Hi again: Rubato means "stolen time." Basically, you can take (or add) a bit of time from a note or two, but you MUST replace that time in the SAME measure to or from other note/s. Confusing?? Yes. It all must even out at the end of the measure. But for now, do as you have been doing, Perhaps it would be easier for you at this point, to just keep that "voice singing." Rubato is a difficult concept, and even the best pianists often misuse it. Whether by accident or design, too much (or too little) can and does ruin many a performance.

My best,
Kathleen

being Italian I can confirm



I doesn't seem so hard, I will experiment and see what it comes out. thanks again,

A.

Wow, glad to see people have been continuing a great discussion.

I'm very intrigued by the idea of Gutmann as a composer, but I've never seen anything of his. I haven't had time to try to search. Dr. Jeff, any thoughts?

Kathleen, I'm sorry, but I don't think your definition of rubato is necessarily how it works. There's much more freedom than that in the application of rubato. Now, of course we've been told that Chopin's rubato was like Mozart's, in which the LH keeps steady time while the RH sings freely. I've never been able to really do that, and I have read comments by professional pianists saying that they can't either. At any rate, we do get the impression that Chopin's rubato was not as extreme and all-over-the-place as what we hear with many of our 20th and 21st-century players. (And a good thing, too!) But applying mechanical rules to something that needs to be sensed so intuitively and naturally seems unhelpful to me. (This from someone who tends to play much too "straight.")

I am completely astonished by the number of hours some of you manage to practice!

Elene

Hi Elene: Good to "see" you. Of course, I do agree with you in that one can't apply rigid rules to something as subjective as music. Imagine telling an art student that he must always use broad brush strokes when painting the sky. I think I wanted to impress upon achat that rubato is a wonderful technique when used reasonably. Then, of course, there is the argument of "what is reasonable?"

He is doing so well and seems to be anxious to use rubato to help improve his playing. I wanted to impress upon him that before he tries to use it, he should be familiar with the piece and able to voice it properly and play it at an appropriate tempo. I know this is almost impossible for him to do because the piece seems to cry out for that "personal" touch. But once one starts applying rubato too soon when learning a piece, this habit can so easily carry over to the next piece, and the next and so on.

That is why I so admire Rubinstein. He was considered by many as the best interpreter of Chopin's music, and yet he seldom used rubato (so contrary to what most people think.)

I have a feeling that achat will do just fine, and I apologize to him for talking about him in the 3rd person. So sorry, achat.

LCTM,

no problem for the third person, but I am actually a "she"
By the way, cnce again, thanks for the nice comments on my playing and the additional advices for the rubato.

A.

Rubinstein used rubato all the time, but in general he didn't go to extremes, so that you're not consciously hearing rubato in and of itself, but instead hearing expressive playing. If you're noticing rubato in a performance, there's probably too much of it. At least that's my take on it. After dancing to one of his mazurka recordings last year, I can definitely tell you that it's rubato as all heck. I had to practice a great deal to get in sync with him, because he was playing anything but a straight 3/4. (Which brings up that mazurka rhythm thing again-- I don't mean to restart that controversy!)

Elene

I believe I've seen a Gutmann nocturne that struck me as nicely conceived, but not much else.

And to address chopin_r_us's question about books of folk music, we don't know if Chopin actually owned any. But he did write (and complain) about a collection of folk arrangements by Sowinski. He could possibly also have known about (better) anthologies of folk melodies published by Wojcicki and Kolberg (no relation!).

Jeff Kallberg

Are you sure?

You know how it is.....spelling sometimes just get changed over the generations....

P.S. Let's see......this is from Wiki:

Henryk Oskar Kolberg (February 22, 1814 – June 3, 1890) was a Polish ethnographer, folklorist, and composer.

He was born in Przysucha, the son of Juliusz Kolberg, a professor at Warsaw University, and Fryderyka Mercoeur. His family's acquaintances included Samuel Linde, Mikołaj Chopin (father of Frederic Chopin), and Kazimierz Brodziński.

