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(Another measure that concerns me is 128, where the 4th and 6th semiquavers in the RH inner voice are way too far outside my reach to play musically but can be taken easily by the LH instead.)

I think these workarounds are okay because they enable me to play these passages musically and without difficulty. Cortot's clever advice for 223 and 225 truly turns something really awkward (and probably forever impossible for me at tempo!) into something very manageable.

I wouldn't consider taking shortcuts or 'cheats' in an etude, but that's not what we've got here. I'm an amateur, and I'm getting old - so if an occasional redistribution serves the music better for me, I'm in favor of it. Life's too short to work on solving a truly awkward and unpianistic moment when there's an easier way.

Elene
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/26/07
Posts: 1425
Loc: Land of Enchantment

OK, I read the other thread, and there is plenty of great food for thought. I don't want this discussion to devolve into a shouting match like that one did. (And here we attempt to keep to Chopin's standards of politesse.)

Of the many considerations one makes in deciding how to negotiate a difficult passage so as to express the musical intention clearly and beautifully, there is this: A composer writes the notes out in a way that makes the most musical sense, while trying to also elucidate the way they should be played. Those two issues may conflict with each other in some cases. That is, the notation that makes voice leading etc. clearest may not be what makes the physical motions of playing clearest. In the end the sound is of course what matters, not the appearance of the notes on the page.

And not hurting oneself also matters. As some of you know, I've been studying with a Taubman Approach teacher for nearly 5 years now, and I've gotten more and more in tune with his way of thinking because it works so well. He does what he does because some years ago he had become completely disabled and had no choice but to change. Before that he was very rigid, about what the score appeared to say and about other matters. Rigidity on any level tends to cause trouble, I would say.

None of this is a matter of laziness or of not caring what the composer wanted, but rather of trying to get to the music as well as one can with the resources at one's disposal at the time.

More later-- I'll be meeting with a composer of piano music this afternoon, and I'm going to run the group's thoughts by her.

Elene
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/26/07
Posts: 1425
Loc: Land of Enchantment

Well, I didn't find time to talk with my composer friend about any of this, as she was very busy teaching me some exercises for getting more fluent with jazz chords. But I had a few other thoughts this afternoon.

One: The instrument we are using may sometimes influence our decisions on whether to change a passage to make it playable. I'm relearning 10/6 at the moment, and today I played it for a patient who's very interested in Chopin. That was on my upright (yes, a piano at the office), with its extremely light action. Although it has many deficiencies, sometimes it makes things that are physically more challenging noticeably easier. Certainly it's easier to get to a faster tempo on that instrument.

Two: Our capacity grows over time (at least, we hope). Example-- In mm 18 and 20 of 10/6, I used to have trouble getting the sound my teacher and I wanted on the 1st RH chord. The musically important points are to hear the top (melody) note and to hear the plaintive dissonance of the chord. Because it was a stretch for me and the most important notes were under the 4th and 5th fingers, those notes were coming out weak and indistinct. My teacher's solution was to leave out the lowest note of the chord.

I'd rather not leave out anything, but which expressed Chopin's intention better, playing all the notes he wrote or playing the notes that really needed to be heard as beautifully and meaningfully as possible? Leaving out that note didn't change the harmony, and no musical meaning was lost. The beauty was increased. I can agree that this approach is true to the composer's intention. Although in a sense it is less precisely correct, and one certainly does want precision with Chopin, musically it is more precise because the sound is clearer.

But now, a few years later, my hands are more flexible and stronger, and it looks like I can put that bottom note back in the chord without any loss of meaning or tone color. So what was the logical decision back then is probably not the best now.

Three: If you are driving yourself crazy to play a passage in the way you believe is "right," and despite lots of practice and all your skill and knowledge that's making your body tighten up and be uncomfortable or even hurt, then the passage is not going to sound as good as it could. Doing something to ease the physical strain will almost certainly result in a more musical sound and a more satisfying experience for you and anyone who hears you.

Fourth: I reiterate, Chopin changed things all the time. Often we simply have to let go of wanting to know his "true" intentions and just do our best. I'd rather have it all carved in stone, but it's not.

As some of you know, I have particularly strong reasons to want to stay on Chopin's good side! So I do very much want to do things the way he likes them. But from everything I know, his preference is to see us playing with freedom, joy, and deep musicality, whatever our technical decisions.

It occurred to me that there are at least a couple of areas where we regard a composer's 'intentions' as nothing more than recommendations: fingering and pedaling. I'm think the reasons obvious enough that there's no need to elaborate!

I really hoped Polyphonist wanted to discuss Op. 52 (as I could use a study buddy!), but it looks like that's not happening.

Anyway, I've been thinking about something I'd like to share.

We can think we're very familiar with a piece of music that we do not ourselves play. Sure, we've listened to it many times and to many different performances by different artists. Naturally, we've read the score along with the music, also many times.

