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A bit of fun, irreverent and silly - - BBC Radio Play Chopin in Manchester
Slow down and do it right.
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I think I'd rather stick to the portrait you have in your avatar (which is also in front of my piano, together with his last photo).
Music is my best friend.
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I wish I could discuss the 4th Ballade intelligently, and am interested in whatever anyone would like to say about it, but am a long way off from being able to learn it. (I can get through the 1st Ballade more or less and am planning on working seriously on it again in 6-12 months; the 4th appears far more daunting.)
Elene
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The 1st is quite an accomplishment also, Elene. Which one is your favorite (ie which one would you learn if technique were not an issue)?
Regards,
Polyphonist
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I think the G minor Ballade is still my favorite. The 4th (what key is it?) is also phenomenal, and seems phenomenally difficult. The A flat (3rd?) seems the one that's played the most, but I like it the least. I had thought it was the easiest, till I tried reading through it, an exhausting experience I'm afraid.
(sorry, not running off to check order and keys just now)
Elene
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I think the G minor Ballade is still my favorite. The 4th (what key is it?) is also phenomenal, and seems phenomenally difficult. The A flat (3rd?) seems the one that's played the most, but I like it the least.
(sorry, not running off to check order and keys just now)
Elene No 1-G minor No 2-F major No 3-Ab major No 4-F minor The consensus among pianists is that the F minor is the hardest (technically and musically), and the Ab major is the easiest. There is some dispute about the relative difficulty of Op 23 and 38. My personal favorite is the 4th, but I love all of them and they are all great masterpieces. I had thought it (the 3rd) was the easiest, till I tried reading through it, an exhausting experience I'm afraid.
Reading through any one of them will be an exhausting experience.
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Polyphonist
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I can very, very well believe that the 4th Ballade is the hardest.
My lesson today focused on 10/3. Do you know, the National Edition (and, I've heard, the most recent Henle edition) has some very surprising changes of accidentals in mm 31 and 34, quite different from the way everyone has played the passage all these years. There is a very lengthy explanation in the performance commentary, so complex it almost might as well be in Polish for my purposes; I haven't absorbed the details as yet. But the gist seems to be that the version we usually play is not based in anything Chopin actually wrote.
We were contemplating the tempo, as well. Angela Lear made the point, some years ago, that there is no reason to speed up terribly in the "con bravura" section, as many people do, and that there is really no justification for changing the tempo at all. (She plays the rest of the piece at a much faster tempo than most, and faster than I prefer it, frankly, despite the scholarly considerations.) Just before that section, the Paderewski edition I've been using is marked "con fuoco." The National edition says "sempre piu con fuoco." That suggests what I would expect, that the energy builds going into that section. To me, it seems that there is going to be some acceleration as well, maybe not a dramatic amount but some. (Of course if I can play the "con bravura" up to tempo at all, I'll be doing well!)
But then, it's possible to add more of an energetic feel to the sound without actually going faster.
Comments?
******************************************** I was only able to hear part of the BBC radio play before it went away, as it wouldn't play well and kept starting and stopping for some reason. It did seem quite amusing. But how could anyone, under any circumstances or for any reason, imagine Chopin EVER making the statement, "Poland sucks"??????
Elene
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Anyone want to discuss his 4th Ballade? I've been getting back to learning it lately. I would! It's my current project, which is why I leapt right in with that tip from Cortot in the Pianist Corner even though I just joined the forum. And I hope you don't have a bad impression of me based on what I said, because I’m actually a purist too when it comes to honoring a composer’s intentions. I’m glad I happened to find this thread. I’m not an adult beginner, but I can tell there are like-minded people here. I didn’t read very far back, but I saw the familiar and esteemed name of Dr. Kallberg. That’s awesome. Greetings to you all.
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Hi, Goomer!
Honoring the composer's intentions is often a particular problem with Chopin because we so often can't figure out what they really were, and because he tended to change his mind quite a bit. So there is a sort of a cloud of quantum particles surrounding a great many aspects of Chopin's life and work.