He is best known for his work titled Lud (re-published as Dzieła Wszystkie), a compilation of folk traditions from all the Polish regions. Between 1857–1890 he published 33 volumes and after his death a further 3 volumes were published. The compilation contains 12,000 folk songs, 1250 podań, 670 fairy tales, 2700 proverbs, 350 riddles, 15 ludowych widowisk and many other ethnographic documents.

Kolberg also compiled some ethnographic information on neighboring regions. He died in Kraków.


Unfortunately it doesn't mention if he was related to Jeffrey Kallberg.

I guess it's time to do that genealogical research! My family name is Swedish (early 20th-century immigrants to the US). On the other hand, when I lived in Warsaw in the late '70s, the man-on-the-street explanation for the presence of red-heads among the Polish population was that it had to do with the Swedish occupation of Poland back in Gustav Wasa's days (16th century). So who's to say there isn't some connection?

(And now you also know who the crispbread is named for, though perhaps I should have saved that information for the discussion board at Cracker World.)

Jeff Kallberg

Quite a different kind of post from Dr. K!

Thanks. I found some of his volumes at archive.org.

Elene: Chopin didn't write his mazurkas to be danced to, so that is probably why you had such difficulty in doing so. Please don't blame Rubinstein since he had a particular love for the genre, as did the composer. They were both extremely proud of their Polish heritage, as you may know.

And when I wrote that Rubinstein seldom used rubato, I probably should have qualified that statement to say that he used far, far less than other pianists and that he played Chopin's music, as many believe, as close to how Chopin may have played it himself. If you get the chance, watch Rubinstein play on youtube. The only bit of outward expression he uses is a raised eyebrow, now and then. Such dignity and grace.

If I weren't so lazy, I could give you definite references to the above.

Dr. Kallberg: Boy, we certainly could use some humor on this thread. so please don't hold back! A few years ago, that's what kept this thread going. This was before the days when we had so many learned devotees. I rather miss those days though, even if they were quite silly at times. After all, they got us to where we are today. (Just where are we anyhow?)

Sorry achat. I could almost be considered a sexist because I have a tendency to think all newbies are male. Shame on me.

Kathleen

Actually I'm glad to see that not only males are guilty of that!

I've done it a few times, always feeling like I had the proverbial egg on the proverbial face.

The happiest of holidays to you all.

I thought you might enjoy listening to this young lady's performance of Chopin's B minor scherzo. He uses a Polish Christmas carol as the basis for this movement.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp8TOeEstsA

Kathleen

I got to thinking about "Lulajże Jezuniu," and it was running around in my head, but I didn't remember a single word (not surprising), so I looked it up. I suppose I still won't remember much of it....

http://lyricstranslate.com

Lulajże Jezuniu

(refren:)
Lulajże Jezuniu, moja Perełko,
Lulaj ulubione me Pieścidełko.
Lulajże Jezuniu, lulaj, że lulaj
A ty go matulu w płaczu utulaj

Zamknijże znużone płaczem powieczki,
Utulże zemdlone łkaniem usteczki.
(refren)

Lulajże, piękniuchny nasz Aniołeczku.
Lulajże wdzięczniuchny świata Kwiateczku.
(refren)

Lulajże, Różyczko najozdobniejsza,
Lulajże, Lilijko najprzyjemniejsza.
(refren)

Dam ja Jezusowi słodkich jagódek
pójdę z nim w Matuli serca ogródek.
(refren)

Dam ja Jezusowi z chlebem masełeka,
włożę ja kukiełkę w jego jasełka.
(refren)

Dam ja Ci słodkiego, Jezu, cukierka
rodzynków, migdałów z mego pudełka.
(refren)

Cyt, cyt, cyt niech zaśnie małe Dzieciątko
oto już zasnęlo niby kurczątko.
(refren)

Cyt, cyt, cyt wszyscy się spać zabierajcie,
mojego Dzieciątka nie przebudzajcie.
(refren)


