Actually I think Rubinstein played the mazurkas relatively straight -- emphasis on "relatively." His contemporaries (even later-on contemporaries) I think tended to "play" with the rhythms much more.

An aside: I played a couple of mazurkas in the recent amateur competition in Warsaw, and did a stupid thing. I pride myself on having a feel for mazurkas, but, in the process of trying to be "a good boy" and be more precise in following the score, I wound up undoing the mazurka aspects of the mazurka. I "forgot" that it was with good reason that my rhythms weren't 'exactly' as written, and ruined the pieces.
A former teacher of mine has done a CD where he talks about stuff like this, not just about mazurkas but in general. His point is that sometimes, "following the score" doesn't mean a literal following in the usual way; you need to know what's the form and style of the piece, and the 'language' of the composer. My attempt to "follow" the score more closely made me actually un-follow it.


Very true -- and I think this applies pretty much to all composers as played by those two, not just Chopin.

(To give credit where it is due: The great "sitting on the stage" story was from Loveschopintoomuch.)

loveschopintoomuch: I so much envy you. I'm only 24, so naturally I have never seen the great 20th century pianists such as Rubinstein, Horowitz, Richter etc.

Elene: I've read a book about dialogs between Horowitz and a Harvard professor of piano's history (or something, can't remember), and I've read the Rubinstein's book about his life. I recall it was mentioned in one of these two books that Rubinstein said he could never be as good pianist as Horowitz was. He was slightly troubled by this fact but eventually he admitted it. Maybe someone has more accurate information about this?

Hi All:

Curious223: I also read that 1,000 bio of Rubinstein; wow, what a memory (and life) he had.

I recall reading this somewhere. Rubinstein and Horowitz were, of course, rivals although they tried to be civil to one another. On one occasion for some reason (gosh, how the memory dissolves when one reads so much) they played the same piece. First Rubinstein and then Horowitz. Afterwards, Rubinstein said to Horowitz: "All right, you've won the Olymics of piano playing." I had to laugh at that. I always thought, while listening to Horowitz play, that his left hand seemed too loud in places. So my nickname for him way back when was "Heavy-handed Horowitz."

Both had periods of depression. Rubintein when he was about 21 or so. Remember, he didn't get really serious about performing until his mid-twenties, and then he settled down and practiced in earnest. But right before this decision, he was lost and confused after having sufferred some serious heart-break. He even contemplated throwing himself off a bridge (ala Schumann). Thank goodness he didn't.

Horowitz, as some of you know, had periods of depression all through his professional career. A few times he locked himself in his bedroom and didn't come out for a couple of years or he didn't leave his apartment. And, of course, he didn't perform.

It is not surprising to me that any great artist would succumb to self-doubt and despair. I can’t even imagine the pressures put upon them. I read a brief bio on Beethoven on Wiki, and down at the bottom of the article, it stated that many believed he was bipolar. Good grief, just because the man was moody and had wild fits of temper, doesn’t mean he was mentally imbalanced. Having to deal with his deafness and all the other maladies that eventually killed him, is it any wonder that he seemed a bit crazy? If so, he had the right to be.

Or maybe (just a thought) genius does require a bit of craziness. How else can it survive and create? Is there such a thing as a well-adjusted genius?

Kathleen

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." Sir Francis Bacon


I've found this to be true. Perhaps it's also true of beauty of the intellect and soul as well.

Amen to that, Sir Francis and Frycek. I guess I have one thing going for me then, as far as genius---and it certainly isn't beauty of the intellect.

OOpppsss...I meant autobigraphy when referring to Rubinstein's book.

Kathleen

Actually, as he says in his auto-bio (1st volume), he did try to hang himself -- and missed. He said he took it as a sign that he was supposed to live.

I was not able to find an autobiography of Artur (or Arthur) Rubenstein. This long out-of-print title:

Arthur Rubenstein, King of the Keyboard by Aylesa Forsee, 1969

does not sound like an autobiography (unless maybe the publisher chose it). I suppose it could be under the name of the ghostwriter, but that is also uncommon. So I'm guessing this is not the book you're talking about.

But, speaking of books, Dr. Kallberg sent me a nice note to give me the link of the online publishers of his dissertation, but said that his book, Chopin at the Boundaries- Sex, History and Musical Genre, would be of more interest to those who are not academic specialists.

That one is available in reprint, Harvard Press, 1998, 320pp, about $30 from Barnes, ISBN 9780674127913.

It's in 2 volumes, with the following titles:

My Young Years
My Many Years

(I have a little review of the first one on Amazon.com.)

