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How far can interpretation go? I was asking myself this question playing Chopin's Mazurka in A min Op.7 No.2. I just feel it more if I play it slower than the tempo indicated, but I don't think I should go against the wishes/instructions of my favourite composer...
Any ideas?
CA
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Do whatever you like. Chopin is dead, its your sheet music, your piano, your interpretation. Its always good to know about what the composer intended, but don't feel you should be restricted by that.
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There's a very recent thread in ABF concerning the appropriate tempo of this very piece: A Sad Chopin's MazurkaI wouldn't consider the M.M. marking to be set in stone; I let the range of plausible tempi suggested by the verbal designation guide me instead. Vivo ma non troppo conveys to me that there should be some Mazurka-like liveliness here, but not too much. I can't fathom playing it at 160 bpm, but a solemn and dirge-like performance would be contrary to the spirit of the piece. It's often been remarked here that the M.M. indications given by Chopin in many pieces seem excessively and inappropriately fast. Steven
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If the tempo marking is in your score is Chopin's, I would ask you the same question that I have heard Irina Morozova ask in master classes:
"If your score had been personally marked by Chopin, would you ignore his markings?"
This is her way of saying that any marking(fingering, tempo, pedal)that we know is authentic Chopin should be at least considered strongly.
In the case of a tempo marking I don't think it's as important to follow Chopin's marking as precisely as it would be for something like phrasing. As long as you're reasonably close it seems OK. From my listening to Mazurka performances it seems there is quite a bit of variance in tempo among great pianists.
Last edited by pianoloverus; 09/10/09 05:48 PM.
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Thanks for the advice and the link. You are right, the verbal designation is more important as it allows more space for interpretation. After all, if all pianists played at exactly the same tempo it would be less interesting...
CA
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Follow the score but do not be restricted to that. Nobody will play a piece the same way as you, therefore there can't be ONE perfect interpretation that everybody should follow.
I played the opening of the 2nd ballade so slow and insisted on it, and drove my teacher nuts because he couldn't change my mind. I think I changed his though..
If you have a really good reason for it, maybe..
"The eyes can mislead, the smile can lie, but the shoes always tell the truth."
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I don't know how to link another thread but following (delightful) quote is from thread #1240439 from John Citron and comments he made about a rare piano sitting job: Before I forget and get side-tracked again with something else, let me tell you about my piano sitting job I had last Saturday...Anyway I arrived at 9:30 and left around 7:30...Later on, I played a Pleyel from 1845. This is a rather small piano in comparision to the others in the collection and is more of a parlor grand than a concert grand. The action is quite different too in comparison to the Streichers, Erard, and the Bösendorfer from the same period. There's something about it that's hard to describe. The action feels as though there is little repetition to it, which is probably true because Erard was the one that developed the escapement that is used today on our pianos. The other pianos being compared to it are also Viennese, and these have a totally different action than either the Erard or the Pleyel. So when I played this piano, after I got used to it, I found that I had to be extremely precise with my fingering and hand movements otherwise the tone would either not sound nice, or there wouldn't be any at all.
After I got used to the piano, I started to enjoy its clarity and distinct registers. Chopin loved Pleyels and I can see why. His music sounded a lot different on this than on a modern piano, and on some works, which I find very difficult to play such as his 3rd Scherzo, executed easily on this piano. I was able to bring out voices I heard in my head, but unable to execute on a modern piano. On this piano I destroyed his 3rd Ballade, Scherzo in B-flat minor, and a bunch of Nocturnes, which I haven't played in awhile...
There's one thing I forgot to mention about the pianos. The earlier instruments, before the 1862 Chickering, have very a shallow key depth. This really helps in playing quickly when combined with a light action. This really helped my Chopin Scherzo, bugs and all. The lightness, once gotten used to also makes the playing easier because there's a lot less work needed to achieve a complete dynamic range. The keys were not any different in width than a modern piano except for on the fortepiano. This made them comfortable to play one.
Until this post, I wouldn't have considered that the pianos of Chopin would be so different than the modern piano. Tempo and dynamic interpretation would vary for the modern piano. And perhaps, if Chopin played on a modern piano, his markings might have been different.
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Slightly off the main subject, but Liszt had this to say about Chopin and Pleyels in his Life of Chopin:"...Pleyel's pianos, which he particularly liked for their slightly veiled, yet silvery sonorousness, and easy touch, permitting him to elicit tones which one might think proceeded from one of those harmonicas of which romantic Germany has preserved the monopoly, and which were so ingeniously constructed by its ancient masters, by the union of crystal and water."
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Until this post, I wouldn't have considered that the pianos of Chopin would be so different than the modern piano. Tempo and dynamic interpretation would vary for the modern piano. And perhaps, if Chopin played on a modern piano, his markings might have been different. I don't think tempo and interpretation would have to vary just because the modern piano is different. I do think that some passages might be harder/easier to play on a modern piano.
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Do whatever you like. Chopin is dead, its your sheet music, your piano, your interpretation. Its always good to know about what the composer intended, but don't feel you should be restricted by that. This can drastically change the mood and "story" of a piece and and change the desired effect is was intended to have. Under your logic, a cadenza marked presto can be played lento and a passage marked pianissimo can be played fortissimo.