Hush little Jesus

(Refrain:)
Hush little Jesus, my little pearl,
Hush my favourite little delight.
Hush little Jesus, hush, hush
But you lovely mother, solace him in tears

Close your little eyelids, tired of weeping,
Solace the little lips, fainted from sobbing.
(Refrain)

Hush, our beautiful Angel.
Hush, you graceful little flower of the world.
(Refrain)

Hush, you most decorative little rose,
Hush, you most comfortable little lily.
(Refrain)

I'll give Jesus sweet little berries
I'll go with him into his Mother's heart's orchard.
(Refrain)

I'll give Jesus a little butter with bread,
I'll put a doll into his crib.
(Refrain)

I'll give you, Jesus, a sweet goody
raisins, almonds from my little box.
(Refrain)

Hush! Hush! Hush! Let the sweet little child fall asleep
Here it has already fallen asleep like a little chicken.
(Refrain)

Hush! Hush! Hush! You all go to sleep now,
don't wake up my sweet little child.
(Refrain)


Chopin changed the tune rather a lot for the scherzo, but it's nice both ways.

Elene

Kathleen and Elene: I'm thrilled that you brought up that song and Chopin's Scherzo. It made me realize that I'd never heard the actual song and didn't even know how it goes! So I went and found some performances on YouTube (there are many). I always sort of assumed it's basically what's in the Chopin -- but, as Elene said, Chopin made changes, and I was very surprised to see how much. I would say that the Chopin and the song are more different than similar, although of course the derivation is very recognizable and the changes don't keep us from delighting in it.

What surprised me most was that the beautiful 2nd theme of the Chopin middle section isn't in the song at all! -- Chopin totally created it.

Here are a couple of the performances I found. The first one seems fairly typical. The second one is (I think) more unusual, with a slower tempo (it feels to me even 'more slower' than it actually is) and, I think, with a real Chopinesque feel, whether intended or not, including because of the greater prominence of rich harmonies and Chopin-like chords.

Thank you Elene and Mark. What a lovely and soulful melody. I remember when my daughter (now 41) was just a child and I would play and sing "Away in the Manager" for her near Christmas, she would always cry and say how sorry she was that the poor baby Jesus had no bed. This carol so reminds of me that sentiment although the actual words are quite different.

Fond wishes to everyone for a healthy and meaningful new year.

Kathleen

The Mazowsze version was the first one I heard last night, and it seemed unbelievably slow, though some others were similar. My husband remembers singing it at a more lively tempo when he was a kid, more like Eleni's rendition.

It's no wonder that when my husband first heard that scherzo he didn't recognize the tune-- it really is not the same at all. I didn't realize till I made a serious effort to learn the original carol yesterday just how different they are.

While my husband and I were cruising YouTube we also found this, which contains a couple of other carols he remembers from childhood, played by a string band at a resort in the Tatra mountains. The band shows up a little ways into the video, which starts with shots of mountain vistas:



One of the comments was "a clear sign that alcohol and Christmas carols don't mix!" I'm not sure whether that explains the cello player's strange bowing. Note the vertical position of the fiddles, too. And cowrie shells on the hatbands? I thought that was more of a tropical thing?

Elene

Kathleen, I wasn't meaning to diss Rubinstein about the rubato in the mazurkas. I understand that mazurkas for dancing are a different matter. In fact, when I first encountered some last year, I was kind of freaked out by the absolutely straight 3/4 I heard. But I wanted to try dancing to a real Chopin mazurka, more as a ballet sort of thing than as an actual folk dance. The result was only partially successful, I'd say.

(You all may remember the letter from Ludwika to Fryderyk in which she said, apologetically, that their friends had asked her to play some of his mazurkas in a way they could dance to, and that she had gone ahead and done it.)

Another Polish player who does a nice job making the mazurkas flexible and sinuous, IMO, is Janina Fialkowska.