P.S. Here's a link to the Amazon page on the 1st volume:
http://www.amazon.com/My-Young-Years-Art...howViewpoints=1

....and also here's a link to the paperback edition:
http://www.amazon.com/Arthur-Rubinstein-...;condition=used

Thanks, Mark. I wonder if the 478pp 1973 edition from Knopf contains both works.

Last time I ordered through Amazon they sent me the order twice, billed me twice, and charged the wrong card. It was set right eventually, but that's why I don't even look at them anymore. Barnes is not bookstore heaven exactly, but I've had better luck--- or less bad luck.

I think the 2nd volume only came out in 1980; if so, the one you mentioned would be just the 1st volume.

I've bought a lot on Amazon and have had almost entirely good experiences, but I'm sure it's 'not always' and I don't blame you for avoiding them since that happened to you.
I do the same thing after something like that happens. And it takes me years to get over whatever it was, sometimes never.

One thing Amazon is good for is postage cost. It's free (at least in the UK). It does take a while to arrive though. I personally have only had good experiences with them, and use them a lot.

I've been ordering from both the US Amazon and the UK version (and even once from France) regularly for years. I order a lot of used books in particular. I've never had a single problem with them, ever.

I was lucky enough to find both volumes of the Rubinsein in our local library. And I had 3 months to read them, which was great since it took me that long.

I've never had a single problem with Amazon or e-bay, for that matter.

I think I will go ahead and order Dr. Kallberg's book. It sounds intriguing.

Kathleen

I am just about to order Dr. Kallberg's book, but I read one of the reviews.

Dr. Kallberg: Please, please, please don't tell me that Chopin made "advances" to Solange. I just can't envision his doing this, since he considered her almost like a daughter.

Kathleen

Dear Kathleen: Did someone say this in a review? If so, it misrepresents what I wrote. There seems to be some evidence that Solange was infatuated with Chopin - the great Sand scholar Georges Lubin writes about this in his edition of the Sand correspondence. Moreover, Sand and at least one of Sand's acquaintances (Emmanuel Arago - this info comes from a letter he wrote in July 1847) thought that Chopin's "paternal affection" for Solange had transformed itself (without Chopin being conscious of it) into something else as Solange grew into a young woman. But these reactions came in the middle of the heat of the breakup, were certainly colored by it, so are difficult to judge. And even if one takes the darkest view of the evidence, being unconsciously attracted to a young woman is pretty far from "making advances" to her.

Jeff

This is quite a elementary question regarding pronunciation, but how do you pronounce 'ballade'? Is it as in 'salad' or 'bollard', or neither? Or does it depend on where you come from? I don't like saying either because I don't want to 'embarrass' myself, and hopefully this will clear it up. Finally, are there any other words like this I might be mispronouncing?

Edit - does anyone know why my signature keeps going funny. It seems to be the accents.

Thanks.

Neither.

A lot of people pronounce it like the regular word "ballad" (and sometimes it's even SPELLED that way -- in fact, in the current Cliburn YouTube competition, one of the contestants is spelling it that way!). And the words "ballad" and "ballade" are related in their meanings. But.....

"Ballade" is pronounced "bah-LAHD."

Good that you asked. I enjoyed answering.

Thank you so much, Dr. Kallberg, for your very prompt reply. Both of the reviews appeared on Amazon and were probably not written by scholars (?) This is the one that upset me a tad. But now that I reread it, I could have misinterpreted the "approaches" statement near the end.
*******************
For instance, Aurore Dupin, pseudonym George Sand, the French novelist - later Baroness Dudevant - who wrote in masculine genres, was grotesque in her absurd ideas of love and she tortured the Polish Chopin who mainly composed in feminine styles.
Chopin must have felt her mind was a region utterly difficult to penetrate under the best of circumstances (she was six years his senior) hence the approaches he made to her daughter Solenge.
Chopin, fearing to be in the shadow of the strong willed George Sand of aristocratic lineage (through her father) and a distant relative of Louis XVI, would have none of it. Both were unhappily powerless.

Then this review:
****************
we are all aware of the greatness of chopin. a few are privy to the greatness of george sand. here finally we learn a little of the chemistry which flowed between these two giants of the artistic paris in the 1840's. also importantly, the details, clearly presented, of the questions concerning chopin's music of the last years. this is a calm and reasoned book, showing the author's comprehensive knowledge of the subject. this is not a biography, rather a set of vignettes on particulars of chopin's life and gorgeous music. if you want some brilliant and clear-headed discussion of his gender ambiguity as a person and as expressed in his nocturnes, i encourage you to read this fine work.
****************

Well, I have been sufficently encouraged! Thank you again.
Kathleen

Thanks for clearing that up. I don't think I know anyone who says it like that, but then again, I don't know many people who share my interest in Chopin.

