czerny or the flashy acrobatics of a
Thalberg. To a degree barely approached
in earlier piano studies he gave substance
and poetry to the genre, conquering
virtuosity on its home ground, and in
doing so lifting himself clear of the
surrounding lowland of mediocrity.
(Samson, 1985, 59).
References
Clementi, Muzio, 1801. Introduction to the Art of
Playing on the Piano forte (London: Clementi & Co.;
reprinted in an edition by Sandra Rosenblum: New
York: Da Capo Press, 1974).
Clementi, Muzio, 1817–26. Gradus ad parnassum,
volumes 1–3 (London: Clementi & Co.; republished
in many subsequent editions).
Cramer, Johann Baptist, 1804–08. Studio per il
pianoforte, books 1 and 2 (London: the author;
republished in many subsequent editions).
Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques, 1986. Chopin: Pianist and
Teacher as seen by his Pupils, trans. Naomi Shohet
with Krysia Osostowicz and Roy Howat, ed. Roy
Howat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Finlow, Simon, 1992. ‘The twenty-seven etudes and
their antecedents’, in Jim Samson (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Chopin (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press), pp. 50–77.
Kalkbrenner, Frédéric, 1831. Méthode pour apprendre
le Piano à l’aide du Guide-Mains, Op. 108 (Paris:
Pleyel). Trans. Sabilla Novello as Method of Learning
the Pianoforte (London: Novello, 1858).
Mikuli, Carl, [1880]. Foreword to Fr. Chopin’s
Pianoforte-Werke (Leipzig: Kistner). Translation from
Eigeldinger, 1986.
Niecks, Frederick, [1888] 1902. Frederick Chopin as
a Man and Musician, 3rd edn (London: Novello).
Philipp, Isidore, 1927: Quelques considérations sur
l'enseignement du piano (Paris: A. Durand et fils).
Pleasants, Henry, 1965. The Musical World of Robert
Schumann (London: Gollancz).
Samson, Jim, 1985. The Music of Chopin (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul).
Chopin at 200
23 November 2009
Echoes of Poland
Adrian Thomas
Theme
The mazurka and polonaise have come to
symbolise Polishness not only in Poland but
abroad, whether written by exiled Poles or
foreign composers. This talk looks in
parti-cular at the character and location of
mazurkas in nineteenth- and twentiethcentury music.
Chopin at 200
Adrian Thomas
Quotations
The land which gave him life with its song
affected his musical disposition. … many a
note of his music sounds like a happy
reflection of our native harmony. In his hands
the simple mazur willingly yields to
alterations and modulations yet preserves its
own accent and expression. In order, as
Chopin did, to include the beautiful simplicity of native song in his refined compositions of genius he had to feel and to
recognise the echoes of our fields and forests,
to hear the song of our Polish villages.
(Wojciech Grzymała, Kurier Polski, 18 March
1830; cited in Samson, 1992, 209)
Here, waltzes are called works! … I don’t
pick up anything that is essentially Viennese.
I don’t even know how to dance a waltz
properly. … My piano has heard only mazury.
(Fryderyk Chopin, letters, Vienna, 1831; cited
in Samson, 1992, 153)
From time to time you hear through the
window opening onto the garden strains of
Chopin’s music, blending with the
nightingales and the scent of the roses.
(Eugène Delacroix, letter, 1842; cited in
Samson, 1996, 199)
I spent three months in London and was in
fairly good health. I gave two matinéeconcerts, one at Mrs. Sartori’s and the other
at Lord Falmouth’s – both with great success
… At the second Mme Viardot sang three
groups [including some mazurkas] and I
played four [including the Scherzo Op. 31,
mazurkas and a ballade]. They liked that very
much, for they had never heard such short
and compact concerts here. They are only
used to long affairs with twenty different
items ... (Chopin, letter to Warsaw from
Edinburgh, 10–19 August 1848; in Hedley,
1962, 331)
Polish national music is not the coagulated
spectre of a polonaise or mazurka ... rather
the solitary, happy, carefree song of a nightingale in the middle of a fragrant Polish May
night. (Karol Szymanowski, ‘On Contemporary Musical Opinion in Poland’, 1920)
Texts
The traditional folk ensemble of central
Poland consisted of a melody instrument (the
violin played in first position on the upper
strings, or the fujarka, a high-pitched
shepherd’s pipe) plus an instrument or two to
provide a drone (lower open strings on the
violin, or the dudy or gajdy, a Polish bagpipe),
and/or a rhythmic pulse (the basetla or basy,
a string bass played unstopped). (Thomas,
1992, 154)
For many years [Szymanowski] had felt that
to write piano mazurkas which were not
simply cheap imitations of Chopin’s
masterpieces would be impossible. … The
most important new ingredient was of course
the Góral music of the Tatras, bringing to the
mazurka a breath of sharp, bracing mountain
air and transforming the Chopin form whose
folkloristic inspiration lay essentially in the
plains of the central Mazovia region of
Poland. (Samson, 1981, 169)
Poetic texts (in free verse)
Włodzimierz Wolski, ‘Fryderyk Chopin. Fantasia’ (excerpt, 1859)
The garland starts with mazurkas,
Her girlfriends invite her to the dance,
Apparently coquettish,
And though there’s the will to dance,
Fine, light and strange,
The girl’s face inclines sadly,
And so sad, and so sad …
For how is it possible for an orphan to dance?