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Do whatever you like. Chopin is dead, its your sheet music, your piano, your interpretation. Its always good to know about what the composer intended, but don't feel you should be restricted by that. This can drastically change the mood and "story" of a piece and and change the desired effect is was intended to have. Under your logic, a cadenza marked presto can be played lento and a passage marked pianissimo can be played fortissimo. I got a good chuckle out of that (bruce-san) post myself. A little sarcasim poked at the purists.
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@ lisztonian Of course it can . You can play a piece however it pleases you. Of course if you are playing for somebody else who knows their stuff, even more so if they're an examiner or something, a wildly original and excessively heterodox performance of something isn't going to come across well unless you can justify your alterations (other than just 'i like it that way' :P). I do think its important to know what the 'correct' way of playing something is, and to be able to play it that way as well as you can. But if the situation permits it I think people should be able to do whatever they like, as long as they except that a lot of people will probably give them a hard time about it. @jw7480 It may have been a little tongue in cheek but it wasn't really sarcastic :P. I do actually believe what I said.
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Do whatever you like. Chopin is dead, its your sheet music, your piano, your interpretation. Its always good to know about what the composer intended, but don't feel you should be restricted by that. This can drastically change the mood and "story" of a piece and and change the desired effect is was intended to have. Under your logic, a cadenza marked presto can be played lento and a passage marked pianissimo can be played fortissimo. If it sounds good, sure! Personally, I particularly enjoy Anton Rubinstein's idea of fortissimo where the the funeral march returns with pianissimo. If you need a score in front of you to decide whether you dislike something, it's just pedantry. If something sounds crap, the problem is the fact that it sounds crap- not the fact that the composer didn't ask you to do it.
Last edited by Nyiregyhazi; 09/11/09 10:48 PM.
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Do whatever you like. Chopin is dead, its your sheet music, your piano, your interpretation. Its always good to know about what the composer intended, but don't feel you should be restricted by that. This can drastically change the mood and "story" of a piece and and change the desired effect is was intended to have. Under your logic, a cadenza marked presto can be played lento and a passage marked pianissimo can be played fortissimo. The point of this thread is that no one knows the 'correct' way of playing something except the composer. A piece may sound better if it is played against Chopin's own wishes, but can you really say that you are playing Chopin? You are effectively playing your own arrangement of Chopin. But since Chopin is dead, no one knows what Chopin really wanted, so we are all playing our own arrangements of Chopin. If a cadenza sounds better in lento than the marked presto, why not play it that way? For example, let's consider a student composer with far worse abilities than Chopin, who composes a piece as an assignment for his teacher. The piece is marked presto, but sounds much better under lento, the teacher would surely tell the student to change the tempo marking. Unfortunately the student dies before he could change the marking. What would future pianists do when they play the piece?
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Do whatever you like. Chopin is dead, its your sheet music, your piano, your interpretation. Its always good to know about what the composer intended, but don't feel you should be restricted by that. This can drastically change the mood and "story" of a piece and and change the desired effect is was intended to have. Under your logic, a cadenza marked presto can be played lento and a passage marked pianissimo can be played fortissimo. What would future pianists do when they play the piece? This was one of my initial thoughts before I posted anything. The effect it will have on pianists in the coming years and generations.
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But since Chopin is dead, no one knows what Chopin really wanted, so we are all playing our own arrangements of Chopin.
??? What Chopin wanted is what he indicated in the score.
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But since Chopin is dead, no one knows what Chopin really wanted, so we are all playing our own arrangements of Chopin.
??? What Chopin wanted is what he indicated in the score. Which is of course, exactly the same thing in every single edition he published. He never changed his mind about a thing...
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But since Chopin is dead, no one knows what Chopin really wanted, so we are all playing our own arrangements of Chopin.
??? What Chopin wanted is what he indicated in the score. Which is of course, exactly the same thing in every single edition he published. He never changed his mind about a thing... If he changed his mind and conflicting editions, then it just means that both are possible interpretations.
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But since Chopin is dead, no one knows what Chopin really wanted, so we are all playing our own arrangements of Chopin.
??? What Chopin wanted is what he indicated in the score. Which is of course, exactly the same thing in every single edition he published. He never changed his mind about a thing... If he changed his mind and conflicting editions, then it just means that both are possible interpretations. Yes. But what if only one of those editions had been published? And someone did something that was not in that particular edition? It serves to illustrate that just because something is not in a particular edition, that does not necessarily mean it should be banned. The composer may have been fine with the idea.
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But since Chopin is dead, no one knows what Chopin really wanted, so we are all playing our own arrangements of Chopin.
??? What Chopin wanted is what he indicated in the score. Which is of course, exactly the same thing in every single edition he published. He never changed his mind about a thing... If he changed his mind and conflicting editions, then it just means that both are possible interpretations. It's not just editions, Chopin changed things ALL the time while performing. He almost never played the same thing twice. So really, sometimes we actually don't know what he wanted..
"The eyes can mislead, the smile can lie, but the shoes always tell the truth."
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