"Is there such a thing as a well-adjusted genius?

I'll say yes to that, Kathleen--- not that I know every genius in the world. But I've known some very bright--- even brilliant--- people who were admirable in their qualities of empathy, emotional groundedness, and sense of balance regarding what is right and wrong, including having a decent respect for others. Of course, there are plenty of people who come up short; genius, ordinary, or on the dumb side... and also those who are a very good sort of people who may not be the brightest. Talents don't necessarily have genius to help them along. These qualities strike me as occurring independently.

I wonder what the distribution curves would look like, if we could measure these qualities and superimpose the graphs. Things many times follow some species of bell curve. Maybe there is some clinical consensus whether brilliance and emotional imbalance are correlated--- I don't know. Monica might. As long as we can agree to say that "well-adjusted" doesn't mean "perfect," I feel pretty safe in answering your question with a "yes." I'm pretty surprised so many answered otherwise.

It's been my personal experience that painting types of people with too broad a brush doesn't work very well, even though it's tempting and sometimes it is, just exactly, true. But there are exceptions even among the exceptional, and we all face challenges in life.

The cases of Beethoven and Chopin are a fair example. I've known people with manic-depressive illness (and there's a range, even within that), but it seems to me that Beethoven falls short of it. I know too many people who have had a lifelong struggle with a too-hot temper, or who too easily fall into the blues; they seem to span quite a range of the human potential. Of course, my saying so is a long way from proving it.

Your question is very interesting. I'll bet there's a PhD thesis in the answer.

Reviews on Amazon are precisely as reliable as posts on Piano World. They may be written by anyone at all, anyone from a genuine expert to the most pathetic idiot. The first review of Jeff's book Kathleen quoted was apparently written by the latter type-- also by someone who was not a native English speaker. About the only things that reviewer got right were the names of the personages involved.

I have never heard "ballade" pronounced in any way other than "bah-LAHD," as Mark wrote it.

I'm wondering why Chopin4Life's signature line is still screwy, too. For a while there all accents were coming out funny, and perhaps it's left over from that time? Maybe redoing it would work now. Changing the spelling to the original "Fryderyk" would also bypass the problem.

There probably is a PhD thesis in the discussion of genius and mental illness. Somewhere long, long ago, I read that there was no correlation, but I don't know whether that's true. One thing I would point out is that mild mental "illness" is far more common than one might expect, and so would be likely to hit geniuses as much as anyone. I've been surprised by what my patients tell me about that. These are generally folks who are quite functional, but so many are challenged by anxiety, depression, etc. I think these things are pretty much part of the normal human condition, and it's only when they really get out of hand that we notice them in others. That is, many people are suffering quietly, and you'd never find out about it unless you were a close friend or family member-- or their doctor.

Both Chopin and Beethoven had severe, very long-term health problems that caused persistent suffering and could probably drive anybody round the bend to at least some extent. Chopin remained remarkably sane under the circumstances.

By the way, a few years ago I was trolling the Web trying to do some historical diagnosis on Our Friend, and I read a list of mental and emotional symptoms of late-stage obstructive pulmonary disease. It sounded a lot like Zofia Rozengardt's descriptions of him.

Elene

I saw "ballada".

You must be blessed with a very high level of friends and colleagues.

But seriously folks all my music colleagues have always said it right. But when I've heard people without a classical music background try to say it (including "emcees" at some performances!), they rarely say it right, and "ballad" is the usual mispronunciation.

Great get!!

And really, most of these musical forms have different names in different languages.
Like, polonaise is sometimes "polacca" (I guess that's Italian). And at the Warsaw competition in September, if I remember right, the program book (and the announcer) used different names than the familiar ones for quite a few of the Chopin pieces.

I did put it right once before when this happened. I'll try once more, just because 'Frédéric' looks more aesthetically pleasing than 'Fryderyk', in my opinion. Maybe it's just me...

Dear Kathleen,

Oh that review. In the troublesome phrase "hence the approaches he made to her daughter Solenge [sic]", I take "approaches" more innocently to mean something like "the friendship he developed with Solange". But I guess one can't be sure!

Jeff

Yes, but they are not so different from the names we use. Nocturne = Nokturn, mazurka = mazurek (mazurki for plural), barcarolle = barkarola, polonaise = polonez.

Just the key signatures I had trouble with like cis, fis, gis, as, es, b is b-flat, and h is b.

Well yeah, but "ballade" and "ballada" aren't that different either!