Like the girl who continues to expect
Suddenly someone’s arriving on a dun …
Her brother from the war,
The girl runs, claps her hands –
And with tears plaits her hair,
A stranger is leading the horse,
And with tears sings her songs –
For her brother has died in the war,
Sad, sad are these mazurkas!
Cyprian Kamil Norwid, ‘Chopin’s Piano’, iv (1865)
And in what the note played – and said – and will say,
Although the echoes will differently be arrayed
Than when you yourself blessed with your Own hand each chord –
And in what the note played, such was the simplicity of Periclean perfection,
As if some Virtue from antiquity, stepping into a rustic wooden dwelling,
Said to herself: I have been reborn in heaven;
And the doorway has become my harp, the footpath my ribbon …
Kazimierz Tetmajer, ‘Chopin’s Mazurek’ (1910)
A young lady, a young lady
I have a perfect method:
Combs her golden hair,
I shall smile first,
She sings to herself: whoever I want
Then I will give a kiss, and then
I shall lead by the nose!
What the lake-nymph does to the lad.
And so on, and so on …
Who can resist me?
It’s true – they called me bad names,
But was I the only one? …
Leopold Staff, ‘Townie’ (1937)
I don’t like peasant music,
With its boisterous refrain.
Its wild rhythm terrifies me:
I am afraid of becoming Chopin.
References
Hedley, Arthur (ed.), 1962. Selected Correspondence
of Fryderyk Chopin (London: Heinemann).
Samson, Jim, 1981. The Music of Szymanowski
(London: Kahn & Averill).
Samson, Jim (ed.), 1992. The Cambridge Companion
to Chopin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Samson, Jim, 1996. Master Musicians Chopin
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
‘In jest. Nonsense’ (1949)
Never with a more enchanting song
Was Odysseus lured by the Siren:
If violets and lilies of the valley
Instead of being fragrant knew how to play,
It would be the music of Chopin.
Thomas, Adrian, 1992. ‘Beyond the dance’, in
Samson 1992, pp. 145–59.
Wightman, Alistair, 1999a. Karol Szymanowski. His
Life and Work (Aldershot: Ashgate).
Wightman, Alistair (ed.), 1999b. Szymanowski on
Music. Selected Writings (London: Toccata Press).
Chopin at 200
19 January 2010
The Classical Romantic
John Rink
Chopin at 200
John Rink
Theme
This talk explores some of the issues
surrounding two of Chopin’s most
significant works, the Sonatas in B-flat
minor Op. 35 and B minor Op. 58. The
expressive depth and breadth of these
masterpieces are described with reference
to diverse elements within Chopin’s
musical language.
Quotations and other texts
[Op. 35] Anyone glancing at the first bars
of this sonata and uncertain of its author
would not prove himself a good
connoisseur. Only Chopin begins and ends
in this way: with dissonances through
dissonances into dissonances. But how
many beauties, too, does this piece
contain! The idea of calling it a sonata is
a caprice, if not a jest, for he has simply
bound together four of his most reckless
children; thus under his name smuggling
them into a place into which they could
not else have penetrated… (Schumann,
[1841] 1946, 140)
[Op. 35] This sonata … has five flats for
[a key] signature and is in B-flat minor, a
key that certainly cannot boast of special
popularity. … [Its] thoroughly
Chopinesque beginning is followed by one
of those stormy, passionate movements
with which Chopin already has acquainted
us. This must be heard often and well
performed. But even the first part of the
work brings us a beautiful cantilena;
indeed, it seems as if the national Polish
flavour, which clung to most of Chopin’s
earlier melodies, were dwindling, and that
he now sometimes leans toward Italy via
Germany. … [Yet] the whole movement
ends in a manner by no means Italian;
and this reminds me of a remark once
made by Liszt: ‘Rossini and Co. always
close with “I remain your very humble
servant.”’ But it is otherwise with Chopin
whose endings express just the reverse.
The second movement is merely the
continuation of this mood; it is bold,
spirited, fantastic; the trio tender, dreamy,
entirely in Chopin’s manner; like many of
Beethoven’s, it is a scherzo only in name.
There follows a still more gloomy Marcia
funebre which is repellent; in its place an
adagio, perhaps in D-flat, would certainly
have been more effective. That which in
the last movement is given to us under the
name ‘finale’ resembles mockery more
than any kind of music. Yet we must
confess that even from this joyless,
unmelodious movement an original and
terrifying spirit breathes on us which
holds down with mailed fist everything
that seeks to resist, so that we listen
fascinated and uncomplaining to the end
– though not to praise; for this is not
music. Thus the sonata closes as it began,
emphatically, like a Sphinx with an ironic
smile. (Schumann, [1841] 1946, 141–42)
Among the works she studied with him,
Mme [Marie] Roubaud cited … the Sonata
in B minor, whose Largo, when he once
played it to her, had his pupil in tears.