But we do try, and that's a lot of what you'll find in this thread.
Elene
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Oh, sure. I should have said 'composer's intentions so far as is known from first editions and after sifting out editors' decisions'. And all I meant was that I don't knowingly deviate from the score. The issue I mentioned had to do with a rather nifty redistribution of notes in an isolated passage endorsed by Alfred Cortot, but even that kind of minor modification is something I wouldn't normally consider.
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Why wouldn't you want to redistribute the notes to facilitate playing if the same sound is going to result? Everyone's hands are different.
Elene
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I wouldn't want to speak for Polyphonist, but this link is to my first post in that Pianist Corner thread: Cortot on measures 223 and 225(Another measure that concerns me is 128, where the 4th and 6th semiquavers in the RH inner voice are way too far outside my reach to play musically but can be taken easily by the LH instead.) I think these workarounds are okay because they enable me to play these passages musically and without difficulty. Cortot's clever advice for 223 and 225 truly turns something really awkward (and probably forever impossible for me at tempo!) into something very manageable. I wouldn't consider taking shortcuts or 'cheats' in an etude, but that's not what we've got here. I'm an amateur, and I'm getting old - so if an occasional redistribution serves the music better for me, I'm in favor of it. Life's too short to work on solving a truly awkward and unpianistic moment when there's an easier way.
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OK, I read the other thread, and there is plenty of great food for thought. I don't want this discussion to devolve into a shouting match like that one did. (And here we attempt to keep to Chopin's standards of politesse.)
Of the many considerations one makes in deciding how to negotiate a difficult passage so as to express the musical intention clearly and beautifully, there is this: A composer writes the notes out in a way that makes the most musical sense, while trying to also elucidate the way they should be played. Those two issues may conflict with each other in some cases. That is, the notation that makes voice leading etc. clearest may not be what makes the physical motions of playing clearest. In the end the sound is of course what matters, not the appearance of the notes on the page.
And not hurting oneself also matters. As some of you know, I've been studying with a Taubman Approach teacher for nearly 5 years now, and I've gotten more and more in tune with his way of thinking because it works so well. He does what he does because some years ago he had become completely disabled and had no choice but to change. Before that he was very rigid, about what the score appeared to say and about other matters. Rigidity on any level tends to cause trouble, I would say.
None of this is a matter of laziness or of not caring what the composer wanted, but rather of trying to get to the music as well as one can with the resources at one's disposal at the time.
More later-- I'll be meeting with a composer of piano music this afternoon, and I'm going to run the group's thoughts by her.
Elene
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Well, I didn't find time to talk with my composer friend about any of this, as she was very busy teaching me some exercises for getting more fluent with jazz chords. But I had a few other thoughts this afternoon.
One: The instrument we are using may sometimes influence our decisions on whether to change a passage to make it playable. I'm relearning 10/6 at the moment, and today I played it for a patient who's very interested in Chopin. That was on my upright (yes, a piano at the office), with its extremely light action. Although it has many deficiencies, sometimes it makes things that are physically more challenging noticeably easier. Certainly it's easier to get to a faster tempo on that instrument.
Two: Our capacity grows over time (at least, we hope). Example-- In mm 18 and 20 of 10/6, I used to have trouble getting the sound my teacher and I wanted on the 1st RH chord. The musically important points are to hear the top (melody) note and to hear the plaintive dissonance of the chord. Because it was a stretch for me and the most important notes were under the 4th and 5th fingers, those notes were coming out weak and indistinct. My teacher's solution was to leave out the lowest note of the chord.
I'd rather not leave out anything, but which expressed Chopin's intention better, playing all the notes he wrote or playing the notes that really needed to be heard as beautifully and meaningfully as possible? Leaving out that note didn't change the harmony, and no musical meaning was lost. The beauty was increased. I can agree that this approach is true to the composer's intention. Although in a sense it is less precisely correct, and one certainly does want precision with Chopin, musically it is more precise because the sound is clearer.