****

Kathleen's memory of her daughter reminded me of how my daughter went through a period of obsessively playing the Carol of the Bells when she was about 8, just before she gave up on the piano because of her tiny hands, which are still very small. We had "family band" time this evening, and it was SO much fun! (No Chopin, I'm afraid.) She's gotten quite interested in the piano again, and played both of our keyboards,* along with 5 other instruments (no, not at the same time-- but I do have to brag), and I told her, "I'm so glad I gave you piano lessons." She responded with an enthusiastic "Me too!" Did my heart good.

****

Dr. Jeff, how did you end up living in Warsaw in the '70s?

****

Mark, I see you've studied with Seymour Bernstein. That sounds fascinating. I have a copy of his With Your Own Two Hands, and though there's a lot in it that I've never assimilated, some parts have stuck with me, particularly the chapter on "why don't you practice?"

Elene

* We are now the proud owners of a Yamaha workstation; my husband is trying to use it to compose and record, and I am using it to get more practice time without bothering anyone-- and without worrying about what I sound like-- since I can play any time of day or night with headphones.

Elene, I received a fellowship to do research for my doctoral dissertation, and this enabled me to spend (more or less) the 1978-79 academic year in Warsaw. I was working on Chopin's compositional process, which meant I needed to study as many of Chopin's autograph musical manuscripts as possible. In Warsaw I worked primarily at the (then) Towarzystwo im. Fryderyka Chopina (now the Chopin Museum), and the Biblioteka Narodowa (at its old location). (I spent the next year in Paris, and the time in between visiting libraries in other European countries that held Chopin autographs, so it was quite the musicological Grand Tour.)

It was a fascinating time to be in Warsaw, to experience life under a different kind of government, and also at just the moment John Paul II was named Pope. The Poles themselves, then as now, were marvelous hosts.

Jeff Kallberg

The organization that does the great Chopin competitions! (Right?)


I guess it was on the cusp of great change. "Solidarnosc" and Lech Walesa were just about to come on.

I visited there for the first time in 1973, and, with the disclaimer that I can't be sure about the accuracy of what I thought I saw, it seemed to me that the atmosphere and mood were downcast and dull, maybe typical and inevitable for the behind-the-iron-curtain countries. By the time I came back ('98, and again in '09) it seemed entirely different -- energetic, enthusiastic, upbeat.

And always, as you said....

Dr. K and Mark: How I envy your experiences in Warsaw and Paris. I doubt I will ever get the chance to visit those cities, so I thank you for giving us a vicarious taste of life and times in those places.

Dr. K: Forgive me if this question has been asked before. I am almost certain it has, but I have forgotten your answer. Forgetting has become second nature to me. My question: What prompted you to choose Chopin (and his compositions) as your field of study?

Mark: As a shrink (I know you don't mind that word; it is so much easier to spell than psychiatrist.) have you ever given any thought (or perhaps studied) that complicated and mysterious mind of Chopin. You must have a few opinions on this matter. Would you care to share? I promise that you will get no argument from me whatever you believe. I hope others will follow my lead in this matter. We are all entitled to our opinions, and, therefore should not have to defend them.

Thank you both.
Kathleen

Mark: Yes, TiFC then had both a performance wing (the competitions and other activities) and a scholarly one.

Kathleen: My entry into the world of Chopin was a happenstance of place. When I entered graduate school at the Univ. of Chicago, I knew I wanted to study compositional process of a 19th-century composer, but there were many candidates who interested me (including Mahler). One night walking home from the library, I wondered what was going on in the study of Chopin's manuscripts. The next day I did a quick read-through of Maurice Brown's Index of Chopin sources (then the best source of information on the topic - but don't use it any more!), wherein I learned that the Newberry Library in Chicago owned a manuscript of the B major Nocturne, op. 62 no. 1. So I hied myself up there, and discovered a wonderfully rich manuscript, full of cross-outs, elaborate cancellations, and variants between it and the first editions that were available to me. (Another fortunate happenstance: the Regenstein Library at the U of C possessed/possesses one of the best collections of Chopin first editions outside Warsaw and Paris, thanks to the collecting initiative of a professor of geophysics, George Platzman.)