(Ganche, 1925, cited in Eigeldinger, 1986,
61)
The eighteenth-century conception of
recapitulation as resolution sometimes
disappears. The second theme of Chopin’s
Concerto No. 2 in F minor, first movement,
is never played in the tonic at all, while
the second group of Chopin’s Concerto No.
1 in E minor is played in the exposition in
the tonic major (!), and recapitulated in
the mediant. Chopin’s key relations in
sonata form, however, were more orthodox
after he left Poland. (The exposition of the
Sonata in C minor, Op. 4, of 1827 never
leaves the tonic. Chopin was only sixteen
when he wrote it, but it is not the kind of
mistake that Mozart would have made
when he was six. They evidently did not
have very clear ideas about sonatas out
there in Warsaw.) (Rosen, 1980, 319)
In almost every edition (and consequently
most performances) of Chopin’s Sonata in
B-flat major, Op. 35, there is a serious
error that makes awkward nonsense of an
important moment in the first movement.
The repeat of the exposition begins in the
wrong place. A double bar meant to
indicate the beginning of a new and faster
tempo in measure 5 is generally decorated
on both staves with the two dots that
indicate the opening of a section to be
played twice. … [This] mistake was made
in one of the early editions. … The faulty
indication is musically impossible: it
interrupts a triumphant cadence in D-flat
major with an accompanimental figure in
B-flat minor, a harmonic effect which is
not even piquant enough to be interesting,
and merely sounds perfunctory. The repeat
is clearly intended to begin with the first
note of the movement: the opening four
bars are not a slow introduction but an
integral part of the exposition. (Rosen,
1980, 279–80)
… Hummel’s Sonata for Piano in F-sharp
minor is … the easily recognisable model
for Chopin’s Third Sonata in B minor.
Chopin’s music is largely derived from his
early experience of opera, the rhythms and
harmonies of native Polish dances, and
Bach. The art that held all this together
came above all from the last, in particular
the Well-Tempered Keyboard. If he ever
knew the religious music of Bach, it was
at a moment too late to be
of any use to him. In order to disabuse
ourselves of the impossible image of
Chopin as an imaginative genius seriously
limited by a deficient technique, it is with
the craft that we must start, not the
genius, even if, in the end, it is the
genius that we hope to illuminate.
(Rosen, 1995, 285)
[Regarding the ‘richness of invention of
virtuoso figuration’ in Chopin’s ‘latest
works’]: In the scherzo of the Sonata in B
minor, Op. 58, the counterpoint is partly
built into the figuration. The
accompaniment is almost minimal
(although not completely devoid of motivic
interest) because of the complexity of the
figuration, which realises much of the
harmony through an implied polyphonic
structure of three voices. The art is clearly
related to the monophonic technique of the
finale of the Sonata in B-flat minor, but
here it sweeps through all the registers of
the piano. (Rosen, 1995, 391)
It seems important to grasp the unique
shape of this sonata [Op. 35] before any
considerations of thematic unity are
broached, particularly as it differs
importantly from the historical archetype.
Inevitably Chopin’s model results in a
slackening of the formal and tonal bonds
of the classical sonata, and the surface
motivic and thematic links which abound
within and between the movements (many
of them no doubt conscious) have a largely
compensatory role, quite different from
their integral function in the organicism of
Beethoven and Brahms. Thematic links
abound, too, in the B minor Sonata Op. 58,
which Chopin completed five years later in
1844. Yet in this work they have a rather
different significance. Having come to
terms with the four-movement sonata in
Op. 35, approaching it obliquely by way of
his unique achievements in the study,
nocturne and dance piece, Chopin now felt
able to tackle the genre on its own terms,
Chopin at 200
22 February 2010
References
Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques, 1986. Chopin: Pianist and
Teacher as seen by his Pupils, trans. Naomi Shohet
with Krysia Osostowicz and Roy Howat, ed. Roy Howat
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Rosen, Charles, 1980. Sonata Forms (New York: Norton).
Rosen, Charles, 1995. The Romantic Generation
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press).
Samson, Jim, 1985. The Music of Chopin (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul).
Schumann, Robert, 1946: On Music and Musicians,
ed. Konrad Wolff, trans. Paul Rosenfeld (New York:
Pantheon).
25 March 2010
The Spirit of Improvisation
Jim Samson
Theme
Several of the genres represented in this
concert signal the practice of improvisation
(impromptu; fantasy; ballade). This talk
explores the relationship between
improvisation and composition in the world
of early nineteenth-century pianism.
those solitary peaks of piano literature in
which improvisatorial invention and artistic
construction meet again in a higher unity.