But it's not until we actually take up the study of that piece ourselves that a new dimension of appreciation is revealed! This isn't news to me, but I've never been as aware of it as I am with Op. 52. It's a higher level of understanding, of both the music itself and the mechanics of the music. Even the score seems to 'look' different when you have the familiarity of working on the piece rather than just casually reading it.

I am marveling at the ingenious writing in Op. 52 and the way the music comes alive. For example - for as long as I thought I knew this composition (i.e., listening), I'd never been terribly fond of the second theme entering at m 84 in B-flat as a quasi-nocturne (with elements of chorale and barcarolle as we do find in some of the 'real' nocturnes) and then reprising rhapsodically at m 169 in D-flat with dramtically increasing intensity. NOW this melody SPEAKS to me in a way that I never experienced, and I had never before even noticed Chopin's very clever use of 'blue notes' here!

And the writing itself, so ingenious and comfortable in the way it fits the hand! For all that's been said about the legendary technical difficulties of this piece, I'm honestly not finding that true. Andante con moto is a reasonable tempo after all, and the only issue I foresee is getting the coda with its triplet semiquavers up to speed.

I began my study with the coda, by the way, understanding it was regarded as the hardest section. I really don't know why that's so unless it's the chromatic minor thirds. For fingering I use the 'sliding second finger' method on the inner notes instead of the 'shifting thumb' method, and the challenge is no greater than any chromatic minor third scale anywhere else.

I am just so enthusiastic about this project. I always knew this piece to be one of Chopin's most mature and magical, but I really didn't understand WHY until now. It is just a marvel, and I'm taking my time to savor learning it well.

I really hoped Polyphonist wanted to discuss Op. 52 (as I could use a study buddy!), but it looks like that's not happening.

On the contrary, I'm happy you've finally come to understand the piece and want to learn it, and I'd love to help you out in any way possible. As I've said on another thread, it's one of my favorite pieces of all time and I could discuss it for days on end.

Elene
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/26/07
Posts: 1425
Loc: Land of Enchantment

Having heard all that, I think I'm going to try to pick my way through reading that piece as much as I'm able and get more of an idea of what's going on inside it. It's definitely true that even if you've heard a piece a bazillion times you get a great deal more appreciation of it by trying to play it-- even if you are not really capable of learning it at the time.

I always appreciate getting to hang out with much more advanced players and find out what's going on in their heads as they study pieces, too.

Apparently Chopin himself wrote in his copy of this Nocturne "small, but strangely beautiful variants". Very true!

A small correction: There is nothing surviving that would translate to "his copy of this Nocturne" - no autograph manuscript, and no print that Chopin himself owned. Instead, he wrote the variants for op. 9 no. 2 in students' copies of the printed French edition of the piece. He did so many times (on occasion repeating himself).

(In one instance, for Wilhelm von Lenz, Chopin wrote out the variants on a separate sheet of music paper.)

And Chopin always wrote these variants out in pencil, a fact of some interest, since he normally wrote both rough drafts and final copies of his music in ink.

ChopinAddict
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Registered: 08/29/09
Posts: 6360
Loc: Land of the never-ending music

Thank you so much for the clarification!!! I bought my Paderewski copy only recently and when LisztAddict posted the variants I read the comments on this nocturne and I must have misread a line (the one that referred to Lenz).The real comment is:Lenz, Chopin's pupil, mentions in his memoirs of Chopin that Chopin himself wrote on the copy of this Nocturne: "small, but strangely beautiful variants".

And Chopin always wrote these variants out in pencil, a fact of some interest, since he normally wrote both rough drafts and final copies of his music in ink.

Hi. I'm just wondering how you interpret this pencil use.

It's a complicated story (one I've explored in some talks that will eventually grow into a full-fledged essay), but the short version is that Chopin used pencil when he wanted to capture some of the spontaneity of the moment in performance. (And when he used pencil in his correspondence, it was vaguely akin to how we use e-mail or Twitter today: a brief, hasty note.)

The pencil at the piano must've been a fixture. Remember that Maria wrote to him that he'd forgotten his pencil and they were "keeping it like a relic."

Indeed yes - just like the extant "Chopin's Pencil" (which you can view on various Polish websites).

And we know from other descriptions that the pencil was always present at lessons: when Chopin would get frustrated with a student, he'd sometimes get up, turn away from the student, and snap the pencil in two with his hands. Also the famed story of Chopin debating the meter of his mazurka with Meyerbeer had Chopin beating out the meter with a pencil.

Elene
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/26/07
Posts: 1425
Loc: Land of Enchantment

Well, it's pretty much impossible to teach, or to study a new piece, without a pencil close at hand. Now I'm wondering what pencils were like in the 1830s and '40s. (I've been using a Hello Kitty pencil lately, given to me by my teacher. Those probably didn't exist in 1840.)

I seem to remember that Ludwika left a forgotten pencil with her brother after visiting him and that he wrote that he treasured it and was getting a lot of use out of it.