So that one thing led to a bunch of others, and here I am.

BTW, I just had the pleasure of writing the preface to a facsimile of the Newberry manuscript, now available as part of the NIFC series of Chopin facsimiles. It's still a fantastic manuscript, and it was fun to revisit my Chopinian "roots."

Jeff Kallberg

Actually I pretty much don't, except for the common things like that he must have known great suffering and struggle. I leave my shrink hat at the office -- without any particular effort. It just stays there. It's not much of a part of how I think about things in general, and for whatever reason I'm not at all inclined to think of Chopin that way.

The only thing I think about the mind of Chopin is marveling at how he came up with such a musical and pianistic language, including just how he knew that those notes would sound like that.
Not just the pedal effects and the harmonies, but the dissonances or seeming dissonances. The piece where this first struck me is a piece we just talked about -- the 1st Scherzo, not the middle section but the outer sections, from that very first jagged phrase after the intro chords. From the first time I looked at the score (after having heard the piece) and ever since, I cannot imagine how Chopin ever would have had any sense that you could play those notes and it would add up to what they do.

(Maybe a question for Dr. K or anyone else: Did Chopin originate figurations like that, where on the page it might look like cacophony but when played properly it's something else? Was the 1st Scherzo a groundbreaker?? I'm not aware of any earlier thing quite like it, including from Chopin.)

So, I don't really have opinions on Chopin's mind, just wonder and marvel.

One last thing for the Liszt Year, which is already gone for some of you– a wonderful Hungarian Christmas carol, sung by the women of Kitka, an ensemble which does music from all over Eastern Europe, although strangely, nothing Polish or Slovak.

(Those rough-hewn string players in Zakopane sounded like a Hungarian band for a while there, so Fryderyk might not find this so very foreign.)

I have tried for a number of Christmases to memorize the words to this song, but they haven't stuck. I think I've finally got it, though my Hungarian pronunciation is unimpressive at best. But then, Liszt didn't speak much Hungarian either.

Betlehem, Betlehem

Elene

This is really haunting Elene - thank you.

What a bunch of talented folk were born around the time of Chopin. Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and soon we are to have anniversary celebrations for Dickens (if you will excuse my jumping to another Art).

Hi Mary Rose,

No need to apologise for Charles Dickens ...

But in the fun of the Festive season ...
here is a quiz ... the starting lines to 8 Dickens novels.

1. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
2. “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life,
3. “Marley was dead to begin with.
4. “Now, what I want is, Facts.
5. “Although I am an old man, night is generally my time for walking.
6. “The first ray of light which illumines the gloom,
7. “There once lived , in the sequestered part of the county of Devonshire,
8. “As no lady or gentleman, with any claims of polite breeding,

Please chaps ... no googling ... the prize is a fictitious horde of Spanish Doubloons ... said to have been dumped off Gibraltar.

Nice quiz!

The only one I know is the first one, and I'd guess it's the only one that a lot of people will know!

And that's even though I actually took a course that was half Dickens (what does that mean? who cares).

I think I might know #5 but I wouldn't bet on it.
edit: I googled to check it. I was wrong.
The right answer isn't a book that I read but I'm familiar with it (or thought I was) from another medium.

Thanks Mark C for at least having a stab at the Dickens quiz.

For all you “igorant peasants”

1. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
(A Tale of Two Cities)

2. “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life,
(David Copperfield)

3. “Marley was dead to begin with.
(A Christmas Carol)

4. “Now, what I want is, Facts.
(Hard Times)

5. “Although I am an old man, night is generally my time for walking.
(The Old Curiosity Shop)

6. “The first ray of light which illumines the gloom,
(Pickwick Papers)

7. “There once lived , in the sequestered part of the county of Devonshire,
(Nicholas Nickleby)

8. “As no lady or gentleman, with any claims of polite breeding,
(Martin Chuzzlewit)