(Oscar Bie, 1900)
Quotations
When he embellished it was a positive
miracle of refinement. (Wilhelm von Lenz,
1872)
[Chopin’s] long sinuous phrases, so free, so
flexible, so tactile, which begin by reaching
out and exploring far beyond the point
which one might have expected their notes
to reach, and which divert themselves in
those byways of fantasy, only to return more
deliberately – with a more premeditated
reprise, with more precision, as on a crystal
bowl that reverberates to the point of
making you cry out – to strike at your heart.
(Marcel Proust, 1913–27)
[The Preludes] sound like impromptu improvisations produced without the slightest
effort. They have the freedom and charm of
works of genius. (Franz Liszt, 1852)
The music [of the impromptus] should
appear in some way to be born under the
fingers of the performer. (Alfred Cortot, 1943)
With all the freedom of an improvisation the
Chopin Impromptu has a well-defined form.
There is a structural impulse although the
patterns are free and original. (James
Huneker, 1900)
This Impromptu [Op. 29] has quite the air
of a spontaneous unconstrained
outpouring. (Frederick Niecks, 1902)
If a well-written composition can be
compared with a noble architectural edifice
in which symmetry must predominate, then
a fantasy well done is akin to a beautiful
English garden, seemingly irregular, but full
of surprising variety, and executed
rationally, meaningfully, and according to
plan. (Carl Czerny, 1829)
In these Ballades we reach again one of
[The Fourth Ballade is] a stylised improvisation full of genius. (Alfred Cortot, 1951)
The whole must be discovered through
improvisation if the piece is to be more
than a collection of individual parts and
motives in the sense of a schema. (Heinrich
Schenker, 1926)
Musical form is something coming-intobeing … at every time newly coming into
being, and never except in the finished
artwork itself something at hand, that can
be transmitted and further utilized. (Arnold
Schoenberg, undated)
Texts
From his earliest youth, the richness of his
improvisation was astonishing. But he took
good care not to parade it; and the few
lucky ones who have heard him improvising
for hours on end, in a most wonderful
manner, never lifting a single phrase from
any other composer, never even touching on
Jim Samson
Chopin at 200
Chopin at 200
so to speak. The difference in approach is
clear when we examine the first
movements of the two works. In the B
minor the thematic shapes are less selfcontained, and their presentation less
sharply sectional, than in Op. 35. There is
a gain in organicism (pace Niecks),
though arguably a loss in the striking,
distinctive quality of the idea per se.
Thematic links then are not only a means
of unifying contrasts as in Op. 35. They
also contribute to a process of continuous
development and transformation within
the bar-by-bar progression of the
movement, an unbroken thread spun of
related ideas. The process is supported,
moreover, by a much closer integration of
melody and accompaniment than in the
earlier work. The texture is spare and
closeknit, with intricate motiviccontrapuntal play and only fleeting returns
to an harmonically motivated nocturnestyle accompaniment. It is a view of the
sonata which accords well with general
tendencies in Chopin’s later music.
(Samson, 1985, 133)
For the Fantasy … it would at first seem
easy enough to construct a fairly convincing,
though inevitably trite, programme –
probably something along the lines of Les
Préludes or Tod und Verklärung. After all,
Chopin himself calls the opening section a
‘march’, and it is clearly a march of solemn
– even funereal – character. The subsequent
course of the piece – the struggle between
the two keys, the victory of A-flat, the
celebration of that victory in a march-like
episode of triumphal character – is almost
impossible to describe except in metaphors
that come close to suggesting a
programme. But the Fantasy mocks at any
attempt to force its musical narrative –
fraught though it is with human feeling –
into a story of victory over death or tragedy
and triumph. For in the end there is neither
tragedy nor triumph, but only the
unfathomable magic of a dream.
(Schachter, 1988, 253).
In this piece the force-field between genre
and style has subverted structure. Or to put
that a little less synoptically, … generic
constraints were loosened under the impact
of stylistic experiment, and … the resulting
uncertainty threatened structural coherence.
The F-sharp Impromptu is very far from
perfect then. But perfection isn’t everything.
As Schoenberg once remarked, ‘Even God’s
works of art, those of Nature, are highly
imperfect. Perfection’, he went on, ‘can only
be found in the works of joiners, gardeners,
pastrycooks and hairdressers’. Op. 36 may
be the least stable of the four impromptus
as to genre, style and structure. It is also
the most interesting. (Samson, 1990, 304).
By different combinations of means, all four
Ballades gain gradually in momentum from
beginning to end. This effect of
continuously increasing pace – which helps
give the impression of a ballad story being
carried irresistibly from its act of defiance
to its reckoning – is a far rarer effect in
music, whether by Chopin or anyone else,
than that of a single, abrupt increase of
momentum, as at a finale or coda or final
variation. Ever-increasing momentum is a
far more distinctive feature of Chopin’s
Ballades than that more obvious rhythmic
feature, the sextuple meter that is common
to all of them. (Parakilas, 1992, 54).