But now, a few years later, my hands are more flexible and stronger, and it looks like I can put that bottom note back in the chord without any loss of meaning or tone color. So what was the logical decision back then is probably not the best now.
Three: If you are driving yourself crazy to play a passage in the way you believe is "right," and despite lots of practice and all your skill and knowledge that's making your body tighten up and be uncomfortable or even hurt, then the passage is not going to sound as good as it could. Doing something to ease the physical strain will almost certainly result in a more musical sound and a more satisfying experience for you and anyone who hears you.
Fourth: I reiterate, Chopin changed things all the time. Often we simply have to let go of wanting to know his "true" intentions and just do our best. I'd rather have it all carved in stone, but it's not.
As some of you know, I have particularly strong reasons to want to stay on Chopin's good side! So I do very much want to do things the way he likes them. But from everything I know, his preference is to see us playing with freedom, joy, and deep musicality, whatever our technical decisions.
Elene
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I appreciate your thoughtful remarks, Elene, and agree entirely.
It occurred to me that there are at least a couple of areas where we regard a composer's 'intentions' as nothing more than recommendations: fingering and pedaling. I'm think the reasons obvious enough that there's no need to elaborate!
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I really hoped Polyphonist wanted to discuss Op. 52 (as I could use a study buddy!), but it looks like that's not happening.
Anyway, I've been thinking about something I'd like to share.
We can think we're very familiar with a piece of music that we do not ourselves play. Sure, we've listened to it many times and to many different performances by different artists. Naturally, we've read the score along with the music, also many times.
But it's not until we actually take up the study of that piece ourselves that a new dimension of appreciation is revealed! This isn't news to me, but I've never been as aware of it as I am with Op. 52. It's a higher level of understanding, of both the music itself and the mechanics of the music. Even the score seems to 'look' different when you have the familiarity of working on the piece rather than just casually reading it.
I am marveling at the ingenious writing in Op. 52 and the way the music comes alive. For example - for as long as I thought I knew this composition (i.e., listening), I'd never been terribly fond of the second theme entering at m 84 in B-flat as a quasi-nocturne (with elements of chorale and barcarolle as we do find in some of the 'real' nocturnes) and then reprising rhapsodically at m 169 in D-flat with dramtically increasing intensity. NOW this melody SPEAKS to me in a way that I never experienced, and I had never before even noticed Chopin's very clever use of 'blue notes' here!
And the writing itself, so ingenious and comfortable in the way it fits the hand! For all that's been said about the legendary technical difficulties of this piece, I'm honestly not finding that true. Andante con moto is a reasonable tempo after all, and the only issue I foresee is getting the coda with its triplet semiquavers up to speed.
I began my study with the coda, by the way, understanding it was regarded as the hardest section. I really don't know why that's so unless it's the chromatic minor thirds. For fingering I use the 'sliding second finger' method on the inner notes instead of the 'shifting thumb' method, and the challenge is no greater than any chromatic minor third scale anywhere else.
I am just so enthusiastic about this project. I always knew this piece to be one of Chopin's most mature and magical, but I really didn't understand WHY until now. It is just a marvel, and I'm taking my time to savor learning it well.
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I really hoped Polyphonist wanted to discuss Op. 52 (as I could use a study buddy!), but it looks like that's not happening.
On the contrary, I'm happy you've finally come to understand the piece and want to learn it, and I'd love to help you out in any way possible. As I've said on another thread, it's one of my favorite pieces of all time and I could discuss it for days on end.
Regards,
Polyphonist
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Having heard all that, I think I'm going to try to pick my way through reading that piece as much as I'm able and get more of an idea of what's going on inside it. It's definitely true that even if you've heard a piece a bazillion times you get a great deal more appreciation of it by trying to play it-- even if you are not really capable of learning it at the time.
I always appreciate getting to hang out with much more advanced players and find out what's going on in their heads as they study pieces, too.
Elene
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I caught this the other day when it posted to your you tube channel. A couple of lifted eyebrow moments, but beautifully played, and not too far from the tree.
Nice to see you posting here again.
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
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