I like this piece yes, but I cannot understand the meaning of it.
When I started listening and practicing this piece I thought this must be one of the most beautiful things, but when I started to think that what the composer is trying to say with it, I was quite puzzled.

The first half of the piece is very unergetic by its atmosphere. I like it and I like to think that it describes someone who cannot feel anything (anymore). When the tempo changes, I'm still comfortable, but the last minute is not logical. It seems to describe some sort of emotional burst and the two high points near the end are probably some sort of screams of pain/despair but that is weird. Why would someone who is completely tired and exhausted, start to act like some drama queen? That doesn't make sense to me and therefore I cannot completely relate to the piece.

Should "pure" music have a definite meaning?

If you can't relate to it, maybe it needs more time, or it does means that it doesn't "suite" you, but that's about it. There are pieces of music which do have a deeper meaning (which is always extremely difficult to make out, unless the composer says so), like the quartet for the end of time by Messiaen (if he had named it Quartet No. 2 would ANYONE have imagined the images that he gives in the score?). And so on...

As far as I know (but could be wrong), dispite the name "Ballads" by Chopin, these are not based on poems and don't have an inner meaning of sorts... :-/

I think that the first step toward a better understanding is to let go of the narrative that you've arrived at. Music doesn't need to tell a story in the sense of depicting events, circumstances, occurrences or states of mind. Attaching that sort of program (except when the music is explicitly "program music") is arbitrary, artificial and a hindrance to accurate perception.

Steven

Maybe you have the wrong meaning, that's why it doesn't make sense to you. Like Nikolas said, I think you need to be able to relate to it.

Chopin thought "program music" was corny and didn't compose that way. (I think that was one reason Schumann's music made him cringe.) Chopin deliberately never named anything. Some of his pieces have nicknames, like the Revolutionary Etude (op 10 nr12) but those nicknames were added by audiences/pianists later.

According to Wikipedia, Schumann suggests that the Ballades are inspired by various poems written by Adam Mickiewicz...this based on his correspondence with Chopin. Whether it's true or not, I've always resisted the idea that either the Ballades have specific narratives at that level or that a previous knowledge of the narrative is necessary to understand and appreciate them. They stand on their own quite well, IMO.

Well said!

Chopin had his private narratives and images like anyone else. He once told one of his students that during a certain passage he "saw an angel flying." He once broke down on hearing 10/3 played and started sobbing about "my poor homeland." He refused to impose anything on the listener though. Once he confessed in a letter that he was tempted to tag one composition (I forget which) with a line from a poem and decided no, "better let them guess."

SQ, are you implying a suggested narrative of the piece or are you implying narrative read about Chopin's life? Sure Chopin was an ill man, but why would that hinder his ability to convey such a poignant burst of emotion within music? This coda, of which you speak, is one of my favorites! (and also one that's taken a long time to learn!)

I don't think too much should be based upon a strict narrative. Any listener of this Ballade will have his/her perception of what the piece is about, the emotions conveyed, etc., and I believe it is the job of the performer to allow this, rather than force his/her own story.

If you are choosing to perform this piece, your inability to relate may be problematic and as it was mentioned before by Nikolas, maybe the piece doesn't suit you. How are you supposed to take an audience on the wild journey that is this Ballade, if you have no personal connection with it?

Before, you had some ideas about the piece.

Now, after trying them for a while, you have found out those ideas were not so good, and you have some better ideas.

That's OK - that's part of how you learn music. Keep going, using your new ideas. You will probably change your mind again later, and that's OK too.

Listen to many different performances to understand the piece better. If you have an idea that just doesn't fit with the music, then you need to get a new idea. All this kind of ideas should come to you from listening to the music and playing the music, NOT from what another person says about the piece.

A couple of things:

-- I think maybe you're trying to put too much literal meaning into it.

-- I don't think the tempo really "changes" anywhere. I don't mean that every part has to be metronomically the same -- obviously some parts are a bit slower or faster. But I think the whole piece (including the coda!) is at essentially the same tempo.

Basically what I meant with the first part of my post (above).

Once again we're on the same page.
Literally as well as figuratively.

As with most other of Chopin's compositions, nothing is simple about this work. The section after the openning should be played as a Bach fugue. The "mezzo voce" marking at bar 8 sets the tone. He does not mean you should bring out the middle voices throughout the passage, but rather the tonal emphasis slithers through the various parts. Careful attention to the phrasing and punctuation is important in all sections, not just the flashy ones. Be careful not to over pedal the finale or forget to punch out the stretto chords.

A highly difficult work that should not be under estimated.

Wait a minute -- this is a side issue, but.....are you implying that "mezza voce" basically refers to "middle voice"?

I always thought it was just a milder version of SOTTO voce, meaning that it was supposed to be softer than before but not as much softer as "sotto."

I never thought of that other possibility. Actually it's an interesting linguistic point: it's about the meaning of "voce."
It seems you're taking it as referring to particular voices within the texture. And I thought it was just a reference to 'degree of loudness,' by back-formation from "sotto voce."