References
Bach, C. P. E., 1949. Essay on the True Art of
Playing Keyboard Instruments, trans. W. J. Mitchell
(New York: Norton).
Czerny, Carl, 1983. A Systematic Introduction to
Improvisation on the Pianoforte, trans. A. L.
Mitchell (New York: Longman).
Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques, 1986. Chopin: Pianist
and Teacher as seen by his Pupils, trans. Naomi
Shohet with Krysia Osostowicz and Roy Howat, ed.
Roy Howat (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Parakilas, James, 1992. Ballads Without Words:
Chopin and the Tradition of the Instrumental
Ballade (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press).
Samson, Jim, 1990. ‘Chopin’s F-sharp Impromptu:
notes on genre, style and structure’, Chopin
Studies 3, pp. 297–305.
Samson, Jim, 1992. Chopin: The Four Ballades
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Schachter, Carl, 1988. ‘Chopin’s Fantasy Op. 49:
the two-key scheme’, in J. Samson (ed.), Chopin
Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press),
pp. 221–53.
14 April 2010
Virtuosity Redefined
John Rink
Theme
This talk describes Chopin’s unique
virtuosity, examining three aspects in
particular: keyboard technique, pianistic
figuration, and musical expression.
Quotations
In Herr Friedrich Chopin we have a pianist of
the highest order. His delicate touch, his
effortless execution, his masterly tempi and
nuances, exhibit the most profound feeling,
while the clarity of his performance and the
genius of his compositions are the marks of
a naturally endowed virtuoso. He has
appeared as one of the brightest meteors on
the musical horizon through his genius
alone... (Der Sammler, Vienna, 29 August
1829, after Chopin’s performance on 18
August of his Variations on Là ci darem la
mano and Rondo à la krakowiak; trans. from
Atwood, 1987, 202)
[Chopin] is a young man who pursues his
own path and does so in a charming
manner. His style and method, both in
playing and in composing, however, deviate
from the usually accepted pattern of other
virtuosos. Where he differs is mainly in this:
the desire to produce good music is
obviously more important to him than the
mere urge to please his audience. Despite
this Herr Chopin succeeded in pleasing
everyone today. (Allgemeine Theaterzeitung,
Vienna, 1 September 1829, after Chopin’s
performance on 18 August 1829 – see
above; trans. from Atwood, 1987, 204)
The performance was entirely in keeping
with the spirit of the composition. Never did
the pianist try to exploit the technical
difficulties, the bravura passages, or the
tender, lyrical melodies in order to shine at
the expense of the overall musical effect...
His playing seemed to say to the listener:
‘This is not me; this is music!’ (Powszechny
Dziennik Krajowy, Warsaw, 19 March 1830
after Chopin’s Warsaw debut of the F minor
Concerto on 17 March; trans. from Atwood
1987, 209)
John Rink
The pianist must be first tenor, first soprano,
always a singer, a bravura singer in the
rapid figuration. Chopin wanted all the
passagework to be fashioned in a cantabile
style… He played us the themes
indescribably beautifully and the figuration
suggestively. He wanted the passagework
cantabile, with a certain amount of volume
and bravura, with each thematic element
brought out, with the utmost delicacy of
touch, even when there are mere runs –
which is seldom the case. (Wilhelm von Lenz
describing a performance of the first
movement of the E minor Concerto by
Chopin and his pupil Carl Filtsch; trans.
from Rink, 2008, v)
[Op. 25 No. 3] Here the concern was more
with bravura, but of the most pleasant kind,
and in this respect too Chopin deserved the
highest praise. (Schumann, 1837; cited in
Eigeldinger, 1986, 70)
… I received a few days ago a ten-page
review [of the Variations on Là ci darem la
mano Op. 2] from a German in Cassel who
is full of enthusiasm for them. After a longwinded preface he proceeds to analyse them
bar by bar, explaining that they are not
ordinary variations but a fantastic tableau.