The idea of Chopin writing variants and embellishments in pencil seems to beautifully reinforce the idea that they are thoughts in the moment, shifting and changeable, not meant to be taken as absolute. I think we must keep in mind that Chopin was a master improviser.

Elene
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/26/07
Posts: 1425
Loc: Land of Enchantment

When I briefly touched the keys of a piano he'd owned, it occurred to me that there might be some molecules left of oil from his skin-- that I might actually be touching him, in a way. I almost fainted.

When I briefly touched the keys of a piano he'd owned, it occurred to me that there might be some molecules left of oil from his skin-- that I might actually be touching him, in a way. I almost fainted.

Elene

Each time you take a breath, you inhale some molecules that were once inside Chopin. (It's true, do the math.)

Hello fellow Chopin lover's I'm new around here and I have a few questions. I'm writing a fictionalized story on Chopin's life for a project and I'm wondering if some discussion can help me get the real life aspects as accurate as possible.

-Did Chopin ever see his mother and father after moving to France?(I read in a book a while ago that he did and I've never read that anywhere before in my researching and I wasn't sure if it were true)Is there any letters exchanged between them that I can read? What about his other sister we know of Ludwika and Emila?-What's up with Sand? I've read that she was a horrible person and she had a horrible idea of love but I haven't really found why people would think this. The only bad things I've heard is that she wrote a book about their affair which supposedly made appear as a victim and she may have gotten annoyed with having to be Frederic's caretaker rather than his lover. And until recently I found out that other things about how she was delusional, Liszt said she was only good in her imagination. What would cause her to be like that, did anything happen in her childhood? -I've always wondered why she didn't attend Chopin's funeral. I find it strange. Did she feel guilty (i read that friends in their circle started to avoid her and ignore invitations to her manor after she wrote that book, they sympathized with the dying Chopin, I'm not sure if that is true either)-Was Frederic's illness chronic? As in he would have periods in his life where he was healthy and sick.-Was Chopin as famous as he was back then?-Do you think Chopin's grave will ever be moved to Poland?

Thank you all in advance. Chopin is my favorite composer so far and last year I picked up the piano. Music has been with me the majority of my life (I'll played the flute since middle school) and once I finish college I want to continue music as a hobby.

Hello fellow Chopin lover's I'm new around here and I have a few questions. I'm writing a fictionalized story on Chopin's life for a project and I'm wondering if some discussion can help me get the real life aspects as accurate as possible.

-Did Chopin ever see his mother and father after moving to France?

Yes, he met them at a spa outside of Poland when he was about 25. You can look up the details yourself. There's nothing apocryphal about that visit.

Is there any letters exchanged between them that I can read?

Get a book of Chopin's letters off Amazon. There are plenty.

What about his other sister we know of Ludwika and Emila?

Isabella, the middle sister - apparently a Daddy's girl. She married her father's teaching assistant and lived to a ripe old age but had no children. They made their home with Chopin's mother. She was the only one of the siblings that survived both her parents.

-What's up with Sand? I've read that she was a horrible person

George was an idealist who was also a mortal like the rest of us who had a habit of biting off more than she could chew and difficulty living up to her idealized image of herself. Not a horrible person, just a normal mix of good and bad like the rest of us.

The only bad things I've heard is that she wrote a book about their affair

Lucrezia Floriani - Delacroix cried for his friend as he heard it read. Chopin preserved his dignity and shrugged it off.

And until recently I found out that other things about how she was delusional,

We all like to fix reality up to suit ourselves. "She can never write her life story. She's incapable of remembering the truth." That's more or less what Chopin said about it.

What would cause her to be like that, did anything happen in her childhood?

Her father was an aristocrat, her mother was a prostitute who managed to finagle her way into marriage. She was raised by a grandmother who hated her and adored a mother who essentially abandoned her. Her father died when she was young. She was also an extraordinarily intelligent and independent woman in an era that devalued feminine intelligence and discouraged feminine independence. Of course she had issues.

.-I've always wondered why she didn't attend Chopin's funeral.

Probably felt that she would be met with overt hostility. She was probably right.

I find it strange. Did she feel guilty

Possibly. She once wrote something to the effect that in the afterlife when everything was sorted they might meet and straighten it out.

(i read that friends in their circle started to avoid her and ignore invitations to her manor after she wrote that book, they sympathized with the dying Chopin, I'm not sure if that is true either)

True-

Was Frederic's illness chronic?

Pretty much. It just varied in intensity.

As in he would have periods in his life where he was healthy and sick.

Never really robust, just "as well as I know how to be" -but he had a great deal of nervous energy so he could have passed for healthy at his best

Was Chopin as famous as he was back then?

In educated circles, yes.

Do you think Chopin's grave will ever be moved to Poland?

When pigs fly. Chopin was quite attached to Paris and Paris is quite attached to him. Chopin was buried as he wished to be buried. His heart's in Warsaw. All's right with his postmortem world.