I'm going to check on it and see what I find......

[edit: Seems it really does mean what I thought.
I was almost hoping it DIDN'T -- because I've never known quite what to make of those "mezza voces" in this ballade! -- and if it meant something different than I had thought, then maybe I'd get some new flash of insight or something.....]

StupidQuestion,

Samson's book on the Ballades might help. It doesn't give you a narrative of the piece - I doubt that there is one - but it has a lot of useful information on the background of the Ballades, the social and artistic environment Chopin lived in, etc.

In order to understand one of the ballades, you have to look at it in the context of all of the 4 ballades. Have you looked at/listened to them? What is similar about them ( eg, do they all have a coda, are they all based on two main themes, etc.?), and what is different.

There are a lot of outstanding questions about these pieces - are they based more on Mickiewicz' poetry, or on the English ballad. I don't think that's been completely answered, but Mickiewicz was a poet Chopin knew personally, and he felt strongly about his work.

Also, you say, "When the tempo changes, I'm still comfortable..." When does the tempo change? It doesn't really. The piece is andante con moto throughout. There are brief strettos, accelerandos, ritenutos, etc. But it's in the context of the same tempo. So, maybe a closer study of the score might help as well.

just to interject...

at one point in my life, i played mostly Chopin and was totally caught up in the emotion of the pieces. there came a point where i simply could not participate in his music any more.. it was draining my spirit. i had assumed the angst of the composer and it was affecting my outlook on life. I was always so emotional.

i used to dwell on the melodies, with tears welling up at a chord change, and anger and despair filling my soul when thunderous bass chords would dominate the composition. i would play and sob.

there is much to interpret.

I also said the same thing you did about the tempo. (Agree completely.)

ok...you are right Mark mezza voce mean "middle tone"....I was playing on Chopin's [possible] pun. It was just an opinion, but I perform it precisely as I said - creating an implied fugato between the parts. It works for me!

......and I might try that too. As I said, I knew I could use help on it.

I have to confess that I have always been eluded by the term "meaning" in music, and have never understood what people are trying to get at by using it. Music touches me the same way looking at a beautiful landscape touches me, or the same way spending time with a close friend touches me - it simply makes me feel good, feel great. "Meaning" implies that there is an answer, but music - great music - is something too universal and subjective to warrant any sort of specified categorization.

For all I dislike about Vladimir Feltsman, towards the end of this interview he takes the thoughts out of my brain,


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW68toPAk...=PL&index=5

(from 7:40)

BTW.......What do you dislike about Feltsman?
Don't worry, you won't offend me no matter what it might be .....just curious.
It sounds like there's some stuff about him that is commonly felt (pun not intended) but I never heard anything.

So he did compose program music. It's just that he didn't divulge the program, which is not at all the same as it not having a program. That may seem like a silly distinction, but to me it is important to know when interpreting his music.

Really, it's not a silly distinction, it's a very important one. The music came first. A passage might've brought the image of a flying angel to his mind but he didn't set out to describe a flying angel musically. And he didn't try to make you see an angel too. It's the difference between sitting down with a piece of paper and drawing an angel and glancing up at the sky and seeing a cloud that reminds you of an angel.

I wouldn't say that means he "composed programme music," I think it could well have been more the other way around -- i.e. that after the fact, the music called up such images for him. And my guess would be that it was closer to the latter, but who knows.......

Well you know what they say about great minds......

I don't believe that the music always comes first. If there is an image or narrative or whatever attached to some music, it may very well come first, and the composer certainly may have set out to describe something.

All music evokes some kind of mental reaction in the listener, assuming he's actually listening and not merely happening to be in the room at the same time.

For a composer to ask that his music be allowed to "just be", without evoking any listener reaction, is silly and futile, as well as musically incorrect. For a composer to (implicitly or explicitly) ask that only sophisticated listeners comment on his music is equally pointless.

Program music has at least four things going on at once: the image or story attached to the music, the listener's reaction to the image or story, the music itself, and the listener's reaction to the music. Those things can of course be difficult to separate from one another. Non-program music still has a lot going on, and it's just as interesting; it's only less complex to draw a flow chart for.

The case of an angel, in particular, is special because an angel is not a literal physical occurrence. We might as well say that the piece of music is itself the angel, because there is no "more real" angel for it to be referring to. I have experienced an angel outside of art, yet it was no "more real" than the angels I have experienced within or through art.

When a composer sets out to describe something using music, he may fail at the description but the music may still succeed as music.

The only known recording that explains this ballade in full:

I'm no classical pianist by any means, but the first 7 measures seem to express the past tense and the present tense begins in the 8th measure. I can imagine the first 7 bars as background music in a movie where the characters/scene are in the past or a dream-like state. In the 8th measure, the scene immediately advances to the present.

Like I said, I love the music, but I'm not a clasically trained pianist.

fingers