Bach, Beethoven, and Beyond: Chopin

DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (July 21, 2020)

Fredric Chopin may be the most misunderstood of the great composers. There are several reasons, and we will need to refer to some very old recordings to help uncover them.

1. The modern concert grand piano is not the instrument for which Chopin composed. The Viennese-born keyboard maker Pleyel built instruments especially for Chopin, which the composer called "well-nuanced". Here is a rare 1949 recording of the Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 in Db Major, performed by Polish pianist Raoul Koczalski on Chopin's personal (restored) Pleyel.

https://soundcloud.com/us…/bach-beethoven-and-beyond-chopin2

Please notice that the instrument plays very softly, and distinguishes the different voice types. Soprano, tenor, and bass, are very clear, even in arpeggios.

The action is lighter and allows one to float above the keys. Moriz Rosenthal, a student of Chopin's student Mikuli, complained that the Steinway concert grand was too heavily weighted and did not allow for such fleeting passages.

2. Chopin was such a master of bel-canto singing that he took his students to the opera, and afterwards, imitated different singers at the keyboard, in a way that all could recognize. Many people have heard his Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2. Have you ever heard it sung like an operatic aria, in the way that pianist/composer Sergei Rachmaninoff does here?

https://youtu.be/xp3B19jF4eI

In more recent times, pianist Krstian Zimerman did the same. In 1989, as a youth, he won accolades for best performance of the Chopin concerti. He could easily have been satisfied, but he disliked the mechanistic method of reproducing masterworks and chose to spend ten years building a Polish Festival Orchestra, dedicated to getting these works right. The piano sings, and the orchestra sings.

https://youtu.be/FIackkOX23.

3. Chopin's love of Bach. Bach was Chopin's favorite composer. He studied Bach intensively and composed Preludes in all 24 keys.

His Piano Sonata No. 2 in Bb Major starts out by referencing what we have termed the C Minor Series (read the C Minor Series from June 29-July 16). It opens, like Beethoven's Op. 111, with a diminished 7th interval stated alone in the bass, except that instead of Eb to F#, it is Db to E.

The third movement is the famous Funeral March. The entire sonata appears to be modelled on Chopin's favorite Beethoven Piani Sonata No. 12, including the funeral march. We include just the funeral march from Beethoven's sonata.

https://youtu.be/NRTkAyKDDWc

Chopin's sonata uses Bachian devices such as inversion throughout. The recording is my Martha Argerich. the timings of the three movements are labelled. The development of the first movement begins at 4:00. Chopin has all the themes he has developed so far present.

https://youtu.be/DZMV1qvbBGU

Though it is from 1930, we include the complete performance by Rachmaninoff for those interested. It is well worth a listen. The second movement begins at 5:54. The third at 11:12, and the 4th at 17:23.

https://youtu.be/TrQG-Z5gdfg