In the second variation he says that Don
Giovanni runs round with Leporello; in the
Chopin at 200
Chopin at 200
any of his own works – those people will
agree with us in saying that Chopin’s most
beautiful finished compositions are merely
reflections and echoes of his
improvisations. (Julian Fontana, cited in
Eigeldinger, 1986, 282)
Texts
For Chopin, the goal of technical study
should not be to achieve the equal sound
advocated by many of his contemporaries:
each finger has a unique conformation, he
says, and one should not ‘destroy the charm
of [its] special touch, but on the contrary
[aim] to develop it’. Acknowledging
Hummel’s expertise in matters of fingering,
he writes that ‘there are as many different
sounds as fingers – the essential thing is to
know how to finger well’, in other words to
exploit the natural strengths and
compensate for the innate weaknesses of
each finger. For instance, the third finger is
the midpoint of the hand and a pivotal point
of support (point d’appui)... [A]ccording to
Chopin, not only the fingers but the rest of
the hand, the wrist, the forearm and, to
some extent, the entire arm should be
employed, although with the utmost
economy of gesture. In this regard Chopin’s
teaching once again radically differed from
that of Kalkbrenner, who taught students to
play from the wrist, a technique almost
guaranteed to stiffen the hand and to
strangle the sound. (Rink, 2004, 34–5)
For Chopin, in contrast, the music breathed
through the wrist, as suggested by his
evocative epithet ‘Le poignet [:] la
respiration dans la voix.’ This recalls the
account of Emilie von Gretsch, who reported
her teacher’s injunction to imitate the ‘great
singers in one’s playing’: ‘At every point
where a singer would take a breath, the
accomplished pianist ... should take care to
raise the wrist so as to let it fall again on
the singing note with the greatest
suppleness imaginable’. In Chopin’s words,
‘la main souple; le poignet, l’avant-bras, le
bras, tout suivra la main selon l’ordre [if the
hand is relaxed, the wrist, forearm, arm –
everything will follow the hand in the right
way]’. (Rink, 2004, 35)
[Allegro de concert Op. 46] While its
compositional genesis remains obscure, the
finished work’s potential effect on listeners
is perfectly obvious, generated by such
devices as powerful octaves, ‘risky skips’
and ‘dangerous double notes’ [quoting
Huneker] – all of which reflect a more
virtuosic keyboard technique than that
required by Chopin’s other music, including
the two concertos. Some of these features
may simply have resulted from his writing a
third virtuoso concerto – moreover, a
virtuoso concerto in a major key, which
necessarily engaged a musical vocabulary
inappropriate for use in a minor-key work
like Op. 11 or Op. 21. (Rink, 1997, 98)
References
Atwood, William G., 1987. Fryderyk Chopin: Pianist from
Warsaw (New York: Columbia University Press).
Hedley, Arthur (ed.), 1962. Selected Correspondence of
Fryderyk Chopin (London: Heinemann).
Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques, 1986. Chopin: Pianist and
Teacher as seen by his Pupils, trans. Naomi Shohet with
Krysia Osostowicz and Roy Howat, ed. Roy Howat
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Rink, John, 1994. ‘Authentic Chopin: history, analysis and
intuition in performance’, in John Rink and Jim Samson
(eds.), Chopin Studies 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), pp. 214–44.
Rink, John, 1997. Chopin: The Piano Concertos
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Rink, John, 2004. ‘Chopin and the technique of
performance’, in Artur Szklener (ed.), Chopin in
Performance: History, Theory, Practice (Warsaw: NIFC), pp.
225–38.
Rink, John (ed.), 2008. Fryderyk Chopin, Concerto in E
minor Op. 11, The Complete Chopin – A New Critical
Edition (London: Peters Edition).
Samson, Jim, 1996.: Master Musicians Chopin (Oxford:
Oxford University Press)
Wangermée, Robert, 1970. ‘Tradition et innovation dans la
virtuosité romantique’, Acta musicologica 42, pp. 5–32.
29 April 2010
Music in Sound
Roy Howat
Theme
Chopin wrote no operas and no symphonies,
yet no composer has marked musical
posterity more strongly than he did. His
influence, unusually, worked not just
through his compositions but through his
extraordinarily tactile relationship to the
piano, both as composer and as performer,
matched by a suppleness of thought and
gesture that pervaded all aspects of his
thinking. In this manner he transformed the
piano into an instrument for an
unprecedented sort of symphonic plasticity,
inventing new forms and structures as well
as leaving a revolutionary technical and
interpretative legacy. Through his piano
pupils and colleagues this tradition directly
reached and influenced Bizet, Chabrier,
Fauré, Debussy, Dukas, Satie, Ravel,
Albéniz and Falla.
Quotations and other texts
Antoine Marmontel (the piano teacher
of Bizet, Albéniz and Debussy):
If we draw a parallel between Chopin’s sound
effects and certain techniques of painting,
we could say that this great virtuoso
modulated sound much as skilled painters
treat light and atmosphere. To envelop
melodic phrases and ingenious arabesques
in a half-tint which has something of both
dream and reality: this is the pinnacle of art;
and this was Chopin’s art.
Chopin as a piano teacher:
Have the body supple right to the tips
of the toes.
Let your hands fall [said Chopin to a pupil,
who then adds, ‘Hitherto I had been
accustomed to hear “Put down your hands”
or “Strike” such a note. This letting fall was
to me a new idea, and in a moment I felt
the difference.’].
[Chopin] repeated, without ceasing, during
the lesson, ‘facilement, facilement’ [easily,
easily].
Roy Howat
He required adherence to the strictest
rhythm, hated all lingering and dragging,
misplaced rubatos, as well as exaggerated
ritardandos.
Debussy in relation to Chopin
(as related by Marguerite Long):
‘Chopin is the greatest of them all’,
[Debussy] used to say, ‘for through the
piano alone he discovered everything …’
Chopin, above all, was a subject [Debussy]
never tired of. He was impregnated,
almost inhabited, by [Chopin’s] pianism.
