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Phil:

A request was made for a recorded 19th century version of this piece. Well, I do have some familiarity with that style of performance.

Here is Leopold Godowsky's 1928 recording, where he plays the grace notes on the beat. It is, like your recording, a very literal rendering. Also, if you listen carefully, he asynchronizes the bass note throughout.

A surprise for all you "meticulous attention to the score" folks is that measures #24 thru #40 are not played. This tells me that this piece may have been originally written with repeats and subsequently re-edited to show this section as part of the whole.

More importantly, if you listen to his other Chopin recordings, and then factor in his students and admirers, such as Busoni and Rubinstein, you may now have your answer as to how America came to embrace the block chord method of playing. The reason he played that way was that he was completely self-taught absent a few lessons as a young child. And, for all practical purposes, he was the most famous piano teacher in America in the late 19th century.

Pull up his 1913 recording of the G Minor Ballade and it is all block chords, and for those who lectured me on such, it is a piano roll recording. I guarantee you that neither Cortot or Carreno played it that way, who were both students of Chopin's teaching assistants.

Louis are you saying that all of the chords in the left hand of this Nocturne should be very softly arpeggiated? That is exactly what I am saying because that is the way those who studied with a Chopin pedigreed teacher played Chopin.

You play it in the right hand like it is phrased and in a very rhapsodic style, and then you keep it moving with a slightly/softly arpeggiated left hand. The result is a stunningly beautiful piece of music, in my opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op9DfxNSGdI

Louis - I'll write more later today....but just wanted to comment on this statement. While it is indeed possible that Chopin might have originally written the Nocturne with repeats (the slight changes in ornamentation notwithstanding), I'm more inclined to think that the pianist "edited" the piece so his performance would fit into the restrictive time limitations of the 78 rpm recordings back then. One side of a 10" disc held no more than 3 minutes of music, and one side of a 12" disc held between 4-5 minutes. That might also account for the somewhat brisk tempo.

Back when I was an undergrad in college in the mid-1960s I was given a 78 rpm recording of the Bach B Minor Mass (RCA - Robert Shaw) which had been sitting in our school music library since the mid 1940s. I can't recall how many separate discs there were in the recording - but I remember that listening to the entire Mass was truly an interactive experience - as the discs had to be flipped every four minutes or so !! The option of purchasing a 33 rpm LP of the Mass was completely out of the question back then (I literally was a starving student) so I was grateful to get what I could get.

Phil:

As a so-called afficianado of 19th century performance practice, I have had my (major) share of exposure to early 20th century recording techniques. And yes, I know what a "78" is.

You are absolutely correct to question the time frame of this Godowsky recording. However, if you listen to the entire You Tube recordings of his other works, I find it implausible that he "jazzed them all up," in order to fit into a particular time frame.

How do I know this? I know this because my Welte-Mignon recording engineer consultant, Kenneth Caswell, has re-recorded (with accuarate tension markings on the piano) many of these rolls and the playing is true to form, regardless of the time frame.

You cannot get any longer than Paderewski's recording of the A Flat Major Ballade. And, Godowsky's recording was made in 1928, which was practically towards the end of the piano roll recording phase.

That means that when you listen to his 1913 "block chord" rendering of the G Minor Ballade, that is the way he actually played it (reading literally "from the score").

Absolutely no offense, but to suggest that he "juiced," in its entirety, his recording of your Nocturne does not hold sense. Please remember, that this may have been the very first recording of this work.

Nevertheless, it was not the way the rest of the world played Chopin in the latter half of the 19th century and also almost to the mid 20th century.

Louis -

I figured you knew about 78s - I assumed you grew up with them - just as I did.

Point of clarification: Are you saying that this 1928 recording (one of several "electrical recordings" he made with English Columbia from 1928 to 1930) was from a piano roll? I can't imagine that would be the case.

The fact remains that Godowsky was forced to make cuts to many of his recordings so they would fit onto one side of a 78 rpm disc. I assume that his longer recordings from that period were divided between two sides.

I was just joking about the "motivation" for the speed of his playing - but I was somewhat surprised about the pace of his rendition. I've heard that some of Godowsky's recordings seem to get better upon repeated hearings. That certainly was my experience with this one. The first time through it left me a bit cold - but my impression changed with the second and third listenings.

By the way - thanks for referring to this work as my Nocturne.

Thanks for the clarification !! Very helpful !!

I definitely consider the middle section to be a hymn.

I experimented with a slightly faster tempo here due, in part, to a statement I read by James Huneker in the preface to my volume of Chopin Nocturnes (i.e., Chopin's pupil and copyist, Adolph Gutmann (1819-1882) said "the chorale.......is taken too slowly, its composer having forgotten to mark the increased tempo.")

I don't buy that comment from Gutmann, since Chopin had more than one opportunity to make corrections to the French edition, and it's hard to believe he wouldn't correct something that important if he had merely forgot it when he first sent it to the publisher.

Anyway, I always enjoy your playing, and this is no exception. The straightforward manner is refreshing, and a nice break from the usual kind of Chopin playing.

The only areas of improvement I'd suggest may be projections of my own concerns about my own playing - try to work on playing more at the soft end of the dynamic range, and don't be afraid of adding Luftpausen.