His own playing was an exploration of all
he felt were the procedures of that master
to us all …
[Debussy] played nearly always in halftints, but with a full, intense sonority
without any hardness of attack, like Chopin.
Intensely preoccupied with Chopin’s
manner of playing and phrasing, [Debussy]
used to say he wore down his fingers on the
Polish master’s posthumous A-flat Etude
[from the Trois Nouvelles Etudes].
Ravel on Chopin (in an article published
on 1 January 1910):
Chopin was not satisfied merely to
transform pianistic technique. His inspired
passage work may be observed amid
Chopin at 200
Chopin at 200
third he kisses Zerlina while Masetto’s rage
is pictured in the left hand – and in the fifth
bar of the Adagio he declares that Don
Giovanni kisses Zerlina on the D-flat.
(Chopin in a letter to Tytus Wojciechowski,
December 1831; trans. Hedley, 1962, 99)
only the tip of the iceberg of available
material on Chopin.
References
Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques, 1986. Chopin: Pianist and
Teacher as seen by his Pupils, trans. Naomi Shohet with
Krysia Osostowicz and Roy Howat, ed. Roy Howat
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Claude Debussy: The Composer as Pianist:
All his Known Recordings and Maurice
Ravel: The Composer as Pianist and
Conductor: All of his Known Recordings.
Pierian 0001 & 0013: The Caswell
Collection, volumes 1 & 4 (2000 & 2002).
Howat, Roy, 2009. The Art of French Piano Music: Debussy,
Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier. London: Yale University Press.
(Chapter 6 is devoted to Chopin’s influence on these
composers; Chapters 19–21 deal with related aspects of
their playing and piano writing.)
Howat, Roy: Debussy: The Complete Solo
Piano Music (four CDs, including two first
recordings). Tall Poppies TP094, 123, 164 &
165 (1997–2002).
Marmontel, Antoine, 1878. Les pianistes célèbres
(Paris: Heugel).
Howat, Roy, with Emily Kilpatrick: A Portrait
of Gabriel Fauré (two CDs). ABC Classics,
476 3423 (2009).
The Complete Chopin – A New Critical
Edition (www.editionpeters.com)
A browse through Józef Chomiński and
Dalila Turło’s monumental Catalogue of the
Works of Frederick Chopin (1990) might
lead one to ask whether the world needs
another Chopin edition. The simple answer
is ‘Yes – and the sooner the better!’ Since
the composer’s death in 1849, hundreds of
editions have appeared on the market –
each a product of its time and often
reflecting the editor’s tastes more than
Chopin’s. The various editions currently
available (including the ubiquitous but
notoriously unreliable Paderewski edition)
differ greatly in quality and price – though
none could claim to be ‘the last word’ on
Chopin. Not that there could ever be a ‘last
word’, partly because the composer himself
continually heard and notated his music in
new and different ways, a fact which poses
particular challenges to the modern editor.
Long, Marguerite, [1960] 1972. At the piano with
Debussy, trans. Olive Senior-Ellis (London: Dent).
Orenstein, Arbie (compiled and ed.), 1990. A Ravel
Reader: Correspondence, Articles, Interviews (New York:
Columbia University Press).
Samson, Jim, (ed.), 1992. The Cambridge Companion to
Chopin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Other recommended reading,
listening and surfing
Lesure, François, Denis Herlin and Georges
Liébert, 2005. Claude Debussy,
correspondance (1872–1918) (Paris:
Gallimard).
Duchen, Jessica, 2000. Gabriel Fauré
(London: Phaidon).
Lockspeiser, Edward, [1962] 1978. Debussy,
his Life and Mind, 2 vols. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
Perlemuter, Vlado and Hélène JourdanMorhange, 1990. Ravel according to Ravel,
trans. Frances Tanner, ed. Harold Taylor
(London: Kahn & Averill).
Poulenc, Francis, 1991. Echo and Source.
Selected Correspondence 1915–1963,
trans. and ed. Sidney Buckland (London,
Gollancz).
Discography
Perlemuter, Vlado: Chopin, Piano Works;
Fauré, Piano Music; Ravel, Piano Works.
Chopin Resource Guide
Further information can be obtained from
the following resources, which represent
The Complete Chopin – A New Critical
Edition, published by Peters Edition in
London, is the latest to appear. Under the
general editorship of John Rink, Jim Samson
and Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, and drawing
upon the further expertise of Christophe
Grabowski as Source Consultant, The
Complete Chopin is based on an editorial
philosophy different from that of any
previous edition. First of all, there can never
be a single ‘fixed’ version of Chopin: the
variants that flowed from his pen form an
integral part of the music as he conceived
it. Second, the typical approach of editors –
to freely combine passages from several
sources, thereby producing a version of the
music that never existed in Chopin’s day –
should be avoided at all cost. Accordingly,
the procedure in The Complete Chopin is to
identify a single principal source for each
work and to prepare an edition of that
source (which the editors regard as ‘best’,
even if it cannot be definitive). At the same
time, volumes in The Complete Chopin
reproduce important variants from other
authorised sources either next to the main
music text or in the Critical Commentary,
thus enabling comparison and facilitating
choice in performance – in the spirit of
Chopin’s improvisations. Multiple versions
of whole works are offered when differences
between the sources are so significant that
they go beyond the category of variant.
Annotated Catalogue of Chopin’s First
Editions (www.cambridge.org/Chopin)
Co-authored by Christophe Grabowski and
John Rink, the Annotated Catalogue of
Chopin’s First Editions presents the most
ambitious and comprehensive research
ever carried out on the first editions of
Chopin’s music. It begins with an in-depth
introduction to these unique sources and
the publishing practices that gave rise to
them. A detailed description then follows of
each Chopin first edition and the later
impressions produced by the original
publishers or their successors. The
Annotated Catalogue facilitates
identification of the Chopin scores held
in libraries and private collections around
the world by attempting to reconstruct the
creative history of each edition. It features
entries on 1,552 distinct impressions – of
which some 4,830 copies are individually
described – along with explanatory essays,
appendices and facsimiles of over 200 title
pages which illustrate their respective
catalogue entries. Musicians and
musicologists alike will gain unprecedented
insight into the creative history of each
Chopin edition and the music within it. The
Annotated Catalogue will be published by
Cambridge University Press in January 2010.
Chopin’s First Editions Online
(www.cfeo.org.uk)
Chopin’s First Editions Online (CFEO) was
funded by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council (Resource Enhancement
Programme) from March 2004 to August
2007. The project’s chief aim was to create
Chopin at 200
Chopin at 200
Nimbus Records, NI 1764, 5165 & NI
7713/4.
brilliant, exquisite and profound harmonic
progressions. There is always hidden
meaning, often conveyed by an intense
poem of despair.
Chopin at 200
an online resource uniting all of the first
impressions of Chopin’s first editions in an
unprecedented virtual collection, thereby
providing direct access to musicians and
musicologists to some of the most
important primary source materials
relevant to the composer’s music. The
c. 5,500 digital images in the CFEO archive
were obtained from five lead institutions
(Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Bodleian
Library, British Library, Narodowy Instytut
Fryderyka Chopina and the University of
Chicago Library) and seventeen other
libraries. The full score of each first
impression appears along with commentary
on particularly significant textual features.
In addition, there are excerpts from the
Annotated Catalogue of Chopin’s First
Editions. The CFEO resource is free of
charge and without parallel in either print
or digital form.
Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina
(www.nifc.pl)
The Chopin Information Centre run by the
Warsaw-based Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka
Chopina (Fryderyk Chopin Institute)
provides the following resources among
others: biography, bibliography,
discography, filmography, searchable
database of Chopin’s letters (in their
original language versions), information
about manuscripts and first editions, and
guide to ‘Chopin in the Internet’.
For more details and to
view the scores online, visit:
www.editionpeters.com/chopin2010
Series Editors: John Rink,
Jim Samson, Jean-Jacques
Eigeldinger
Editorial Consultant: Christophe Grabowski
“Edition Peters continues
to inspire and enlighten…
So far they appear incapable
of putting a single foot out
of place in the veritable
minefield of complexities
that is Chopin.”
Murray McLachlan,
International Piano Magazine.
Chopin’s Early Editions
(http://chopin.lib.uchicago.edu)
The Chopin collection at the University of
Chicago Library includes over 400 first and
early printed editions of musical
compositions by Chopin, maintained in
the Special Collections Research Center.
Because Chopin’s works were often
published concurrently in several countries
with variant texts, users can establish
a sequence of publication by comparing
a range of printings.
Chopin Early Editions presents digitised
images of all scores in the University of
Chicago Library’s Chopin collection. Users
can search or browse the collection via a
variety of data points, including titles,
genres, and plate numbers. A detailed
description of the collection has been
published by George W. Platzman in A
Descriptive Catalogue of Early Editions of
the Works of Frédéric Chopin in the
University of Chicago Library, 2nd edition
(Chicago: University of Chicago Library,
2003).
The Complete Chopin:
A New Critical Edition
Waltzes, complete URTEXT
(Editor: Christophe Grabowski)
EP 7575 £11.00
ISMN: M-57708-557-9
Ballades, Opp.23, 38, 47, 52
(Editor: Jim Samson)
EP 7531 £11.00
URTEXT
ISMN: M-57708-258-5
Préludes, Opp.28, 45 URTEXT
(Editor: Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger)
EP 7532 £9.95
ISMN: M-57708-468-8
Chopin at 200 IPS
Pre-Concert Talks Booklet
produced by Peters Edition Ltd,
with thanks to Professor John Rink.
Inside page design and layout
by www.adamhaystudio.com
Piano Concerto No. 1 in
E minor Op.11 URTEXT
(Editor: John Rink)
EP 7529 £13.95
ISMN: M-57708-256-1